Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1904-04-12

WIN these Dig strong men!
a single voice, clear and high, struck
into quick measure:
am jolly shnnty boy,
AS you will soon discover;
TO all the lodges am fly,
hustling pine wood rover.
A peavey hook 1t is my pride;
An ak well can handle:
10 Tell tree or punch bull
Get rafting Danny Randall"
And then. with rattle and crash, the
whole Fighting Forty shrieked out the
chorus:
"Bung yer eye! Bung yer eye!"
Active. alert, prepared for any emer-
gency that might arise; hearty, ready
for everything. from punching bulls to
telling trees-that was something like!
Thorpe despised himself. The song
went on:
II love girl in Saginaw;
She lives with her mother.
I defy all Michigan
To find such another.
Shes tall and slim: her hair is red
Her face is plump and pretty.
shes my daisy Sunday best-day girl,
And her front name stands for Kitty"
And again, as before, the Fighting
Forty howled truculently:
"Bung yer eye! Bung yer eye!"
-.e words were vulgar, the air
mere minor chant. Yet Thorpe's mind
was stilled. His aroused subconscious-
ness had been engaged in reconstruct
Ing these men entire as their songs
voiced rudely the inner characteristics
of their beings. Now his spirit halted.
Their bravery, pride Of caste, resource.
bravado, boastfulness-all these he had
checked off approvingly. Here now
was the idea of the mate. Somewhere
for each Of them was a kitty" a
daisy Sunday best-day girl" At the
present or in the past these woods
roisterers, this Fighting Forty, had
known love. Thorpe rose abruptly and
turned at random into the forest. The
song pursued him as he went.
II took her to dance one night,
mossback gave the bidding;
Silver Jack bossed the shebang,
And Big Dan played the fiddle.
We danced and drank the livelong night,
With fights between the dancing,
Till Silver Jack cleaned out the ranch
And sent the niossbacks prancing."
And with the increasing war and
turmoil of the quick water the last
shout Of the Fighting Forty mingled
family and was lost
"Bung yer eye! Bung yer eye!''
Thorpe found himself at the edge of
the woods facing little glade into
which streamedithe radiance of full
moon. aiii
There he stood and looked silently,
not understanding, not caring to in
quire. Across the way a white-throat
was singing, clear, beautiful, like the
shadow Of dream. The girl stood
listening.
Her small, fair head was inclined
ever so little sideways, and her finger
was on her lips as though she wished
to still the very hush Of night, to which
impression the inclination of her sup
pie body lent it's grace. The moon
light shone full upon her countenance.
A little white face it was, with wide,
clear eyes and sensitive, proud mouth
that now half parted like a child's.
Her eyebrows arched from her straight
nose in the peculiarly graceful curve
that falls just short Of pride on the
one side and of power on the other
to fill the eyes with pathos Of trust
and innocence. The man watching
could catch the poise Of her long white
neck and the molten moon fire from
her tumbled hair-the color Of corn
silk, but finer.
Behind her lurked the low, even
shadow of the forest where the moon
was not, band of velvet against
which the girl and the light-touched
twigs and bushes and grass blades
were etched like frost against black
window pane. There was something,
too, Of the frostworl's evanescent spir-
itual quality in the scene, as though at
any moment, with q buff of the balmy
summer wind, the radiant glade, the
lowering figure, the filigreed silver of
the entire setting would melt into the
accustomed stern and menacing forest
of the northland, with its wolves and
its wild deer and the voices Of its
sterner calling
Thorpe held his breath and waited.
Again the white-throat lifted his clear,
spiritual note across the brightness.
slow, trembling with ecstasy. The girl
never moved. She stood in the moon
light like beautiful emblem of ST.
lence, half real, half fancy, part wo-
man, wholly divine, listening to the
little birds message.
For the third time the song shiyered
across the night; then Thorpe, with a
soft sob, dropped his face in his hands
and looked no more.
(To be Continued.)