The Neihart herald. [volume] (Neihart, Mont.) 1890-1901, 1898-09-24

Down n of these quiet country
lanes we rode over the grass and now
and then in the rut a score of wagons
had made that had passed that way
after a rain that had soaked the earth.
We were hungry and 1t was to this
Tyrolean home we sped for food and
drink-or, to be more explicit, "A
doughnut and a glass of milk" al
Phyllis said.
We leaned the wheels against a
great apple tree that grew beside the
house and went around to the front,
really the back, when one viewed the
little homestead from the road. We
were received very kindly, more kindly
indeed than our host was warranted IN
receiving us, for the dust and heat had
caked our faces until we looked like
Esquimaux-they wash their faces
once a year, l believe.
The glass Of milk and the doughnut,
brown and fat, were given for the ask
ing, and Phyllis, with the glass in n
hand and the rural cake in the other,
fell down under a tree in that Arcadian
retreat and gaZed at the flowers and
the lake and tall willows running away
back to the road and all along to form
a bower where might have lived the
Golden Girl the author sought.
Inside that little house we we're in
vited and went. Arranged with the
esthetic taste of a person of artistic
notions, indeed, it was. We saw old
andirons and a great mantel and big
chairs and all else old that smacked Of
days long gone.
ut Is truly like Arcade" said Phyl-
lis. How l should like to live in one
Of these houses forever and ever" and
then she sighed and at her suggestion
we went out in the yard and beside the
hedge beneath the branches of a great
apple tree turned idly the pages OF
"Ecca Puella!"
We read that little story wherein the
author tells of Cupid in Already and
his terrible time in awaking his sweet
heart by prodding at her ears and eyes
with a wisp of clover. A pretty tale
1t was, just the tale for the setting sun
of a summer day, and when it was In
ished, the milk and doughnut likewise.
we were off again.
Down past the great homes Of wealth
we sped as uncaring as the wind that
gently waved the branches overhead,
and then On beyond the little stone
church hung with ivy as thick as an
old English manor and to the very toy
of the land, "The Pointe."
The sun was dropping then, and
flooding the fields and lake with q
golden glory. From a piece Of timber
that extended out over the water we
watched the great orb of day as it fell
to the horizon line of the west and
then slowly, as though by some great
hand, was drawn beneath.
In the gathering twilight we wheeled
back to town. There was not much to
say. The world about us spoke in the
voices of the crickets m tree toads
and the other living, singing, things
of night. Back over the same road
that ran before us like a gray ribbon
we whirled On and on until the lights
of the city twinkled in the astern sky
and the moor poked his cold, white
face above the darkening trees. There
was a heart emotion in that ride back
to town over the country road-in the
quiet solemn beauty of it-and not I'M
til we reached the pavement thai
marked for us again the beginning OF
a life they call civilized, did WI re-
alize that we were anywhere but in
Already and alone, for there was no
one near us but the moon.
The day was done and the robes OF
night were drawn about the world and
us.
"But there will be another day, and
we shall ride again, and along another
road,' said Phyllis.
And SO we shall.
| KENNETH HEREFORD.