The Nevada County picayune., 1906-07-24
BARNARD TRAGEDY.
l see their unborn faces shine About the never-lighted fire.

Marinda Harding loved John Horn, and twas a fireside joke that John would never marry-he was always go- ing broke. Bad crops, low prices, hope deferred, loves flame all turned to smoke.
 One spring he told Marinda, who'd been waiting wrinkled years. if pota- toes would come booming, and he'd good luck with his steers, they'd wed the coming autumn and stop the gibes and sneers.
 John Horns potato field frOntiered pap Harding's orchard fence. The fragrant snow of apple blooms walked in Rims" soul intense, and springborn nesting longings, born in every girl of sense.
 She stole forth from her chamber in the chill light of the star; hope drawn, and drawing rake and hoe, she crossed the hedge bound bar To see her hoe the tubers, angels set the gates ajar.
 When the poor girl grew back weary, she brayed her nightborn fears, and, listening, all alert with her shame-intiaming ears. she slipped into Johns bafnyard and fed the wondring steers.
 John maryeled at.the magic which made his tubers leap so fast above his neishbors tt8t theirs aHae.ted to creep. "Ey aa Gre 3H## .saa. he quoted. they grow While others sleep"
 The steers. gou should have seen them! Nc eaaHU.
 hogs in old Kentucky when they feed upon the mast. 4be ale4. bovine cotossi set the countryside rhast
 Their elephantine mightiness made wonder fpE aa world Gaf into the papers. Barnum's agent oiled and curIed, made offers vainly till Johns bran in greedy spirals whrea.
 The mystic moonlight maiden miieq Aprilian through her tears: she was steering Johns barque closely with a bunch of= bumper steers. soon taey' d be geared together; she had engineered the gears.
 Sheer not Smart Alexander! If girls love could have grown like this for you, that could claim it all in all your own. you'd nourish on prime sir loin steak where now you gnaw a bone.
 But woe walls in the wand'ring wind; there's woe upon the sea; woe broods upon the hilltop, in valley, plain or lea. It's all but greater lesser woe, but difference is degree.
 
 so tall immense, that by humping just little they could step across fence. When they did, they ate the tubers with greediness intense.
 On a solemn night in August when the lanterned frefiies were sparkling OCT the tubers like the comets of the skies, then the monsters munched the tubers till they'd swelled to double size.
 Now, tuber tops are not the herbs iudicious feeders choose to nourish fat tening cattle; you're prepared, then, for the news? The sight that met the morning was a sight to cause the blues
 There, prone upon their ample backs, their stark legs in the air, on the des- ert of the tuber field, Stonehenge past Druid's prayer John Horns big bo- vines dead and gone, and past all profit, were
 They'd grasshoppered the 'tater tops, clean down to solid ground. Not one was left to show what grew in all the regions round. The comments of the owner are unfit for sight or sound.
 The telephones got busy; from every countryside the farmers came halffrantic, as fast as they could ride The preacher and the squire, too, came ambling side by side.
 The throng gazed long in speeches. awe upon the scene of death. Ihe squire said it was enough to take a body breath The preacher, habit hit, looked pure. and said; We must have faith"
 Tt makes one want to hide his face. said one hoarse aside. Or hide his head from all his race," brindle man replied " 'T1s, said a staring Irish man; yes all think av the hide"
 1t was a tragic scene, high-set upon a barnyard hill; the broad, bald field 90 blank and black. the steers so stiff and still, and an hundred men who stared and spat with furtive rival skill.
 But farmer, squire. preacher. all that make the hilltop throng. there's not an one will grieve so deep, or who will grieve so gong, as the pallid, wrinkled maiden hiding yon green hedge along.
 Men see d score or more of steers of size beyond degree; she sees the ruin of a home that now shall never be. And there's not a word to comfort her, for all alone is she
 She sees colorless to-morrows wan ing to a waiting grave; she hears the Never, Never, In the winds that round her rave Don't always prats