The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1900-01-27
THE WEDDING AT MILES FLAT.

fine June morning.
Every man had on his best suit.
Some attempt at style had been made
by few, who had bouquets of wild
flowers stuck in their frayed button
holes. One ambitious miner sported
a white tie. Dan Symmes, better
known as "the Weasel" wore white
gloves.
A group Of horses, bronchos and
mules. made background of tossing
heads and ragged names and tails.
In the farther distance the rugged
foothills, scanned by panned out
"lead, and yellow with heaps of clay
and gravel thrown out by those who,
in some remote age Of the history of
Miles Flat had hoped to make their
fortunes from the washings. At the
right, the turgid, sodden waters of
the San Estello river cutting their ag-
gressive way down through the gold
bearing sand of the valley-at the left
the opening which led out to the
coast, through which the soft wind of
the Pacific blew up in the faces of the
men.
The conversation was naturally of
the expected wedding, for a wedding
was not and ordinary occurrence at
Miles Fiat.
Grant Wardwell, the prospective
bridegroom, was general favorite.
Everybody wished him we'll. He
was honest, square and brave. He
had been one of the first men who
had invaded the silences of the noun
tains in search of the precious metal,
which cropped out of almost every
rock and rivulet in the valley.
He was thirty-fve now, tall and
stalwart, as a miner should be to
withstand the hardship of his life.
He was well-bred and fairly we'll ed
ucated. For six years he had been
toiliug to make home for the Wo-
trothed when he left civilization be-
hind him and turned his face to the
setting sun.
When Wardwell was twenty-five
there had been a brief, sweet romance
in his life. He had loved, with all
the rugged strength of his nature,
Adelaide Ralston, a girl far above
him in station. For the space of
three months he had known all the
delights of heaven, and suffered all
the pains of hell-the first, when he
thought Adelaide loved him ; the sec
ond, when she told him gently that
she could be nothing to him. For
awhile he thought himself wounded
unto death, then his manhood assert
ed itself, and he acknowledged her
right to go her ways, if she chose.
1t was little after that, and while
he was still smarting from the pangs
of his first disappointment, that Caro-
line Conway came into his life. The
hurt he had received healed under the
ministrations of the blue-eyed golden
haired girl who smiled on him, and
when he left the east she was his
promised wife-to come to him as
soon as he had made a comfortable
home for her.
And all through those six years,
when his days toll was over, Grant
worked on his cabin. He fashioned
it with all the skill and cunning at
his command, making the little kitch-
en- handy for Caroline-bringing the
water from the hills in a pipe, SO that
she would not have to go outside in
rainy weather; contriving cupboards
and closets for her dishes, and cosy
hooks for her sewing machine and
rocking chair, which he had already
brought down from San Francisco.
The miners laughed when he sub
scribed for Ladies Home Magazine,
and spent the evening, while the rest
of the settlement devoted to poker
playing, in studying its pages, which
told how to construct chairs out of
barrels and dressing-tables out of dry
goods boxes. But when his ideas
had taken shape, and the pretty little
cabin showed its whitewashed walls
against the dull yellow background of
the hills, they admired it duly, and
declared, with many we'll meant oaths,
'that Wardwel's shebang beat the
band"
The cabin had a wide veranda in
front, and Grant had planted wild Gu
cumber vines, and the yellow and
crimson climbing roses he had bought
in Los Angeles, and already the
rough redwood pillars were glorious
with color and fragrance. Caroline
would like to sit here, the foolish fell
low told himself, because she could
see the mines so we'll, and perhaps she
could sometimes distinguish him from
the other men.
To-day, the elimination of all his
six years of patient toll was at hand.
Caroline was expected on the noon
train from the east. She wanted to
be married as soon as she arrived-it
would be the proper thing, her folks
said, seeing as there was no woman
friend to play propriety over her.
Wardwell had not seen her for six
years, and in that time his hair had
turned gray on his temples, and there
were lines on his forehead that had
not been there when she had kissed
him goodbye. He wondered, as he
inspected himself in the glass, if she
would think him much changed, and
if she would love him as well as she
did when all his locks were brown.
Caroline-the sweet, dainty crea-
ture, with her sea-blue eyes, and her
hair yellow as the gold he had come