The Yale expositor., 1905-02-17

\ III, out 1t was true. n SOllIuTy,
u brooding life in the midst of
grand surroundings; an active, siren
uous life among great responsibilities;
starved, hungry life of the affections
whence even the sister had withdrawn
her love-all these had worked I'M
obtrusively toward the formation of
single psychological condition. Such a
moment comes to every man. Then are
happiness and misery beside which the
mere struggle to dominate men be-
comes trivial, the petty striving with
the forces of nature a little thing, and
the woman he at that time meets is
more than woman; she is the best OF
that man made visible.
Thorpe found himself for the first
time filed with the spirit of restless
ness. His customary iron evenness of
temper was gone, so that he wandered
| quickly from one detail of his work to
smother without seeming to penetrate
| below the surface need of any one task.
But Il week before he had felt himself
absorbed in the component parts of his
| enterprise. Now he was outside of it.
! Thorpe took this state of mind much to
heart and combated it. Invariably he
held himself to his task BY an effort,
n tremendous effort, he succeeded in
| doing so. The effort left him limp. He
| found himself often standing or now
ing gently, his eyes staring sightless,
his will chained so softly and yet so
firmly that he felt no strength and
| hardly the desire to break from the
dream that lulled him. Then he was
conscious of the physical warmth of
the sun, the faint sweet wood smells,
! the soothing cares of the breeze, the
! sleepy cicada-like note of the pine
creeper. He wanted nothing so much
as to sit on the pine needles there in
| the golden flood of radiance and dream
- dream on - vaguely, comfortably,
sweetly.
Lord, Lordr he cried impatiently.
"What's coming to me? must be lit
tie off my feed!"
And he hurried rapidly to his duties.
After an hour of the hardest concentra-
ton he had ever been required to be-
stow on a trivial subject he again I'M
consciously sank by degrees into the
old apathy.
"Glad it isn't the busy season. he
commented to himself Here, 1 must
quit this! Guess it's the warm weather.
I'll get down to the mill for a day or
two"
There he found himself incapable of
even the most petty routine work. He
sat at his desk at o'clock and began
| the perusal of a sheaf OF letters. The
first three he read carefully, the follow
ing two rather hurriedly, of the next
one he seized only the salient and es-
sential points, the seventh and eighth
he skinned the remainder of the bun
die he thrust aside in uncomfortable
impatience. Next day he returned to
the woods.
The incident of the letters had
aroused to the full his old fighting spir-
it, before which no mere instincts
could stand.
Once more his mental process became
clear and incisive, his commands direct
and to the point. To all outward APP
pearance Thorpe was as before.
|
ing Forty came back from distant
drinking joints. This was in early Sep
TENDER. That ablebodied and devoted
band of men was on hand when need
cd. Shearer in some subtle manner of
his own had let them feel that this year
meant 100000 or "bust." They
frightened their leather belts and stood
ready for command. After much dis
cussion with Shearer the young man
decided to take out the logs from
"eleven" by driving them down French
creek
To this end gang was put to clear
ing the creek bed. 1t was q tremen-
dous job. Centuries of forest life had
choked the little stream nearly to the
level of its banks. Old snags and
stumps lay imbedded in the ooze; de-
cayed trunks, moss grown, blocked the
current; leaning tamaracks, fallen tim
Der, tangled vines, dense thickets, gave
to its course more the appearance of a
tropical jungle than of a north country
brook bed. All these things had to be
removed one by one and either piled to
one side or burned. In the end, how
ever, 1t would pay. French creek was
not large stream, but it could be
driven during the time of the spring
freshets.
Each night the men returned in the
beautiful dreamlike twilight to the
} camp. There they sat after eating
smoking their pipes in the open air,
Much Of the time they sang, while Phil
crouching wolf-like over his violin
rasped out an accompaniment of disso
! noncea Tho mons voicoa lant them.