The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1902-10-28
$500 sssSsssUsSsS 49,
THE HOPE of
the HEART
BY BALDWIN SEARS
Copyright, 1901, By Bdldloin Sears


shoulder crossing the lane below the
barn looked up toward the house. See
ing the girl. he stopped. Strengthened
his shoulders as though he half expect
! ed her to speak and to speak himself,
then walked on with tagging steps and
disappeared below the orchard where
the brook flows into the woods.
Mary leaned her arms ON the edge of
the scuttle and looked out. The hot air
her face was like twitch at her
sleeves reminding her of the household
she had left below
She was the only one who had not al
ready gone to bed 1t was harvest
time. They were cutting the wheat in
the meadows, and all day the hum of
the reaper had come up from the
broad, white fields where the men
were at work. Since dawn the house
had been buzzing with lively toll. but
now the days work was ended.
In the front room off the porch the
farmer and his wife were asleep. They
had gone to bed Immediately after sup
! per, and while Mary had sat in the
porch she heard their low voices talk
ing over the potato crop and the grain.
their drowsy words growing fewer
slower. until at length they sank away
and ceased, while yet the bobolinks
were Swimming over the meadow and
the red of the sunset fingered.
Across the gate her married brother
and neighbor had talked politics.
Mary had heard their nasal voices al
ternating like the wooden balls tossed
by juggler. In the south chamber
! just under the attic her sister-in-law
had been putting her children to bed
the creak, creak of the rocking chair
as it swayed over an uneven board
dimly audible through the silent house
In the attic under the roof slept her
little brother Bob. dreamless, tired and
contented at the end of his long sum
mer day
Down in the kitchen yard the turkeys
and chickens had gone to roost in the
apple trees and the grape arbor. cluck
ing and twittering in sleepy protest
I against the awkward ones as they set
tied themselves together.
In few moments it had grown
very still and dark.
The girl on the house top drew
long breath and leaned her head back
against the edge of the roof 1t was
! only s o'clock, and the faint yellow
/ twilight fingered on the border of the
summer night. A new moon hung low
over the crest of the woods The west
wind brought up the hot smell Of
ripening corntelds, and bat darted
out of the orchard in swooping cir
I cles against the clear night.
From her eyrie above the treetops
\ the farm buildings, the neighboring
houses, the fields and lanes. even the
! wide post road. looked quite small and
cheap. like toy village The country
I side In its irregular checkerboard of
pasture, corn and woodland, pale vel.
low with the wheat stubble. somber
green where half rlpened orchards
spread. marked here and there by a
! cluster of roofs, a spire that told a
hamlet In the hills. became signifi-
/ cant only in the mystery of distance
as 1t mounted toward the hills and
ended at last IN one vast, gray, sealike
level against the trackless sky. Mary
4 looked at it all as one upon whose
mind the meaning of these familiar
scenes had just begun to dawn-these
fields, the chickens she must pluck,
! the bread she must make, the rasp-
/ berries she must preserve, all grouped
| themselves before her in a coherent
scheme of life. From dawn till dark.
each day alike, cooking. washing, pre-
serving. holding the babies-the bur
dens of each side We're hers. SO far
she had carried them unthlnkingly. IN
QUESTIONABLE 1t was only the lot of
/ every farmers life.
! Tonight she was unusually tired. To
/ escape feeling of restlessness she had
determined to go to bed. 1t was re-
freshing to lie in the cool darkness. But
before she reached the top of the attic
stairs she felt the dry heat of the sun
/ baked roof. The great, timbered space,
! dark with its age blackened beams and
scantly Widowed twilight, held a
strange odor of cedar shingles, of an
Gent leather trunks. of musty papers.
In the solemn dusk the candle lost its
bold glare and dropped to a wavering
spark. eyed by the glimmering gray
panes of the gable windows high under
the ridge.
The two chimneys, like huge stone
giants whom she had been feeding all
day. stopped over her us they lowered
toward the roof, reminding her of to-
morrow's kitchen work.
AS Mary sat on the edge of her cot,
thinking of these things she looked up
vaguely. A star the first in the pale
night, shone through the window upon
her. clear. unwinking, pensive. holy.
A lock Of hair loosened by the wind
foated softly across her cheek like the
kiss of unseen lips. For the first time
in her life she felt the restless longing
for some good of which she was igno-
rant. What was it her simple, sweet
existence lacked? Had she not every
thing that a girl could ask-father,
mother, food and shelter. place in
the worldf What else had any one?
The aged farmer and his wife-those
two good people fast asleep without
thought in their nightcaps beyond the
potato crop; their daughterin-law. the
men at work in the fields. all those de-
pendent on the great harvests, on the
bountiful farm; were they not happy,
contented, unquestioning? Was she not
happy too? Had she anything to COM
plain Of. to regret, to wish for?
Suddenly out of the hush came the
cry of the whippoorwill, that piercing.
mOurnful voice of the vacant, wind
! blown fields. Of meadows Towering I'M
seen and far away. 1t thrilled her like
pain. 1t stabbed her through and
through and cut her to the heart with
its questioning, solitary call, hidden in
the twilight of the woods.
She had heard it so often, year after
year like the robin and the lark. New
or had it sounded so lonely. SO friend
less and apart. A strange longing
swelled up in her breast; tears filed
her eyes. The years of her life, with
their simple tasks. their ambitions,
hopes and dreams, came to her like
some vast tidal wave upon a sunny
shore, Withdrawing in long resound-
ing sigh at the absence of some I'M
known JOY. She stared through the
warm darkness toward the edge of the
woods outlined against the evening as
though one should try to read the soul
of a silhouette. Then she dropped her
face in her hands for single minute.
AT 6 o'clock In the morning Mary
was in the garden picking the yegeta-
bles for dinner The sunshiny, dew
fresh day, the beans and cabbages In
their prim symmetry the tall scarlet
hollyhocks nodding against the fence,
made the experience of the night be
fore very remote and visionary.