The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1905-05-06

woods, than the mad rush of clouds
across the moon, than the splash of
midnight waves, than the weird green
light before the thunder storm or the
glories Of the sunset fading into the
purple dusk, she loved the and they had
power to thrill to life within her those
rare ecstasies of emotion, half sensuous,
half religious, which send the young
woman to lover and the older woman
to priest
So remembering the dandeIions she
raised her head and turned her eyes
on the broad sweep of level lawn. And
her breath stopped for a moment. The
dandelions were gonei ALI that golden
glory passed into the dust of the dead
yesterdays. Only in its place remained
the thousands Of stark and slender
stems, each crowned by a fuzzy white
poll slightly sWaying in the April
breeze. Not a blossom Ieft-not one
single yellow face raised to the smiling
spring sky.
She stood still breathing hard unable
to believe it. Was it gone then, the
beginning of spring, the very quintes-
sence of the years first youth, every
moment of which from trembling dawn
to trembling dawn, was precious? and
had she missed it? For it came over her
with a Sickening sense of iTreparable
loss that she had missed it-that she
had been too busy, too engrossed with
other things. Not once had she stretch
ed full length on the tender green grass,
lifted her face to the sun and sky and
drunk in the full sweetness and intOxi-
cation of this adorable awakening of all
the forces of Iife-the quickening Of the
blood of the universe. She had seen
the dandeliOns of course-whO could
escape them, when they burst upon the
world in a single blaze of glory over
night 2-and had gasped at their unex-
pectedness, which is always as COM
plete and as astounding as if a new
spring did not come with every year.
But she had been hurrying to keep an
appointment, or to do a task of some
sort and had not found time to pause
and fill her eyes and her heart with
their gIadness. DandeliOns are not to
be picked, as violets must be, unless one
is very i'll and not able, even, to sit at
the window and watch them peeping
through the grass, but not once had she
sat down among them and let go her
soul in a delicious swoon of delight.
The spring had indeed called and she
not heard!
As these thoughts followed one an
other in her mind she wandered a
little from the path, dropped down in
the grass and sat looking drearily
about her at the flying, silky down and
the slim, hollow scapes, heart breaking
reminders of the passing Of the spring,
of youth and of the joy of life. A
thought came to her that made her
heart stop beating. Pale and frightened,
she stared at the naked dandeliOn
stalks and the delicate down which the
wind was scattering over the grass. II
shall never see the dandelions again, -
she said. She could not explain the
conviction. She only knew that it was
true Il have let this spring go by"
she cried wildly. land I shall never see
! the dandelions again."
Thoughts and memories crowded upon
her-regrets, remorse. a miserable sense
Of the futility of life, Of its helpless
ness, of its tragedy; all the things she
had meant to do, all the things in which
she had failed; all her mistakes, all her
sins, all her weaknesses: all that she
had missed OF happiness, of usefulness,
of blessedness; her hopes disappointed,
her dreams unrealized, her illusions de-
! stroyed. Nothing, it seemed. had been
as she had meant. Misunderstood. mis-
understanding, missing even when she