Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1896-09-10

wise 1. j might
as well lsoned in the
shell of -sg-only it would
have to be -gest egg and biggest
shell ever CT aLed, and there would be
room for only one of such like in the
world. The sun was be- utiful i'll the
early morning, and there were roses in
the desert east just as there are roses in
the east of the orchard land. The sun
looked on them with a friendly ro-
tundity for an hour and then he
frowned, and the frown was of white
heat. And sleepily they plodded on
searching for a brush big enough to
cast two square feet of shade. They
had no means of telling time other than
by the sun, but the girl knew the Sc
crets of the sun, and knew it was ten
o'clock when the pale, calm face Of
Hong Foy looked into hers with a dumb
piteOusneSs and he sank in a swoon
Hurriedly the girl uncovered his head,
and saw for the first time the great,
jagged, ragged hole made by that bent
spike thrown by her father The iron
had dug deep, but the Chinaman had
plastered the wound with the clean
waste taken from the tool house, and
had wrapped his queue around it. Mag
gle regarded the hurt with a little bit
Of wOmanly horror, and then she
thought of how her lover had walked
all that night through the sands with
his head wrecked by her fathers effort
and had not intimated that he wAs in
jured at all.
''He is worth it," said Maggie, and
tenderly she dressed the wound, wash
ing it with the precious water Hong
Foy had carried IN the great bottle
HE is worth it,
If you would have to guess at the
smallest part of that awful journey go
out on the Southern Pacific to the
place where the temperature is nor
mally at 40 in June at II o'clock in
the daytime; where the air is so that it
curls itself up; where the a.kali is
baked into powder finer than the finest
powder known to medicine, and with
out the slightest breath of air to agitate
its Sits and scatters about over the
face of the earth, being drawn up by
the sun just as you have heard of water
being drawn up. 1t will be an I'M
pleasant ride to you, for you will leave
your coat at Ogden and your raiment
along the right of way with great per-
sistenCe, until in the middle Of the
desert you will be a disgrace and will
belong in the same epoch as Adam and
Eve, but you will not think of Adam
and Eve, for they lived where water
was and grass and trees and blossoms
and it would make you insane to think
of those as you looked out on the
writing blue lines of mountains mil
lions of miles away. Mountains which
you see here this moment and which
are gone when you look again. And
beating. beating, beating with a might
that makes your head thump is the
great, world-consuming sun. Yes, if
you would like to guess about Maggie
and Hong Foy-the crippled Hong Foy
and their twelve days parching. fam
ing, agonizing journey until they
walked out Of death and into a green
line of paradise which ran along a
clear river, you must go there and do
it for yourself. And at the end of the
journey, if you ever get to the end of
it, perhaps you will fall fainting and
deathlike at the margin of the stream
as Hong Foy did, or perhaps you will
drop on your knees ard pray as did
Maggie.