The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1899-12-28
OLIVE scHREINER c.RALPH IRoN'').

OLiNE \ lhON j.
led up to the loft the moonlight cast a
kind of dreamy beauty and quite ethe-
realized the low brick wall that ran
before the house and which inclosed a
bare patch of sand and two struggling
suntiOwers. On the zinc roof Of the
great open wagon house, on the roofs
Of the outbuildings that jutted from
it's side, the moonlight glinted with a
quite peculiar brightness till it seemed
that every rib in the metal was Of
FURNISHED silver.
Sleep ruled everywhere, and the
homestead was not less quiet than the
solitary plain.
In the farmhouse, on her great wood
en- bedstead, Tant' Sannie, the Boer
woman, rolled heavily in her sleep.
She had gone to bed, as she always
did, in her clothes, and the night was
warm and the room close, and she
dreamed bad dreams-not Of the ghosts
and devils that so haunted her waking
thoughts, not Of her second husband.
the consumptive Englishman, whose
grave lay away beyond the ostrich
camps, nor Of her first, the young
Boer, but only Of the sleeps trotters
she had eaten for supper that night.
She dreamed that one stuck fast in her
throat, and she rolled her huge form
from side to side and snOrted horribly.
In the next room. where the maid
had forgotten to close the shutter, the
white moonlight fell in in a flood and
made it light as day. There were two
small beds against the wall. In one
lay a yellow haired child, with low
forehead and a face of freckles, but
the loving moonlight hid defects here.
as elsewhere, and showed only the in
nocent face Of child In its first sweet
sleep.
The figure in the companion bed be-
longed Of right to the moonlight, for
it was Of quite elfinlike beauty. The
child had dropped her cover on the
floor, and the moonlight looked In at
the naked little limbs. Presently she
opened her eyes and looked at the
moonlight that was bathing her.
"Emw she called to the sleeper in
the other bed, but received no answer.
Then she drew the cover from the
floor. turned her pillow and, pulling
the sheet over her head, went to sleep
again.
Only in one of the outbuildings that
jutted from the wagon house there was
some one who was not sleep. The room
was dark. Door and shutter were clos
I'd. Not ray Of light entered any
where. The German overseer to whom
the room belonged lay sleeping sound
ly on his bed in the corner, his great
arms folded and his bushy gray and
black beard rising and falling on his
breast. But one in the room was not
asleep. Two large eyes looked about
in the darkness. and two small hands
were smoothing the patchwork quilt
The boy. who slept on box under the
window, had just awakened from his
first sleep. He drew the quilt up to
his chin. so that little peered above II
but a great head of silky black curls
and the two black eyes. He stared
about In the darkness. Nothing was
visible, not even the outline Of one
worm eaten rafter, nor Of the deal ia
bile, on which lay the Bible from which
ibis father had read before they wen
Ito bed. No one could tell where thu
tool box was and where the fireplace
There was something very impressive
to the child in the complete darkness.
At the head Of his fathers bed hum