The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-07-27
UNDER THE NAPLES.
BY oPIE READ.

A youth and a maiden stood under the naples. The youth was holding the maiden's hand, and his eyes and the moonlight were looking down into her upturned face. Her chip hat dan- gled from it's strings, ana her hair, yellow as the moonbeams. chung about her neck in riotous ringlets. Her eyes were blue and wistful. but her lips were as silent as the night.
 The youths voice was low and trembled, as though sob, which Ee had tried to swallow, was lodged in lis throat.
 In babyhood these two had played together; in childhood they had wan dered. hand in hand, across the violet dotted fields and along the clover-car- peted lanes. In each others hearts they had grown, and to each the future without the other, seemed uninvitinE.
 But the youth was about to depart for a far country, and they were stard- ing together under the naples for the last time, perhaps for years-perhaps for ever.
 Jason was a sojourner on the bor- der land between youth and manhood. He was ambitious visionary, perhaps and the quiet country town seemed to possess no encouraging possibilities.
 Stories of vast wealth wrested from the rocks of Alaska had proven fasci- hating to him and he had determined to seek for riches in the frozen kio l. dike.
 T will return to you some day, my Princess Mildred" he said, T will re- turn to you with love in my heart and gold in my hand and will build Tor a na1ann af Tn9rhIP in fha midst Of a thousand acres"
 At this Mildred smiled sadly and glanced up at a star in the heavens. That Is the North Star, Jason,' she said. Every night I shall look at it with fearful heart as 1t hangs sus- pended. like loves undying taper, over the ice-bound northland, whence my love has gone. All other stars change Jason, but the Polar Star is constant as constant as my heart"
 She pinned a violet on his coat and he kissed her wistful eyes. Then he said Good bye" and she | stood quite still and watched his re- | treating figure as it passed down the | road and out of her sight. Thus Jason started on his search for wealth; thus Mildred began her weary waiting. The brown cottage faced the coun- try IOdu III tlC CuSC ol IhC NAiheC. ~ stood in a little cluster of trees, and from the south only the gable and one chimney could be seen through the heavy foliage. On the north climb ing rose bush clung to the pillars of the | porch, and the blossoms peeked be- tween the leaves and through the open 1 door at their likenesses within. A pathway. wandering amid the shadows and the perfume from the porch to the board fence. which stood paintless and gloomy, in front, stopped at the gate where Mildred stood of evenings in the | dusk and the twilight.
 | Beyond the gate the road streached to the right. over the far fields into the wearisome distance: to the left. into the heart of the village. past the four stores, the postofi1ce, the tavern. the meeting house. and on to the fields again. and the hills. and the woods and l the sunset.
 As the darkness deepened. the field: grew more and more indistinct to the woman's vision. and the road seemed to end in a mist which grew ever near. CT to her.
 But through the mist star shont brightly-the Polar Star. And Mildred watched 1t with wistful eyes and smil- ed sadly. He will return" she sait to herself: "he will return to me witt love in his heart"
 But after two years in the Klondikt Jason found himself one morning ir 8 crowd of desperate. disappointed men, who cursed their way aboard shiI and returned to Seattle with tales O. hardship. Encouragement and failur+ In the search for the hidden wealtf that would not reveal itself to theil hungry eyes.
 Poisoned by contagion from tha baser element in whose company h. had been thrown during those two years on the ragged edge of civiliza ton, Jason drowned all recollections O. his Princess Mildred and spent the mex few months in idle dissipation in th' cities on the coast.
 Without ambition, hopeless and de spondent, he lay, one night. amid thu scar and yellow verdure on vacan lot, gazing upward at the sky. Amont the million glittering lights that dot ted the azure arch he saw but one the Polar Star.
 Suddenly. like a long dead memory there came to him the picture of glr