The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1900-11-11
The First F rost


helplessly along The siiu 1ringes u ths
pools / understood b. taese Erst tiny
snoots that vine & minated Ike spr-ng,
having its tender peiliclss and frasil=
elades; the infancy, IN 14cl, OF It's bJw-
erlng life, afterwards 10 bloom ike q
great cameIia n snow-drif5s, and come
70 its autumn Of falling icicl5s and as II
matte guests. The first enlorescence OF
the bleak season was, therefore. curl
0usly infan lie. / had never had my at
tentlon called TO ii before, and now IT,
seemed as if [ had been in at the bir h.
1t WIS hike a new intimacy with the Old
sovereign system. Perhaps there was in
me some molecular response. as there
is in The capillary hearts of the oak and
the elm, where arcane saps rise and fau
III the great swing OF the universal tides.
The first fretwork of the winter seemed
rather winsome. 1t was like the goo goo
Of an Indian baby, as If Boreas were
not yet out OF his hyperoerean cradle,
but. done up in laces, allowed you to
take liberties with him before he was
able TO go upon the war-patl. To beg n
the better acquaintance with the ira
ditionaI rufian at this helpless stage,
and to see him grow and buster conf
dentially, is to rob him of his traditional
terror
In our conSquia peripatetiea- my Virgil,
the Doctor, threw a good deal Of his de-
lightful rhapsodicaI light upon the cola,
but it was less his plunging philosophy
than my new intimacy with TIE reputed
monster that stirred the vegetable sap OF
me, and sent it to the roots OF things
Cold, The Doctor said, Win a su-
perb air of finality. is mans ehior bug
aboo, created by his sensory nerves. He
has declared that heat s life and cold
is death-a preposterous couclHsion tka-
modern science IS doing its best to up
set"
He defed me to furnish one scrap Of
revelation or analogy to show that Eeav-
en- is heated, and all the traditions, h
said, plainly set forth that the ether
place is. What nonsense it was to say
that cold was death, when cold absolute
ly interfered with all the processes of
DEATH and a frozen man puts a stopper
on dissolution, while, on the other hand,
heat was a destroyer, consumer. It
was the cold-blooded animals that lived
the longest. Some Of the pythons.' he
declared. had lived thousand years.
He was glad to know that physical re-
search in our days was unlocking some
of the benign secrets Of the cold ana
putting ice on the hypotheses Of our
fathers. There was priceless knowledge
to be drawn from the zero Of the ether
when men got through digging for he
central fires,
Then the Doctor who, when he touch
ed upon the secrets of his own profess
sion always took on a little hush as II
there were some dire mysteries in it that
must not be betrayed to lay ears, bent
down and said softly, 'Tnvalids die Of
heat, not of cold. Life is never con-
gealed, it is burn out. and when at last
the fires are extinguished, all the com
bustible stuff has been purged away, and
if there is any ethereal life it begins in
the cold"
Nevertheless. Doctor" 7 said, 'T
should not like to be caught on a prairie
in a blizzard"
81 have been he replied. at Is one
Of the most beautiful lessons Of the au-
gust Mother"
ITO be caught on the plains in biz
gard if you have with you one or two
primitive heather who obey nature in
stead of defying her"
"Oh, Of course, II you have trained
guides to bring you out in spite of the
benign Mother"
That is just what the guide does not
do. The arrogant intelligence Of the
GOd-hke man would wrestle with it. and
get thrown. We Rugged it; Law down in
it like good children. and were covered
up with warm blankets and tucked IN,
and when morning broke we gave thanks
and pursued our journey on a crystal
highway"
There were always some frosty crys-
tails in the DoctfE's talk. He invariably
blew from the west.
In such purposeless wandering as ours
we were sure to stumble on hamlets w.
ing between the hills snuglv, with blue
ribbons of river winding through, as IL
the toy houses were strung upon them.
They were all alike. sending up spira's
of smoke in the mornings lazily, which
spread out in amber clouds above. that
gave a sort of auroral drench Of brown
sherry to the view. I suppose the con- /
tinent is dotted with them from the At
lantic to the Pacific, and looked at from
the 'vantage-ground Of the morning
through the veil Of the ascending IN
cense, these little towns suggest for civ
flization the same germinative process
that Nature employs. They cling along
the little rivers Ike the frostwCrk. but
they have in them the EMBODIED fbres Of
cities To a man somewhat bruised by
too much life. the complacency of these
villages was interesting. They lacked
corporate self-consciousness. A delight
full air of improvisation hung over them
as II the people had accidentally met
there, and. finding it pleasant had con-
cluded TO stop. a natural aCcretfon and
soldifcation Of dispersed agricultural ell
ements taking on the first form OF social
life. When we penetrated into one Of
these hamlets in search OF its tavern.
these characteristics became more pro-
The town held easily and loose
~ together. linked by the wheelwright
the Blacksmith, the storekeeper and the [
into q stout associate chain
and II had somewhere no doubt the I
schoolmaster and the dominic who. were {
the dry batteries at each end Of IT,
Tt was interesting 10 note how large |
q place the first frost occupied IN the /
minds Of this community. Thirtv-two /
degrees Fahrenheit was IN some way /
an event that mingled in the norni7g (
salutatOns Tt was the first thing the I
landlord Of the tavern smoke Of well" 4
he remarked. with beaming satisfaction (
we had a frGst last night The wheel /
wright reminded the shoemaker OF H. /
and the shoemaker smiled and reminded +
the st0rekeeper
had just learned that sunrise. 20 .
my ast9nishment. may be an epoca. T (
had seen that comm 9uplace event turned +
into q pageant. covering the prosafc CT f
earth wick halos So thai the duIlard /
was IKE 2 romance ~ Victor HuEos n
which Ill The solutions talk riots. anf +
Che caratUe act epgrams but hal
hardly expected 70 see the frost pose /
rs Offering needles f0to the 5sp o1 .
~ men snd Iace their Httla outI9ol1s .
vi p airv fugrse tried 70 think IF
myself going ao7nt IN WsN street IN
TIE morning. Frasping stock-5rr1ers hr
ire hsud and saving with ioV and glad
ness Lift I'D yoGr eyes. brother. = has
arrived
.tNhat has arrived. Coionai2'
'Tha frost size wsnt Down ~ thi-tr
degrees last ufcht Eurrahf' ? sf
.n New York Evening Post
40 weed 81 hes us
Cr~ou- che Chicago Nevef