The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-05-15

Nothing can be more glorious than
the dewy dawn of a springtime morn
ing. Freda Johnson was aboard when
il broke, and now stood under a cherry
tree watching the sun swing up out of
the east. An early robin futtering
above her shook a shower of cherry
| blossoms down over her head. Some of
them lodged and lay like snowflakes
upon her golden hair OF all the fair
flowers in natures spring apparel there
was not one fairer than Freda. She
seemed to harmonic with everything.
The pink ribbon at her throat, the pink
in her cheeks and the pink in the petals
of the cherry blossoms, the golden sun
light on her golden hair-the blue of
her eyes was the hue of the skies. She
was as fresh, as fair and rosy as the
rosy morn High over her head a lark
sang, circling, soaring. mounting to
meet the rising sun, and ever callin,
back to the low-born birds still hiding
in the hedges to rise and wing to the
ethereal fields and view the wonders of
the waking world.
Across the lane now came the tree
toad trill with which girls call each
other. Freda, smiling, put up her pref
~ head, and from her pink throat there
rippled an answering call, as clear and
musical as the larks song. The hedge
grew high between them, but these
wingless birds heard and answered each
other, and then romped back to their
respective homes.
At o'clock, in that quiet hour that
irtervenTf between breakfast and din
ner on a well-regulated farm, they al
ways went to the postoffice. This had
been their habit for some time Now it
became necessity. Every morning
they stood at the little window, and
every morning the new man, who had
already learned to look for them going
and coming, saw them creeping up the
platform, the dark one reading. the
fair one listening to whatever the read
er cared to read aloud. He had seen
her shamelessly kiss the agent coed
by when the agent went away, and Eow
he knew that these daily letters came
from the happy lover whose place he
had taken at the station. He could not,
If he would, take the old agents place
in the heart of the vivaciouS brunette,
who invariably lifted her dark eyes
from the letter 10 shoot a passing
glance at the new man, but he felt that
with the love of the fair one, this dusty.
desolate country village. with its ia
tiguing monotony, would become an
Eden But that he could scarcely hone
for. He had not even a nodding ac-
quaintance with her. He had been in
troduced to her brother. and had almost
laughed in his face But how was he
to know that the gaunt individual With
a busted" under lip and milk on his
boot was a brother to an angel,
The farmer and the new man had met
once since-only once. The agent had
smiled and said good morning" The
farmer wearing natty spring suit,
had given him cold-storage stare and
asked for round-trip to Chicago. The
fair one had looked at the new man on
the morning of his arrival, not once.
but twice or thrice-he had caught her
at it, and it pleased his vanity. but now
she never lifted her big blue eyes from
the hot pine boards of the depot plat
form as she strolled past. Moreover,
she had seen her brother
And so the days went by. Today. pre-
cisely like yesterday, and tomorrow the
same as today. OF a morning he had
ham and eggs. at noon. in the one-chair
barber shop, he read the pictures in the
Police Gazette. and at evening heard
The village band -'practicing' in the
l-ilIa