The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-01-05
The Wayfarer in The Wilds of Baldwin
Will T. SheehAn

ton. NO dice" he cried. this being a gambling word he had heard and which might mean many things. Two wedges of amber pie were brought in. The Engineer looked at l 1t critically. Tt is made, I should say of dried tomatoes. sweetened with sugar." he said 1udiciaIly and impar- tially. 1 ''No," his companion replied. Tt has figs in it. Those little seed you see are fig seeds" There was no one to arbitrate the question and 1t went ov- ed to be taken up and discussed as unfinished business during the after noon drive.
 | That dinner of mysteries settled one thing in the mind Of the Way farer. He had always wondered at the peculiar mental bent of Henrick Ibsen who writes the problem plays. It was all cleared up. Ibsen writes mystery plays and problem plays be- cause he grew up on Swedish cook | ing. Thus does the influence of en- vironment make itself felt
 The red glow of a sudden winter twilight came upon the two travellers as the little mare was fox trotting along the back bone of a wooded ridge. The sky was golden cloth skimmering with light reflected from afar luminous haze hung upon the ridge as If reluctant to give way at the invincible approach of darkness. A , white fog clung to the earth. The air was crisp and cool.
 The twilight suddenly and sharply melted into darkness. The pines faded indistinctly away.
 ! In front of the persevering, industri- i ous little mare a sudden light sprang | up and burned a hole in the night. It was held within peculiar halo. Some ! sort of substance that held firmly the i rays of reflection.
 1 It grew nearer and the phenomenon developed into nothing more remarka- ble than a big pine knot fire burning within wall tent
 We had reached the outpost of civili | zation. The fore front of the picket 1 line was before us. With axe and saw the outpost was blazing a way for the locomotive. the telegraph and for pro- gress.
 The tent was the first of a series that lined the road. Away over to the left lights glimmered through the darkness | and songs fioated out in the evening air. Each tent held its squad of negro skirmishers, adopts with the big | axe so much like an ancient battle weapon. Cross tie cutters they all were, men who were there to pave an 1 easy way TOT progress.
 They were winter quarters, these I tents. with their bottoms boarded up and with the canvas nailed to the bot l tom, and with improvised chimneys | and fire places. Men and women were making their homes in these airy resi- l dences during the winter months. The tents held the privates of the outpost. We were to be the guests of the officers.
 The officers quarters were in little -N.s native. He had come there years be- fore the war to let his sheep and cat tie graze in the woods and swamps of Baldwin.
 Now in after years some hustling people had come along, jerked his l three-room house around and lifted 1t five feet in the air. They had filled up one big room for 8 commissary and stocked it from roof to floor with meats, canned goods sheetings and gingham. second room they had made into a kitchen and a third into a sleeping apartment. And then they had set up a sheet-iron stove from Pittsburg in the hall. This latter was rocking and dancing with red heat when the Engineer and the Wayfarer pulled the little mare up at the gate and let her nibble the old rose bushes | in the yard.
 IT., fried pork and simmering batter-cakos greeted the hopeful nostrls of the travellers. Under ordinary circum- stances that cooking smell is not a nice odor. Most people consider it objectionable. The Engineer and the Wayfarer would have so considered 1t under ordinary circumstances. At a high priced hotel in the city, if they had been so placed that their rooms | Nn iOh hn # Iyf fahn they would have protested vehement ly and insistently to the bediamoned | clerk, as though a grievous injury had been done their confidence.
 But not then-not after a thirty miles ride through the pine woods on a crisp winter day. The pungent odor was more gratful to them than the perfume of the violet or the languor- ous odor of the cape jessamine. All things have their time. This was Q time for something substantial. The afr was full of hope and promise to the tired wayfarers. hope and q promise that was later fulfilled to the uttermost. When the night had worn on a little and supper was served the Engineer and the Wayfarer were given first chance at the table. Unquestion- ably those who came after fared lilly and sorrowfully.
 Even as the two travellers spread their chilled hands before the red stove the outpost officers tramped in. One of them was sturdy lad of 15. with clean rosy skin and curly blonde haid. He called upon the engineer as Dad" and they talked of affairs of home and the camp. for this was lad fresh from a Chicago high school who had come to help his father build railroads in Alabama.
 Five in all they numbered. including the shrewd young man who kept the commissary. The two visitors. wei comed cordially and given the seats of honor around the stove, raised the total to seven.
 It was good to look upon these men who did their work in the woods. There is a whole lot for man in living close to nature and feeding his lungs daily on fresh air and sunshine. Great strong looking chaps they were, most of them well above six feet, with shoulders as broad as a door. Lightner was one of them; railroad man he was, a fellow who had braked and taken tickets in Illinois and Kan sas. He was telling of Kansas rail ? roading and of the zephyrs of that fa- nous state
 "Yes. sir" he was saying. railroad