Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1902-11-07
SHas Norris
Brave Start.


with fifty acres. Mrs. Norris knew it,
because she had tried. Her husband
had left her the farm, 120 acres, and
she had done her best with it. She
had kept her boy Silas at school, she
had planted berries, trimmed vines,
cared for the orchard milked her own
COW and tended the chickens, but
somehow she didn't get ahead much.
She had watched her boy grow from
a weazen, freckle-faced child into
great, hulking, stoop-shouldered man"
of 20. Year after year she had seen
his patrimony diminished till the 120-
acres were reduced to fifty. He could
read write and figure and he was
"handy" with machinery. Sometimes
she believed that the farm was hold
ing him back" and that she should
send him to the city to make his
way"
But she loved him now even as she
had loved him when he was all that
was left to her of company, of affec-
tion, of hope. He looked as his father
loked when they were married. He
had been born in the cottage in which
his father had been born. The berry
patches, the orchard, the five-acre
meadow, the rickety henhouse, the
river which ran past the pasture lot,
were in her eyes transflgured by the
knowledge that they were his, that
some day her boy would own them in
his own right and make his home there
for all his days. And SO she strug-
gled along, doing her own work, max
ing, mending, planting, herself the
foremost and the swiftest of the berry
pickers, the first in the field in the
morning, the last to bed at night.
She was thin now, with whitening
hair and sallow cheeks, hands Drowned
and hardened with the work, shoul-
ders stopped with bending over the
earth and the wash-tub. Silas, the
boy, was big and red. There were
freckles and pimples on his wide, ex-
pectant face and he had been shaved
a dozen times. He was commencing
to take on the ways of man, for he
went to the Saturday night dances at
Kings Landing, bought an occasional
pint of beer from the steward of the
steamboat May Graham, and smoked
his cigar with the confident assurance
of person of affairs. When he went
down to the landing with his load of
berries he hailed Captain Fykes as
Gap" and called the amiable clerk
Charlie" He had a personal ac-
quaintance with John Egan, the first
mate, and had no hesitation in slap
ping him on the back and asking,
"Hows traffic, John?" The widow had
seen and admired these evidences
of broadening character, and deep in
the fond recesses of her heart she
knew that her boy Silas was "cut out"
for a man of business, that he had a
future before him and that the narrow
environments of a small fruit farm
were holding him back"
Silas had been to St. Joe and Ben
ton Harbor more than 20 times. He
had done heap of trading" and the
town atmosphere was the breath of in
spiration to his nostrils. He had
seen each year the incursion of smart
ltSOI ltIb HUN Sllltd5C, tiii GtClu5,
yearned to look, to feel, to act as they
did. Full OF this ambition he talked
to his mother about taking boarders."
1t was easier than farming, he said,
and more profitable. The Joneses had
done it and made money enough to
buy twenty acres Of the Norris farm.
1t would give him chance to get ac-
quainted, who knows but it might give
him IAN opening" an opportunity to
settle in Chicago? The boys eyes
widened at the very thought, and Mrs.
Norris, eager to help her boy along,
yet dreading the prospect of losing
him, stifed her selfish hopes of having
him "all to herself" and advertised
for summer boarders.
The widening hopes of the possibili-
ties of converting the little farm into
a popular resort" they planted only
enough for the maintenance of few
boarders. They figured on cutting
the empty barn into halves and MAX
ing cottages Of it. June July and half
of August came and went, and they
had many letters of inquiry about the
place, the water, the mosquitoes, the
bathing, the terms, the roads, the
fruit, the beds, and the general ac-
commodations," but only one boarder
disembarked from the wheeling steam
er, and the widows heart was down
cast in spite of the happy smile she
gave him, and the thrill of pride she
felt when she heard him call Silas, her
ST Mister Norris"
He was a bookkeeper for the COM
mission firm which had handled their
berries, and showed all the hall marks
of the strenuous ana cultivated life
oP n oreat ritv He had drOn-Stitclpd