The courier. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1894-1903, 1900-07-14
UP sALT.REEK.
KATHARINE n. MELICK.

Did you ever follow q stream to its
couree, threading through willows and
rushes, purple spider.worts and tall
mesdow-rue, turning down through
the trough Of plowed field. and coming
1t last to side hill. deep in weeds and
shadow. where little trickling threads
come through the brown sod? May be
yours was Stonehenge Of sand, strewed
in crrmbling blocks about the bowl OF
the spring, with fiat iiverwort holding
I'D cups OF GOODNESS, and thick moses,
like Administer pile. 1t matters little
whether the side hill. or the spongy
marsh, or the shifting sand spring meet
you at last. 1t is DO longer undiscov-
cred country. You stand like Balboa
or Marquette, beholding a reelm that
10 yours by primal and everlasting right.
The cat-tails and alders nod to you as
you 20 back. carrying few bIue-bells
or Irvine Of wild creeper, just as Colum-
bus brought back some OF the things he
found on his island. You mark how
the little .'draw" widens, now, and the
clumps of Willows begin. How far will
it be to minnows, and dragon flies, and
lazy lily leaves? What kinship We
might have with our ancient Mother Of
the Hills, il only the summer days were
not ever hurrying rs to hotter moons.
Some people smile at the name Of our
grey river. Some more people shudder
at it's white slkali bottom lands, it's
weedy bayous. when the rain pours
down, and its salt-crusted basins when
the rain is blown away in tireless
three days wind. 1t is true that mills
and sewers, dumping grounds and fac
tory emoke, rag weed and tumble
weed, offer few attractions, even to the
discoverer, unless he be psychologist
looking for specimens" in the fats.
But follow Salt Creek away from the
sewers and smokestscks; the artificial
with which men have
tricked it, from the polar bears chained
under its stunted box eldars to the
beach where strange sails are manipu.
lated by stranger seamen, or a canal
drags the sullen salt waves through
Strengthened" courses. Follow the
stream before it hes been lariated and
thrown here among the civilized" who
treat it as they treat the sachem when
they put his tomahawk in glass case
md give him q paper collar and Trilby
lie to wear with his harmless feathers.
Only as far up the stream as the cool
II q morning will take you, past the
guard towers Of the penitentiary. and
he caves Of apocryphal horse thieves.
he river stretches it's shade of cotton.
woods and valnuts and oaks, through
and level pasture. Here it
,mbles at will. rough and ungxinly per-
aape, as il wrenches loose the fence
posts strung over it's banks, and heaps
together meadow lands ard plowed
fields at every black look Of the sky.
But il it keeps the lunRe OF the buffalo,
IN its course through eighty" and
quarter Section" let ne not be too
Town hearted, We who do not have 70
rebuild the fencee. For there is some
hing here Of primevsl prairie which
narrow and harvester. grinding over the
and, can never tame.
In great bend OF the stream, where
liant waInuts tower over tangles Of wild
rape and ivy. 10 gray stone house by {
he river.-the oldest stone house in the
county, it is said. Whether or no. it 10
ertain that the jewellers here have
,uilded their fences for the river to tear
lown thee mora than thirty yAara all I