The Lexington intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1901-1949, 1908-09-05
]. 0. A. Sdgman's
Young Wife
BY W. cARDELL PARRISH
(COpyright, BY DAILY Story Pub. CO..

@ EAANAA 3 AAAL .AANLA-
filter of a desert-baked wind. and
we have it, The devils own ideal.
| mean, Of utter d~esolation. And
by what cruel and diabolical irony
Of fate it was that the rarest flower
Of elite old Boston must be trans
planted to such an accursed spot on
the earth where all day long the
sun-kissed RATHER Kisses his weird
refrain to warn all that such a place
was never intended for man nor his
kin. Stand here and look away to
the horizon. The heat waves rise
and fall, rise and fall, rise and fall
and those foothills a hundred miles
away dance and dance, dance and
dance-desist my friend, else when
you look again you see Reason de-
parting on the crest Of this sea Of
I desert fantasy and Madness waving
a haunting and hilarious mock fare
well. Can you master enigmas?
Then tell us why the Hon. j. @. A.
Stigman took his pretty Young wife
out to this place and why he after
wards had me go there and live
with them? | who am or was also
young like his wife; whereas he was
in the winter-time Of life? 1t is the
enigma Of madness that challenges
hence, beware!
When | met her, l was the first
human heing that she had seen ey-
cepting j. Q. A. Stigman in two
years. As she approached in greet
ing there was a light in her eyes that
matched those little purple clouds
that hung over the dancing foothills
50 far away and | thought her mad.
And such she was in a way. Hers
was the madness of the desert Of
unutterable loneliness; of departed
hope the pinnacle of a superb desc
lation. And this desert madness it
was my lot TO share with her, while
her husband, J.. @. A. Stgman,
lowered over US like the sphinx Of
Cheops and needed not.
Her aunts back in Boston were to
blame for it all. The unthinking
old spinsters in their ambition for
their niece had believed their parts
well played when the rich old Stig-
man was landed securely in their
nets. But the niece-she was pref
ty and petulant. Stigman was old
and inexorable and the quick little
temper Of his bride he accepted with
all the seriousness of old age. When
she flew into a becoming little rage
and called him an old reprobate and
told him hat she did not love him,
that his money was all that counted,
his massive brows knit in a frown
that never relaxed, and she was
banished to the desert to suffer the
wrath Of a sorely-wounded old man.
Now let us turn back to the eng
ma. Had the Hon. j. @. A. Stig-
man relented and was it with de-
sign that he engaged me to man
age his big cattle ranch? Did he
take into account the maddening eff
fects Of the desert hades and was it
to save his young wife's reasoning
powers that he desired to provide
for her the diversion of a third per-
! sons presence in their home? Who
will say? The Hon. J. @. A. Stig-
man was not as other men nor were
his ways as the ways of others.
Therefore, who is going to explain
why it was that he departed for
long months at a time and left alone
together us two who were both
young and filed with life and the
fullness thereof? And masterfulman
that he was, why was it that he heed
ed not when the b~arrenness of our
lives was invaded by that spirit old
er than the ages that Knocked the
conventions and bid our two souls
be as one? All of these things |
was to learn but not then. Sufi-
Gent for that day was the spell Of
the desert; the infinite d~esolation
thereof the insidious madness of it
all and-and the woman. The
woman who was there to suffer. The
woman who was there that her soul
should starve and die and be no
more.
True to the breath Of life Of
things thereabouts that prevailed,
j. O. A. Stigman became silent