Waterbury evening Democrat., 1904-10-20
Mrs. Cottle' s
 Elope1rte erat $p
By JOHN ALEXANDER BOYLE
1so4, by Daily Story Pub. Co.,,

any remarkable degree of festivity, but Mrs. Cottle, standing in the cabin door way and gazing out disconsolaIely ove, the hills of redwood that rolled away to the sea, reluctantly concluded that the morrow would be the most dismal of any Christmas she had known. The thought brought film of tears to her eyes She brushed them across her cheek hurriedly with the hem of q cal ico apron and turned back into the kitchen, whose rough board walls lad become the boundaries of her world.
 Christmas was the one holiday in the year to which she looked forward. Bald mountain is probably the most beautiful and the loneliest spot in Gal ifornia. For three years Mrs. Cottls had risen daily to take up her endless round of household tasks and looked across the virgin redwood forests that stretched away for 20 miles to the ocean, that lay white and shining on the horizen. Three years before on the day that the last turn in the road at the summit of the peak revealed the beauties of the landscape to her for the first time, Mrs. Cottle cried out in de- light as the man beside her pointed out a tiny cabin nestling half afraid on the edge of clearing beneath them. That's our home. Anna. my dear" he had said. How we'll she remembered the tones of his voice and the firm, tender pressure of his hand when she. laid hers in it. How different now.
 George Cottle was poor man mak- ing an ambitious struggle to rise above the hand-to-mouth existence most of into his work and was out on his homestead claim from dawn until dark, while the little bride in the cabin tried bravely to hide her loneliness and dis appointment even from herself When her husband returned at night he was tired and often worried Bit by bit he neglected the tender little attentions that meant so much to the wife who waited anxiously through the long days, only to find another disappoint- ment when the man she loved returned at night.
 He did not understand her unhappi- ness or even know that she was un- happy, and thought she realized that the arduous tasks he set himself on the homestead were daily tests of his affection.
 Then came the unprecedented winter that almost beggared the ranchers and stockmen of Mendocino county. Snow fell early in December. More fell on the 10th and by the 18th George Cot ties land lay hidden two feet beneath the hard snow crust. The stock trapsed in from the hills gaunt and hungry, and hogs with hollow sides and razor backs began to gather near the cabin Cottle parceled out his scanty supply of grain to the stock charily. For the hogs he could do lit tie. Their food was the acorns and wild potatoes that lay far out of reach beneath the snow. Forty miles of i'm passable roads lay between Bald mountain and Willits, the nearest town The hogs began to die; then the cattle, and still there was no sign of a thaw George Cottle depended on his herds for his income. and in the bitterness of his blasted hopes he be- came harder, sterner. more taciturn.
 Two days before Christmas Mrs. Cot tie laid her hand on her husbands shoulder as he gulped his breakfast
 George. dear, she said, MT. Smith all writes that there is to be dance at their place on Christmas Eve Let's go and forget our troubles in real jolly Christmas"
 .Dance! Christmas! There'T be no dancing or Christmasing for us this year. We have our work here, with the hogs dying a dozen a day. he an laugh.
 Her lip quivered as she turned to- ward him. but his downcast eyes saw nothing.
 "Oh, George, think, ]" she protested, trembIingly, T, haven't seen soul but you and MT. Osborn since the Shells were here eight months ago. I haven't been away from the peak for over 15 months. You can't help the hogs and cattle by being here. Please let's go, just for that one night Christmas Eve"
 Are you so tired of me and your home?" he asked, irritably. Home is the place for us, and that's where we'll stay. Do you think I want to dance while the bones of half my herd are lying out there on the lower clearing?" He pushed back his chair and went out.
 Mrs. Cottle didn't cry. The hurt was too deep and her disappointment too bitter to be relieved by tears. Tn life composed so entirely of commonplaces as was hers, small things assume terribly exaggerated importance, and the loss of the hope upon which she had buoyed herself for months was too great a blow. She was only child, notwithstanding her 20 years.
 On the afternoon before Christmas George Cottle. far down in the forest, met Chris Nelson, his nearest neighbor, whose cabin was eight miles away. Both men were rounding up starving hogs. There was the usual exchange of civilities, the possibility of a thaw and recounting of the losses each had suffered.
 Bad winter all round, George" said Nelson. "I never see a wus un'