, 1905-11-15
Make or
Break
By Harriet Prescott Spofford
Copyright. 1905. by Harriet Prescott Spoford
Copyright. 1905. by Harriet Prescott Spoford

today has many of them concen-
4 trated in Il single aspect-the de
mon of unrest. 1t possessed Charlie
Harding in his shop in the village, the
mills, the depot. the meeting house. be-
ing hard by, and all the gossip OF the
burg about his counter. And the world
outside grew tempting.
But it was thought that a rich find of
silver had been made in the %neighbor-
hood, and at once the price of every
old pasture that even he sheep them
selves would have disdained to crop
had gone soaring out of sight, and the
staid old parish that had followed the
way of it's forbears for 200 years and
over had gone wild over it's potentiality
of riches.
OF course Captain Harding-a train
band captain of militia was he-had
not been in the center of all the talk
without finding opportunity for bond
ing and buying and selling land, and
he had, as he phrased 1t, melted down
a good pocket piece through the yari-
Gus transactions In the swinging of
fate's pendulum, however, 1t was pres
emily found that the silver was not of
a paying sort, and the boom in land ex-
ploded like a bubble. But 1t left Char
lie Harding full of eagerness and the
wild spirit of adventure in money max
ing.
"Why amt you contented where you
'be?" asked his wife's grandfather.
There's alters ben silver here n
afore you was born. Why should 1t
make sech a difference to ye all on a
sudden now? Trouble is ye have to
put it in to get it out. Costs more'n
it comes to. There's folks l know has
silver spoons made of 1t more'n 200
years ago. But, bless ye, them spoons
cost more'n gold. There's gold too.
Didn't We know it? That Californy
Teller panned some gravel out, l heerd
say, an got what he called a color.
But longs spring pans out in the grass
an YARDS / do knows l keer for the
other color. AS long as the bloodroot
comes, an the marshmaller, an the
long leaf of the dock that makes q
most healin' salve, IN burdocks for
blisters, an crambries to draw out
cancers, other folks may have their
silver. Eff you an Grace wants sill
yer, jest keep to work. An the sooner
We git this silver maggot out'n yer
brain the better it'll be for you. You
got a CROWN business, you're poplar,
an it amt more'n a miles walk morn
ms over to YOU store when you can't
use yer wheel. My king! Here's spring
for surel Here's a mournin' bride!"
And, all excitement, the old naturalist
forgot his stick, hurrying and hating
and slipping and stumbling, but max
ing sure Of the beautiful butterfly.
Captain Harding looked after him and
wondered how a reasonable being could
be contented with such a llfe-no bet
ter. he thought, than a mole's.
Grace Harding, through some I'M
known freak of descent, had developed
a great deal more worldly ambition
than any others of her family. She had
insisted on going to school when her
sister Louisa preferred staying at home
and drudging with her mother, II she
had read novels and taken a fashion
paper, and on her marriage she had
gone to housekeeping in an old weather
beaten farmhouse only as a prelim1na-
~ to something altogether finer. 1t
was a pretty place, under Il greer bill,
with great sycamores and a brook
whose banks were lined with blue for
getmenots. They had built a little
piazza where they could sit at night
looking down over the marshes, mystic
rious In shadow, enchanting in sun
light, and on some days he rode over
to the store on his big wheel, on which
he doomed a giant figure against the
sky-it was before the days of the safe
ty-and on some days he walked, and
the store thrived gently, n Grace had
her flower beds and her row of sweet
peas and went to meeting in her myrtle
green silk gown, with pink roses in her
bonnet-looked Upon by Louisa In her
brown delaine as very much the fine
lady.
Life Their was flowing on s%erenely,
with now and hen a tea party at the
village and every day a visit with her
mother and with Louisa, who was now
married herself and living at the top
Of the hill, when one night her hus-
band came home and threw down his
hat in a temper. "Well, I'm sick of
this!'' he cried. give ben doin' some
little outside the store, you know. But
now the boom's gone up, and there's
nothin' more in land round here. I've
turned over quite a few properties,
though, and made my penny every
time. But this Is the end of 1t. How'd