Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1903-04-24
A Wealth of
Golden Hair
BY MARY S. PADEN.

Copyright, 1903 by Daily Story Pub. Coz
TOW still the man sits! Will he ever
move again?
4 light wind stirs the moonlit leaves
outside the cabin window and they
rustic and whisper. The patter of the
mountain stream over the powders and
its swish over the sandbar are very
saudible in the midnight silence. FROM
the inner room come, soft and regular,
the deep breathings of the tired house
mother and the trundle bed contingent.
The lamp flame. flickers and moves
the mans shadow on the wall, but he
sits as still as if he were dead.
well, when hope is dead-hope and
energy and days and gold all poured
into an ever-gaping black mine mouth
shat is as hangry and empty and black
asSever when the last dollar, the last
hope are swallowed up in it-how much
better it. would be, would it not, if the
man, too, were dead?
Toll, privation, danger, they had been
nothing in themselve They would be
nothing now, if he had been able to
come home with the golden guerdon he
had striven for. But the homecoming
had been hardest of all.
.Cuddled on cot in the corner, a
girlish figure stirred restlessly. His
eyes sought the glow of the golden hair
flowing over the pillow.
Poor Golden Hair-the mine had been
named for her. Was this golden-haired
Miles life to be as black a failure as
the mine had proven? Was that name
of hope and pride to be Stunned now
as word that hurt, that was a mock
cry?
eHe turned again drearily to the pa
per before him-his life insurance; the
last plank between the beloved little
band and the hungry sea of absolute
poverty. Everything else. together
with the best years of his life, the
mine had swallowed. If he lived, this
0would probably have to go. If he died
just died, you know
Perhaps it was the tense. stiffness
that woke the sleeper; perhaps it was
the Pickering light. Perhaps it was
the mystic time for her to awake from
girlhood to womanhood. She had been
wandering in childish dreams. Sud-
denly she was broad awake and her
soul had seizedthe look on her fathers
face and she lay trembling with the
knowledge of mans despair. She
had heard, with the 1ight-hearted half
consciousness of youth, his few sad
words, as he had announced at home
coming that the mine had "played out. {"
She had known that mother "felt bad"
over it,
Now there was revelation in the face,
in the very figure of the man alone past
4 :~-1,4 i r..
back of him.
The girl watched him through the
meshes of her shining hair. What she
9 read she could not have voiced, but
the woman heart woke in her that
knows without knowledge. She could
see the top of the life insurance policy
as it turned backward; she knew what
it was. She felt his thought.
After little she stretched out her
slim. young arms, yawned, then tossed
back her hair and sat up, blinking at
the light.
why, dad, up yet? What time O.
night is it?"
Then, with her usual girlish bound,
she was out and at his side, with hex
arms around his neck, alternately
scolding and petting.
''If this is the way you have been
doing, no wonder you have been grow
ing thin and pale. The mine may play
, out, 20 mines may play out, your old
insurance company may play out -
tossing the paper aside playfully, but
we don't want you to play out. If you
sit up like this you will get sick and
die. and then yShat would we do with.
out your"
So she went on, talking against the
fear that had clutched her heart, YET
without betraying it, soothing and
staying the man with the sense of their
loving need of him and dim, forming
hope, till she had lifted his burden fol-
the night at least; and soon he, too
was snatching the blest respite OF
sleep.
But the girl lay awake, thinking
thinking. thfnk;ng-a girls thoughts
against a great, demanding, threaten
ing new world, a world that could crush
men. The stress of it was on her still
next morning, and after helping the
busy mother set the daye household
machinery in motion, and inducing the
beaten man to lie down and dream
again, she ran down to the stream and
o layed her head in its cooling waters.
Spread out in the SUN to dry, the
yellow tresses shone like the heart OF
mine. So thought a young mar
springing up the steep path and at hel
side before she could gather the golde
masses into neat restraint.
why didn't you whistle? I didn',
hear you coming" she said blnshing.
81 opened my mouth to, but kept il
open at sight of so much wealth." be
answered. What lot of hair yo,
have ana how long it is-and beauti
full" he added admiringly, as it es