Mower County transcript., 1904-05-25

:; A single voice, clear and high, struck
into a quick measure:
/: II am q jolly shanty boy
AS you will soon discover;
To all the lodges am fly,
A hustling pine wood rover.
A peavey hook it is my pride;
An AK I well can handle;
TO fell tree. or punch a bull
Get rafting Danny Randall
And then, with a 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
defy all Michigan
To find such another.
Sne's tall and slim; her hair is red:
Her face is plump and pretty.
She's my daisy Sunday best-day girl,
And her front name stands for Kitty
And again, as before, the Fighting
Forty howied truculently:
"Bung yer eye! Bung yer eye"'
The words were vulgar, the air
mere minor chant. Yet Thorpes mind
was stilled. His aroused subconscious-
hess had been engaged in reconstruct
Ing these men entire as their songs
voiced rudeiy 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" q
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 a dance one night,
A 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 mossbacks 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 a little glade into
which streamed the radiance Of a full
moon.
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 a dream. The girl stood
listening.
Her small, fair head was inclined
ever so little sideways, and her finger
was OH her lips as though she wished
to still the very hush Of night, to which
impression the inclination of Her sup
pie body lent its 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 a 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 frostwork's evanescent sp,ir-
itual quality in the scene, as though at
any moment, with q bun OF the balmy
summer SUM wind, the radiant glade, the
hoVering figure, the filigreed silver Of
the entire setting would melt into the
accustomed stern and menacing forest
OF the northlands with its wolves and
1ts Wild deer and the voices Of its
sterner calling. ..a 5# zs
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.
Aght Ike q beautiful emblem of 81.