The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.) 1890-current, 1897-11-26

/SdfE world and forgot
I HW that it is such is
- whatmakes most Of
the tragedies Of that world.
There were excuses for him, of
course. The first, that he was young;
the second, that he was care-free, and
the last-and as the nursery rhyme
has it, the belt-that he had come
from the early spring Of New York 10
that Of Southern California.
He had ridden through willow paths
along the gravel roads that a month
before had been the bed Of the San
Gabriel; be had crossed the shallow
cleaning branches of the stream time
and again; he had looked from the
green swell Of the divide over as green
A valley, where wild flowers were
thick on the ground and where peach
and almond trees made pink and white
patches. Just across the valley the
mountains were half covered with
snow, but the air was warm from the
sea and the sky was bright blue So
there was excuse for his forgetting the
bicycle and thinking the world a place
for romance.
A place for romance, but there can
be none without woman And there
was no woman
He coasted down the incline of the
divide and made for the Monte road,
by tros-bordered byways and paths.
There was not a flake of dust in the
splendid air. All kinds of picturesque,
Old World things ought to happen.
In a garden of this sort man ought
certainly not to be clone. Some nymph
should come dripping and glittering
out of the zanja; some slender figure
should push its way through the high,
green barley and the fluffy branches
of the peppers aud stand beside him.
He forgot the barbed wire fence be-
tween the barley field and the road.
The grasses and towering weeds and
the peppers hid it. But the zania
rippled and puzzled on, the barley
waved in the wind from the sea, and
the sun cleaned on an uninhabited
world.
Then bell rang out, just ahead, by
the road side, and the silence Of the
spring high noon was filed with the
voices Of children and young girls.
The woman entered the garden. She
was neither nymph Of zanja nor spritt
of the field, only -gowned schoo
girl, who stood on the school house
steps and waved a handkerchief at the
passing tourist. The tourist was mar
and young-which was all the schoo
girl cared about. The girl was pretty
and willowy-which was all the maj
cared about. He raised his cap anC
motioned to a clump of trees down tn,
highway. OF course she would under
stand
1t was all a part of the romance
and the country, and she understood
She left the calling, screaming chill
dren and her older companions ant
strolled toward where he sat, on tn
grass under the trees. TWAS out of sigh
of the school house He watched he
black, 1.-the figure moving through tn
fecked sunshine that camein through
the plumy branches of the peppers
They were all alone in the midst c
spring and the garden, birds we're sing
ing from the earth, the sun was shir
ing from the sky, and the soft win
blew from the sea beyond the valley
The snowy mountains were far away
and the world on the other side
them yet further
Her name, she said, was Alici
How sweet the double e's of the vowel
how different the stern Nelson to whiC
he had to confess. But even that WI
pretty when she said it. How old WI
she? She was fifteen. The heroine
of the poets were that age. Whered
she live? Some vague way over the
among the pink blossoms. He +
membered that when he was a chi
y those questions had always begun ,
: acquaintance: "What is your nam
How old are you? Where do you live
L All the wisdom he had accumulated
y the years between then and now h
j; vanished. He did not want it,
+. forgot that he had meant to reach
hotel of the valley by luncheon tin
He was not hungry; but Alicia WI
9 She put her plump brown hand in
d her pocket and brought out a new
paper roll. Inside Of the paper the