News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1901-04-17

mines were shut down would be reck-
oned the same as if the men were be-
ing paid.
But all this was nothing to what he
longed to do. He went himself into the
miners cabins and acquainted himself
with all their rough and meager sur
roundings. Several times during these
visits he met Rhena, but she was al
ways busy with her duties and hardly
exchanged a word. Stuart fancied she
tried to avoid meeting him. Ter man
ner was different He wondered vague
ly if she knew, if she had been told.
that he had found her that night and
carried her down through the upper
trail
All this time he was also working at
the problem of the men in idlenCss. and
the more he thought it over the less
confident he grew of his ability to
solve the difficulty. Champion was a
mining town, with nothing else of an
industrial character to occupy labor of
any kind. There had once been an at
tempt to put in smelling furnaces, but
it had failed owing to the expense of
fuel. Stuart confronted a condition of
practical ignorance on the part of the
miners concerning any Kind of manual
toll except that to which they had been
horn. 1t is of course hardly necessary
to say that he daily used his influence
with the men to persuade them to
agree to his terms, and yet even while
talking and urging he could not avoid
a feeling of great unrest, and with it all
went certain admiration for the men
who gave as their reason for not COM
ing back to the Champion mines on
Stuart's terms, at don't belong to be
for us to take the dollars while all the
rest of De Mott men be shut out at the
old wages by other companies" The
whole situation was a deadlock so far
as the union was concerned, and the
whole problem was a complication of
events and conditions in the CONNER.
eial world which Stuart faced as a
new thing, especially when he found
himself attempting to apply the teach
tngs Of Jesus to his part of it. He was
willing TO act on those teachings as
fast as lie discovered them. but other
men connected with the strike on both
sides were not willing. And he was,
willingly or unwillingly, part Of the
commercial system, and as far as he
had gone yet he saw little relief for the
Champion men or little opportunity for
r no yHrnC rpoHU n
give or use except to- help lessen the
immediate sufferings regardless of
what other people might call its cause.
He had not been enough in the habit of
asing money for other people to know
how to do it either wisely or in q way
to- produce permanent results.
So the week went by, and it was the
night of Aunt Royals and Louise's
party. Stuart dreaded the occasion
because his heart was not in it at all.
1t seemed to him like a cruel thing
somehow to be having a gay, eXpen-
sive, dressy gathering, as he knew this
affair would be, at time when little
children were dying and rugged men
and women In those Wretched miners
cabins were tossing in the fever of
that scourge which laid its bony
knuckles of death against nearly ey-
cry door in CornishtoWn and grimly
called one by one out of the burning
heat within to the cold embrace of the
messenger outside. Stuart spent the
day in round of visits. At different
places he found Andrew and Rhena
and Eric. All of them were worn and
sad with the burdens of all they had
done and carried. Rhena especially
seemed to show the strain of her great
sacrifices. Stuart came very near
speaking to her once about her over
work. If he had. it is doubtful if he
could have kept from telling his love
in the same breath. Somehow he did
not say it. Aud late in the evening
he went home with feeling as near
the heartache as he ever knew. He
seemed to have thought he must spend
the day in as sacritical and helpful 4
manner as possible in atonement for
the evening he was to spend. But GER
tainly if ever man was in poor frame
of mind to enjoy festivity of the fash
ionable sort Stuart was that man. jim
Binney had died that afternoon, and
Stuart had been there Just in time to
see Rhena kneel by the bed and pray
as the spirit went back from the rough
tabernacle to God who gave it. The
words of the prayer and the great sohs
of the miserable wife and mother. the
cries of the children, the wretcAcI hut
with it's few broken pieces of fu"li-
ture, the snow patches on the f3or,
the dirty windows, the august d. M
of humanity in so commolp Hca &Gt
for granted a manner-ali us llliv-s
Stuart's heart as he came t re
the brilliant rooms, decorated Wit
their garlands and bouquets oe eZ.
pensive flowers and perfumcd with
that refinement which wealth can,
ningly spent knows so well how to pro.
duce.
[Continued next week
vsrs ,es -