Willmar tribune. [volume] (Willmar, Minn.) 1895-1931, 1904-10-12
BY S. RHETT ROMAN.

MTHY was it abandoned? There is
Wy a story attached to the old pile,
built over the brawling waters of the
bayou, which has been silently crum-
bling to decay in the heart If the forest
for the past 80 years.
The water, tricliling through the
DAM above the wheel, over the rocks
on which MOSES and lichen now cling.
swirls away, singing and murmuring
over shadows and through deep gullies.
until the stream, broadening, empties
into the river, and, together, they wind
their placid way into the gulf.
And all along the curving banks
stretch great, silent woods, ancient and
unmolested, where only an occasional
charcoal burners smoldering earth
mound, from whose summit thin,
curling smoke floats increasingly up
ward, breaks the solitude of the scene.
Sometimes worn path struggles
down to the waters edge or runs back.
ward, to disappear among the sassafras
bushes and tall trees which hem it in.
A still quiet broods around, dis
turbed now and then by the creaking
VIII eels of an OK wagon, the crack of the
drivers whip and his droning "gee-
haw,' as his patient team plod their
way along the road to the nearest vii
lage.
Then everything settles back into
the palpitating stiffness of the woods,
and the chant of the wind is the only
sound perceptible.
1t was the wealth of century, Ct own
trees covering hundreds of square piles
which fascinated John Henderson, a
1umberman, and induced him to locate
his mill on the banks of the bayou, in
the very center of the forest.
His wife was young a mere child,
when they moved there.
Brown eyed, with a CLINT Of amber
sunshine glowing beneath her long,
curling lashes; having merry laugh
and the sweet trilling voice of a song
bird. Gretchen came from her distant
home to the cottage by the sawmill
joyous and handsome, lighthearted and
Indifferent to the isolation of her lot,
all unheeding of the day. to come.
Soon the ringing of John Hender-
sons ak resounded sharp through the
forest as he felled the timber for his
mill, and ere long tie workmen were
busy putting up the stout flooring now
decaying so slowly in it's abandonment
Gretchen planted rose vines in the
garden, and beautifed the interior of
her cottage home, making it bright and
restful with pretty feminine adorn-
ments.
It was early fall, one bright and
glorious October afternoon, when
Gretchen stood against the garden
gate. looking upward toward the mill
where Hende stood.
All summer long the great wheel
had revo] led, ceaselessly churning the
water of the bayou, while it poured
down from the weir and swirled off
in white foam and dark eddies, and
the whfr of the machinery as the great
saws worked to do John Henderson's
bidding, made a pleasing, monotonous
hum on the air.
Gretchen had grown so accustomed
to :'he sounds, which seemed to keep
her company, and filled the forest with
the restless activity of human toll,
that when the mill stopped its restless
labor on Sundays, she missed the rush.
ing, whirring sound, and laughtngly
complained of the stillness of the
WOO Is.
It was Saturday and the mill hands
had gone home.
John Henderson was leisurely ex-
amining the machinery of the mill,
having shut off the water and stopped
the wheels.
Gretchen, stood waiting for him to
come down the pathway, and as she
leaned, careless and graceful, against
the gate, the sun glinting on her nut
brown hair, and caressing the peach
bloom of her cheeks, her lips parted
in a smile and her round arms visible,
she presented a fair picture to a SOL
:tary pedestrian coming down the road.
Al @aeht of her the man st0DDed. and