The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1908-03-24

TIN SURE oBLIeED TO THAT CHAP
MEEKER."
her fellow passengers to the diner,
glad of any break In the monotony of
travel.
Miriam followed the others, rejoic-
ing in the conductors assurance that
in the evening she would eat her sup
per on firm land, for at nightfall they
were due at Schofield, the little station
where Miriam Bradley was to change
for the slow stagecoach that would car
ry her to Muddy Bend and her new
field Of labor.
She was glad that there remained but
ten hours of train trave' 1t had proved
tiresome trip, though back home she
had looked forward with eagerness to
the journey.
Once she had run down from her
Vermont home to Boston, and there
had been short visits to nearby smaller
cities, but she had never Travelled so
far and naturally had anticipated much
pleasure in the novelty.
But, after all, she had found the long
journey disappointing. The long, bare
stretches of prairie were a novelty at
first to this girl brought up in the heart
of the Green mountains, but they be-
came interminable, and now her eyes
hungered for the sight of her native
hills.
Under the driving rain the sodden
plain looked more dreary than it had
the day before. She tried to fix her
thoughts on a book, but the letters
danced before her eyes, and she caught
herself looking through the car win
dow and wondering If there were no
hills at all in this dreary expanse.
Back home there must be snow on
the ground, and the boys and girls
were doubtless enjoying the coasting,
while the evenings would call out the
big hobs, and her own crowd would
take their part in the fun. Vaguely
she wondered If these children of the
plains ever knew the delights of the
long, swift journey down the glitter
ing white incline and she sighed for
the little valley she had always known
as home.
Yet she thought sternly that she had
done the one possible thing. The field
In the east was already overcrowded
with teachers, and she had heard that
only in the great and growing west
did a newcomer have chance for ad-
vancement And teaching it must be
or marriage with Jimmy Meeker.
Even now, with hundreds of miles be-
tween them, she could feel her face
flush as she recalled how he had asked
her to marry him that she might have
home and his protection.
He had meant well, no doubt, and
ever since they had gone to school to-
gether he had shown his manly pref
erence for her, but he had put 1t rawly
that evening, to say the least. With
her nerves still singing from the shock
Of discovering that her entire heritage
had gone down with the local bank, his
proposal, so awkwardly worded, had
been the final straw. Indignantly she
reminded him that he had not spoken
until her need of support made his Of
fer ring with pity, and she wanted not
pity, but love, from the man she mar
ried
It had all seemed very dignifed, al
most heroic at the time, but now, with
the vastness of the unbroken prairies
settling down upon her like black
shadow, her heart somehow had room
only for his answering plea that he
could not ask her to be his wife while
he was a struggling lawyer and she the
,nIy heiress of the comfortable Bradley
estate.
AS the day passed and she was hur
ried through the fiat, dismal country
both her reason and her heart rose in
rebellion, and when the call for lunch
con was sounded nervousness had done
its work. She wanted nothing to eat.
The porter had seen just this brand
of inconsistencies before. and he asked
permission to bring some tea and toast,
at least, to her section. Abashed by
the tears that came to her eyes at his
friendly suggestion, he sought another
car and the conductor. Then this kind
ly official sat down beside his tired
young passenger and tried to make con-
versation They were ast passing
section house with its few surround
ing buildings and tiny schoolhouse.
Near the latter was an improyised
Slide"
That's the way the prairie children
make hills" he said, little dreaming
that he was touching a very raw spot
In his companions heart. "They pile
up the snow industriously. pour water
on 1t just before shutdown, and in the
morning it is jolly fine Slide"
After that Miriam watched for the
manufactured hills. The pitiful sub
stitute for the sport of her girlhood
somehow made her feel more desper-
ately than ever the mighty chasm she
was cutting between her old life and
her new.
And when she was not watching for
"hills" she was tying to drown the
recollection Of a certain tender, plead
ing voice in the incessant, insistent
song Of the revolving wheels beneath
her
1t was an actual relief when Schofield
was reached and she stood on the mar
row strip of platform in front of the
station. She .peered through the dusk