Evening star., 1909-02-06

tOnal, MS CurFlnS
lips, his finely chiseled nose. his wide.
clear blue eyes. his good. broad brow. his
sunny hair, all marked him in such sharp
contrast to the heavy-jowled and dull
eyed parents that even they themselves
stood in awe of him, and his mothers S
pride in his beauty was marred by a GER
tain uneasiness that never entirely left
her.
Yes she admitted with a regretful
sigh, 'he is purity, but I'm afraid he's
most too purity for boy
Kind o. weakly, too Jim Glow would
add with growing dissatisfaction.
With him. a boy was to be regarded as
a distinct asset, valued exdctly in pro-
portion to his evidences OF Drawn, and he
longed for sturdy sons for exactly the
same reason that he cherished the 1.-the
limbed colts that scampered about in the
brook meadow. In this he was to be dis
appointed. for, to the Glow farmhouse,
perched down from the rocky roadside,
there came no more sons or daughters,
and the one boy. Henry, grew up in lone
illness to develop within him that strange
and dreaming fancy which made him Of
no apparent worth.
Hes lazy. that young 'un,'' Jim de-
cided In profound disgust, while yet the
child wore pinafores, and from that time
on the father took up the burden of his
cross with such patience as he might.
There was no denying that the boy was
not at all like other children of the coun-
tryside.
He jes' sets there mopin' and lookin
in hole and never says a word' his
mother complained. "It jcs' pears like he
amt got any git-up-an git to him at all. -
And she was right. Many, many times
the little one sat behind the kitchen, look
ing, looking and forming no words to mold
his thought. What 1t was that he saw
across the tiny valley not even he himself
could have told. but he noted with rapt
eagerness the passing of every f1eecy
cloud across the sky he traced fanciful
creatures In all it's new formations and
his eye dwelt In keen pleasure upon the
deep gradations Of shade and color in
them. He found calm delight. increasing
with hts years, in the changing hue of the
sky itself. For him the great dome of
heaven was not only blue. but it was
hundred blues-the blue of winter and the
blue OF summer, the blue of morning and
the blue OF evening. the blue of midday
and the blue Of night, with all the varying
shades between. He found at the edge Of
the brook one day a flower so exactly
matching that days sky that, until it's
season was passed and it had ceased to
bloom. he came to it every day to COM
pare it, building with infinite pains little
inclosure about it that the cattle might
not tranple 1t. and an odd fancy came to
him that some little fieck of that great,
wonderful arch above had dropped
straight down to grow and bloom for
him.
To Jim Glow the farm a barren and
unlovely place. if in his mental grasp there
were such things as loveliness and un-
loveliness. The road was high here, and
the house was built upon the rocky hill
side that sloped down from the highway,
SO that it should take up none of the more
fertile room in the hollow below; while.
beyond. the barren hills rose up again.
OF the whole farm scarcely more than
one-third was productive. and because it
was not all rich, loamy bottom land, such
as he could never hope to possess. the
man despised it as his wife despised her
house. At first the dwelling. long before
Jim succeeded to it, had been but cabin,
down to which led a flight of roughly
placed stone steps. AS the earlier gene
rations Of CLOVIS had needed more rooms
they had added them one at a time, and
upon that shelving ground each addition
had been built at a slightly different level,
so that In passing from any one part OF
the house to another part there were
steps TO go up or steps to go down max
ing this woman's day of unending
TOLL and, while her child was still young
she became old from hard and unceasing
labor
To the boy, however. the farm was a
paradise and the brook, that was Of
value to the father only as it irrigated his
fields and watered his cattle was to the
boy perpetual delight He knew and
loved every one of it's quiet little pools,
its steep. noisy shadows. its swift, con-
strictcd channels, its sandy bottom where