Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1903-03-10
LITERARY.
At the Gates OF
= AlkOren111i.
BY Kate Woodbridge Michaelis.

she was so sui lIldt Tie HttiS oho
On branch above her. after several in
quisitive glances, hoped down and
began to investigate her hat, lying on
the ground at her side; so ABSORBED
that she was unconscious OF MS I'M
pertinence. The breeze stirred her
gown, the small visitor tiuttered Off.
and still she sat motionless, the joints
of her slender fingers white with the
pressure of her hands together. In her
eyes was a look of dread, as If she
questioned an unknown future, but her
thoughts were in the past.
Again she lived in long-gone years.
She saw herself a child, the darling OF
her parents. whom she bound together
more closely than did their marriage
vow. She saw her father, to this day
rAyered for his wonderful intellect,
making of her a friend and COM
panion when she was but tall enough to
rest tiny fingers on his strong arm;
her mother. beautiful, ardent, en-
| thusiastic. worshipping her husband
and her child. because it was his also.
| She recalled her happy childhood, her
| desultory, but most successful educa-
ton, which, conducted on no known
principle, had made her at 10 the con-
genial companion of men of brain and
culture. whom her father had seemed
to draw to him as with magnet.
| The lines on her forehead deepened
as with sudden physical pain at the
| thought of his death, in the midst of q
brilliant. vigorous work, the pen liter
| ally dropping from his hand when he
| received his summons into an unknown
world.
Then the days that followed-the
crushed and broken widow, pining for
her lover-husband; the daily anxiety;
the struggle with poverty; the meeting
witlr>Dick; their marriage.
Was it we'll for any girl to have
grown up to look upon marriage as a
| state of happiness, unbroken and un-
alleged? To have seen her father and
mother devoted lovers to the last days
! of their life together? What had been
her own marriage?
A quick waning of the moon of
honey; the care and humoring Of a
selfish. spoilt boy; helplessly watching
while he risked, imperiled, finally
destroyed his health; she being left at
20 a penniless window with tiny,
blue-eyed daughter clinging about her
neck; after that three years of CALLING
dependence upon her husbands rich
relatives. who tossed their bounty in
differently to her, making no pretense
of affection who spoke with ever-in-
creasing sympathy of poor Dick"
> Then a sudden break for freedom, a
7 stretching of her cramped wings-the
beginning OF new life.
|, She had justified her revolt: she ha6
earned bread for herself, for her little
child. for her broken-hearted, listless
mother-but at what cost!
Her teeth shut slightly as she re-
called the sights, the humiliations, the
| aftronts and insults to which she hat
been subjected. How had she felt the
bloom brushed off her womanhood how
had she crushed out romance, senti
ment sweetness, written down to the
required level, become a mere literary
l hack!
She had seen her mother die, she ha(
given her little girl into the hands o.
strangers at the very time when the
two needed each other most. rather
than leave her at the daily mercy d
servants. She had been silent white
the chld's relatives had condemned
her for lack of womanly tenderness anC
boarding school; she had refused theil
offer OF a home with them for the LITTLE
one saying in her heart, They brough
up Dick" but never one word aloud
for to her dead, even though unworthy
she was loyal
Did a warm cloud passing across the
sky bring to her face that sudden soft
ening? No; in her retrospect she hat
II RI h1 tf
her. the devotion of that charming boy
the pure, sweet homage he had pait
I.her-salve to wounded heart!
III She had keenly enjoyed making anG
molding that splendid young life. She
had been sharp with him, critical, crue
even. at times, snubbing him wher
drastic treatment seemed to be re-
quirod, doing out faint and grudging
praise at the moment when her heart
: was throbbing with pride in his gal
liant devotion to duty, in his uncom-
planning self-sacrifice. And through
everything he had been so faithful,
so responsive to her least hint, so SUBJ
missive to her slightest suggestion!
She had always emphasized the diff
ference in their ages, by word and in
her bracing letters-"a boy like YOU
ana "a woman OIL my years, out WIN
him there had never seemed to be a
thought of young or old" only ever
present knightly devotion to his lady.
And how sweet and tender he had
been to her little girl-once, in rarely
expansive mood. she had said, Il can't
break down and die, for if 1 did they
would take Eva" and he had answered
simply, IF you die 1 will take Eva"
She had not spoken, she had only let
her guard fall and had given him a
smile, and then, when the light flashed
into his eyes, she could have beaten
herself!
That was the past-this is today.
Her hard times were at an end, there
/ was a check book on her desk, a good
~ balance in the bank to her account.
Her articles in papers and magazines
brought money, as much for their sig
nature. she sometimes contemptuously
| thought, as for their subject matter;
her books filled a shelf in the bookcase
and her publishers begged for more of
L ba oh sol