The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1904-04-07

| Inlng ana studying in little all the
strange things which he saw; seeking
| to learn a. much as might be of the
| timorous savages, who in time began
to straggle back to their ruined viii
lagos; talking, as best he might,
through such interpreting as was pos
sible, with savages who came from
the west of the Messasebe, and from
the south and from the far southwest;
hearing, and learning and wondering
of a land which seemed as large as
all the earth, and various as all the
lands that hay beneath the sun-that
west, so glorious, so new, so bound
| less, which was yet to be the home of
countless hearth-fires and the sites of
myriad fields of corn. Let others hunt,
and fish, and rob the Indians of their
time; as for John Law, he must look
about him, and think, and watch this
growing of the corn.
He saw it fairly from its beginning,
this growth of the maize, this plant
which never yet had grown on Scotch
or English soil; this tall, beautiful,
broad-bladed, tender tree, the very en-
blem of all fruitfulness. He saw here
and there, dropped by the careless
hand Of some departed Indian woman,
the little terminating seeds, just
thrusting their Dale-green heads up
through the SOIL half broken by the
tomahawk. He saw the clustering
green shoOts-nuInerous, in the sign
of plenty-all crowding together and
clamorng for light, ald life, and air,
and room. He saw the prevailing of
| the tall and strong upthruSting stalks,
after the way of life; saw the others
dwarf and whiten, and yet cling on at
the base of the holder stem, parasites,
worthless, yet existing, after the way
of life.
He saw the great central stalks
spring boldly up, so swiftly that it al
most seemed possible to count the
successive leaps of progress. He saw
the strong-ribbed leaves thrown out,
waving a thousand hands of cheerful
welcome and assurance-these blades
of the corn, so much mightier than any
blades of steel. He saw the broad
reckoning banners of the pale tassels
bursting out atop of the stalk, token
of fecundity and of the future. He
caught the wide-driven pollen as it
whitened upon the earth, borne by the
parent west wind, mother of increase.
He saw the thickening of the green
leaf at the base, its swelling, its
growth and expansion, till the indef-
mite enlargement showed at length the
incipient ear.
He noted the faint brown of the ends
of the sweetly-enveloping silk of the
ear, pae-green and often underneath
the sheltering and protecting husk.
He found the sweet and milk white
tender kernels, row upon row. forming
rapidly beneath the husk, and saw at
length the hardening and darkening
of the husk at its free end, which told
that man might pluck and eat.
And then he saw the fading of the
tassels, the darkening of the silk and
the crinkling of the blades, and there,
borne on the strong parent stem, he
noted now the many full-rOwed ears,
protected by their husks and heralded
by the tass,ls and the blades. Come,
come We, all We people! Enter in, for
| will feed We ALL" This was the song
of the maize, its invitation, its coun-
sci, its promise.
Under the warped lodge frames
which the fires of the lroquois had
spared, there were yet visible clusters
of the ears Of last years corn. Here,
under his own eye, were growing yet
other ears, ripe for the harvesting and
ripe for the coming growth. A strange
spell fell upon the soul of Law
Visions crossed his mind, born in the
soft warm air of these formulating
scene.
At times he stood and looked out
! from the door of the palisade, when
! the prairie miSts were rising in the
morning at the mandate of the sun, and
/ to his eyes these waving seas of grasses
]
! These smokes, coming from the broken
| tepecs of the timid tribesmen, surely
they arose from the roofs of happy
and contented homes, These wreaths
and wraiths of the twisting and wide
stalking mists, surely these were the
captains of general husbandry. All,
John Law, John Law! Had God given
thee the right feeling and contented
heart, happy indeed had been these
DAYS in this new land of thine own,
4 far from ignoble strivings and from
fevered dreams, far from aimless Strug-
| giles and unregulated avarice, far from
oppression and from misery, far from
| chickering's, heart-burnings and envy
! ings! All, John LawI Had God but
given thee the pure and well-contented
! heart, Tor here in the MesSaSebe. that
! Mind which made the universe and set
man tr be one of its little inhabitants
surely that Mind had planned that
man should come and grow in this
place, tall and strong, and fruitful.
useful to all the world, even AZ this
swift, strong growing of the maize.
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE BRINK OF CHANGE.