The Somerset reporter. [volume] (Skowhegan, Me.) 1868-1909, 1902-10-16
THE HOPE of
the HEART
BY WIN SEARS

MUSE Opeueu SLOWLY, ana Il girl neau
appeared AS she held up her face tc
the evening breeze, her fair skin, vel
low hair and delicate features made
her appear like some faint star just
glancing above the horizon.
A young man with scythe over his
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
from the garnet blowing in gusts past
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 We're 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
We're Swimming over the meadow and
the red of the sunset fingered.
Across the gate her married brother
and a neighbor had talked politics.
Mary had heard their nasal voices al
ternating like the wooden balls tossed
by a 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
against the awkward ones as they set.
tied themselves together.
In few moments 1t had grown
very still and dark.
The girl on the house top drew a
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
wind brought up the hot smell of
ripening cornfields. and bat darted
out of the orchard in swooping cir
cles against the clear night.
From her eyrie above the treetops
the farm buildings, the neighborlng
houses, the fields and lanes, even the
wide post road looked quite small and
cheap, like toy village The country
side in its irregular checkerboard of
pasture, corn and woodland, pale yell
low with the wheat stubble, somber
green where half ripened orchards
spread, marked here and there by a
cluster of roofs, a spre that told II
hamlet In the hills, became signif-
cant only in the mystery of distance
as it mounted toward the hills and
ended at last In one vast, gray, sealike
level against the trackless sky. Mary
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 coherent
scheme of life. From dawn till dark.
each day alike, cooking washing. pre-
serving, holding the babies-the bur
dens of each side were hers So far
she had carried them unthinkingly, un-
questionably. 1t was only the lot of
every farmers life.
Tonight she was unusually tired. To
escape a 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
cient leather trunks, of musty papers.
In the solemn dusk the candle lost Its
bold glare and dropped to, a wavering
spark, eyed by the glmmering 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 as 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
doated 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 1t her simple, sweet
existence lacked? Had she not every