Indian chieftain. [volume] (Vinita, Indian Territory [Okla.]) 1882-1902, 1898-07-07
A REAL ROMANCE,
The N-il who Remained, True 70 lie
- .-..--Dr

I
| Lost Lover.
I 'Truth Is stranger than fiction" Who
can dispute it, old as is the saying?
Fiction may clothe It's creations in all
the glamour of burning words, and
skillfully play upon the interest with
/ startling and dramatic situations and
climaxes, but the daily records of hu-
man events tell an simple language
stories as singular, strange and tender
as any ever told by the most vivid por
! trayers of romance.
Real life seems to most OF us hum
drum and commonplace. We turn from
ii TO seek in novels the spice of interest,
| unheedinE the fact that the newspapers
lying each morning on our breakfast
tables TEEN with all that is wonderful
and even weird. glad and sorrowful,
noble and igroble, in human history
Scarcely is there a column hat does not
tell tale of some one of life's varied
phases. exceeding in all that truth ex.
GELS fiction the interest that appeFtains
to tales evolved from mere Imagination
The other day the wires flashed from
a Massachusetts, town the news of the
death of 4 woman who had passed the
ninetieth milestone in the journey Of
life. She had lived unknown to the
great world around her. si.isSst un-
known TO the generations that -hld
come and gone beside her. She was
only a very old woman, and she died.
That was her history, and yet the chron-
ip1. of - al Ii
as sweet, as sad, as pure and as tender
as any that Balzac or Dickens ever told.
When her years were only 20, a time
so long ago that ii fills the Scriptural
span of life, love was hers. And she
loved sailor, one of those sturdy sons
of New England who in the earlier days
went down to the sea in ships and
made Salem, Gloucester, New Bedford
and Marblehead famous. The time Of
parting came, with tears on one side,
comfortings on the other, promises on
both. He would come back TO her, for
when did sailor ever tempt the oceans
rerils uncheered by the hope that its
treacherous waves would at least keep
faith with him? She would place in
her window. every evening until his
return, a lighted candle, to greet and
guide him should his homeward jour
ney end at night. They parted, and that
night the candle CLEANED as a beacon in
her window.
Days and months passed, how slowly,
how anXiously only those know who
have watched and waited for them they
love. Loneliness was comforted by
hope that frightened into joyous ex.
pectatiOn. only to be darkened into de- !
spair. For he never returned. From |
over the murmuring billows no word !
of him was waited. Ship and sailors |
vanished into that shoreless sea whence |
no echo ever comes. And his name was
inscribed at home on the records OF |
those dead and gone.
There was one who never gave him ND. !
That was the girl who had his love and /
promise. as he had hers. In all the
medicines Of mortal comfort there was
but one for her, and that was the hope
that defies knowledge. The candle in
the window, like that hope in her heart,
was never extinguished. Night after
night 1t was lighted, and burned as q
beacon until the light of her own life
fiickered and went out forever. What
pen, unless dipped in tear, can tell the
story of these 40 years ~ waiting?
Family and friends passed /. way. youth
and ccmeliness disappeared, chilling
age bowed her frame, but her heart was
as young rs when in life's morning
she had given it At loves prosnptlrgs.
Children were born, grew 10 manhood
and maidc;hood, were married anaFf
around this lonely watcher, al Size