The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1897-03-06
Original Story.
HARRIE'S FATHER.
IIHHE SNOW falls fast, children,
BY MRS. GEO. VAN zANDT.

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"HHE SNOW falls fast, children.
and | fear your father will
not get down from the mine this
night; still, we will set the anps up
close to the panes. He shall not
lose his way insight of home Tor
want of light to guide him, if he
is on the road"
The mother hustled about prepar-
ing the evening meal.
The girls, Kate and Harrie, lowered
near the lamps whose CHEEKY rays ex-
tended far up the mountain.
Mrs. Holloway must be expecting
her husband tonight" said one and
another of the villagers; and they
knocked at the door of the log house,
to give a word of encouragement to
the family within.
The Holloways had been in Colo
RADIO now for two years. They had
sroughed it" from the start, and
could no longer be called tender
feet"
When Mrs. Holloway and the girls
left their Chicago home to join Mr..
Holloway, therailroad was completed
only to Buena Vista, and three
days journey lay between this place
and Gunnison City, where Mr. Hollo-
way awaited them.
Kate and Harrie were delighted
with the strange life, in tents by
night, and in wagons or on foot by
day, along the edge of steep preci-
pices. amidst unfamiliar surround
ings. 1t was ike living in story
book; so unlike was it to the monot-
onous life they had spent in the fiat
Illinois country. especially since their
fathers departure.
To Harrie one charm of the life lay
in the thought that her father, to
whom she was passionately devoted,
was at the end of the journey. She
was his Little Sunshine" and she
had a belief in him and love for
him such as few little girls of ten
feel for any one. And this father de-
served all the devotion he received,
for he was one of natures noblemen;
and few men in the West were loved
and looked up to by all as was he.
At Gunnison City the family spent
their first winter, in frail little house
through whose cracks the wind blew,
and the snow drifted in, and the rev.
elry of drunken men was all too
plainly heard; and where their only
acquaintances were a poor illiterate
family from Missouri, who were very
kind to this delicate woman and her
children, but whose manners and
mode of life were most shocking to
them.
Mr.. Holloway was absent for a
couple of months, too, on business
trip back to Chicago, and very lone
some the time was without him; but
on his return, all unhappiness was
forgotten, for the household goods
were repacked, and the family went
for the summer right into the heart
of the mining country, to certain
beautiful spot called Elke, where
noisy little stream, Rock Creek, clear
as mountain water could be, flowed
near their foorless cabin; where papa
could come home every night; and
where life was as beautiful and free
as could be imagined.
Mrs. Holloway carpeted the ground
of her cabin home, hung pretty red
calico about the log walls, partitioned
off three rooms with the same bright
material, hung white curtains at the
windows, and made her home little
Paradise, out in this wild, almost I'M
inhabited region.
"a woman and young ones" were
almost unknown here, and Mrs. Hollo-
way became doctress and comforter to
"the boys" for miles around, and her
girls made many friends out of the
rough miners.
Poor boysl They were beset with
temptations, and the fresh, happy
children, who often reminded them
of home, may have called forth the
good which here only too often