The Chanute times. [volume] (Chanute, Kan.) 1897-1913, 1906-06-15
BARNARD TRAGEDY.
I see their unborn faces shine
About the never-lighted fire.

ABOUT the ueVeT-hBhtSu IA
Marinda Harding loved John Horn
and twas 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, IL pota-
toes would come booming, and he'd
good luck with his steers, they'd we'd
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-infaming ears, she slipped into
Johns barnyard and fed the wond'ring
steers.
John marveled at the magic which
made his tubers leap so fast above his.
neighbors that theirs appeared to
creep. by the Great Horn SPOON" he.
quoted, they grow while others Sleep"
The steers, you should have seen
them! No scandal grew so fast nor
hogs in old Kentucky when they feed
upon the mast. The great bovine
colossi set the country side aghast.
Their elephantine mightiness made
wonder for the world. 1t got into
the papers; Barnum's agent, oiled and
curled, made offers vainly till Johns
brain in greedy spirals whirled
The mystic moonlight maiden smiled
Aprilian through her tears She was
steering Johns barque closely with a
bunch of bumper steers. Soon they'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
bone.
But woe walls in the wandering
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 in degree.
Alas those lovely bovine, they grew
so tall, immense, that, by humping just
a little they could step across fence.
When they did, they ate the tubers
with a greediness intense.
On a solemn night in August when
the lanterned firefiies were sparkling
DER 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
| judicious 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 boz
vines dead and gone, and past all
profit, were.
They'd grasshoppered the later 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
half-frantic, 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 The
squire said it was enough to take a
body breath The preacher, habit
hit, looked pure, and said: I'VE must
have faith"
1T makes one want to hide his face"
said one hoarse aside. 'Or hide mis-
head from all his race, brindle man
replied. "'Tis," said a staring Irish
I
man; yes all think av the hide"
1t was tragic scene, high-set upon
a barnyard hill; the broad, bald field so
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 a 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 pirate