Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1900-07-21

The day that Harold Barnes said good
by to the Office force aud went into the
country for two weeks summer vacation
his numerous friends nodded to each 9th
er ana remarked that il was about time
that popular young man got away from
work and worry, for of late he had grown
thin and white ard was looking fairly
wretehed.
1t was a quiet, old fashioned little
farmhouse where the health seeking
young man finally decided to stop, with q
motherly little woman who had "seen bet.
ter days" in charge and with acres OF
sIopins lands and rich fields rolling away
from it in every direction, while mead
ows of waving grass wound through by
! gurgiing brooks and inhabited only by
birds and little animals of every descrip
ton stretched far away back of the low
never painted little home. An ideal spot
| the young man thought il the day he
drove up 50 the gate to ask for a drink OF
! buttermilk, and an ideal spot he found il
when, q few hours later, his telescope
! trunk and valises were put down in the
! clean, best room and he himself en-
sconced there for the holiday. Before
! Harold Barnes had become a mere slave
| ia the mercantile world he had achieved
some little reputation gmong those who
knew him as an Indifferent poet, and
though the last few years of his life had
been such as to drive all that sort Of thing
out of him, when he found himself settled
in this picturesque old spot there came a
sort of aftermath of his former harvests
in the fields of rhyme and he went to
work npaiu loZilv ccrayyIiua xarcoc v-hsp-
ever the fancy struck him. And scrawl-
ing verses being conducive to RETROSPECT
ton, the past began TO parade itself be-
fore his mind one day and bring back q.
great many things he might wish to for
get.
There are very few men of Harold's
age who have not either had or are at
present going Through with hove affair
of some sort or ether and he, being a
rather up to date young man, had left
his far behind him A long train of diff
ferences, MISUNDERSTANDING and hot
words caused by too little thought Cd
her part and too much on his had caused
the breach between him and Beatrice
Harland. He had gone his way i'll
sort of dazed but determined belief that
she was wrong and he right, and size
had done likewise. When he found that
she did not ask him to cone back, he
only plunged deeper into work and tried
to forget, and she plunged deeper into So
ciety and did forgotten the time being
A few months later her father went west
and soon after sent for his family, and
thus the two who might have been happy
lost sight of each other.
Young Barnes had dreamed of what
might have been for awhile after the es-
arrangement, but only for a little while,
and today as he wandered slowly down
the little crooked path leading out into
the cool meadow, with here and there a
sunny spot lighting up the long grass in
to more vivid hues, there was little
thought of regret for the past in his con-
tented mind. If he had not forgotten en-
tirely, as men are so often accused of do
ing he had put away that portion of his
life SO far it did not recur.t to him until
he reached the gnarled apple tree down
by the brool~ a quarter of mile from
the house. Then a sudden flood of mem
cries came over him, ard he stopped
still and gazed before him at the object
that had brought them back.
1t was little white parasol, so like the
one she had once carried, and under
which she had sat when the last quarrel
reached its height, that his heart beat
fast and his self possession fled like a
cloud before the sun. The duffy thing of
lace and silk, stuck so jauntily in the
ground near the old tree, drew him on as
a magnet the steel, and before he knew
it he was sitting with his back to the
tree, looking longinGly and with mixed
emotions at that emblem OF the long ago.
For half an hour he moved not, while
picture after picture of that past came
before his mind. Then she handsome
eyes closed, the pencil and pad of paper,
with a half finished poem on it, dropped
from his hand, and this romantic young
man, who would have scorued to de such
an unromantic thing had he known il,
fell quietly asleep as if his heart had
never been broken by any one.
Ten minutes later he woke to find the
sun beating down on him-but through
the white parasol. which had been care
fully raised and placed where it would in
tercept the hot rays. Red with anger at
himself. he started to his feet, when an
other bit Of white silk caught his eye, this
time Just on the other side of the tree
where he sat. For a moment he debated
what to do, and then there stole out fran
under that white bit of Emery stili whit
err hand-a hand which he could never
forget, asleep OF awake. It was the same
little fingers, the same little wrist and the
same little PINK palm.
Harold7s heart was in his throat, and
the love that had 50 long lain dormant
sprang 70 life again IN the moment that
followed. Slowly the hand crept toward
the white parasol and slowly his crept
toward the little oua. A moment it hesi-
I tated there and the next his strong
brown fingers had closed aboat hers, ana
a mufied little scream came 10 his eager
ears.
Beatrice" he cried springing to his
/ feet and striding around the tree, rs it
/ you indeedY
/ To which very foolish remark she made
/ no reply at all, though her eyes spoke vol
! umes. The next moment the little white
parasol had turned over and was sailing
4 cheerily down the meadow before tner-
ry breeze, while its owner was being
crushed to . certain young mans breast