Wauwatosa news. [volume] (Wauwatosa, Wis.) 1900-1948, 1909-10-29

torn vine streamed down while in the
| full food, and looked away over the
rapidly sloping ground to where the
dense shadows of trees marked the
course of the creek in the valley. A thin
gray mist rose from the broad, low
living meadows. BEYOND the creek, wood
and open field, hog back and plain min
| gled and swan magically vague under
the moon, full and clear by this time in
the eastern sky.
Joshuas pipe went out, and he put it
away automatically, while dim thoughts
/ rose in his mind uncertain and half
! glimpsed at first, like the landscape be-
! low. He was an old man, and there was
much to remember He had helped as
| boy when his father had pulled stumps
of the primeval forest from the rich
soiled back lots, and had cried Gee! and
Haw in his broken treble to the sweat
| ing oxen. His thought glanced with
pride to the great achievement of his
early manhood, the stump pulling ma
chine that did the work of twenty men
and teams, an invention that marked
| him as one of those Americans of the
Elder Breed, the proof and crown of
whose citizenship was model in the
patent Office at Washington. Not that he
had ever received profit from it; it was
customary enough that the improved
stump pullers and bushhooks should be
roughly copied and used by whoever
would, until the bushes and the stumps
were gone, when they too vanished from
| sight following the ever -retreating from
tier.
A little local glory and the inarticulate
knowledge that their shoulders at the
wheel had moved forward somewhat the
| triumphal car of civilization was enough
| for the men of the Elder Breed. Perhaps
that was one reason why in those days it
really was a triumphal car. and not
| Juggernaut, but Joshua Budd did not
concrn himself with that. He thought
OF the great north woods, and the win
ter lodgings; of the summer cattle drives
| from Canada, and of all the bitter hard
ships, and the freedoms and the savors
that paid for them. in the lumberman's
and drover's life. Things were easier
now, but victuals didn't taste so good
| and wrestling had gone out of fashion
| among the young men.
There was Matilda-he had wrestled
for her. The moonlight quivered like
flame in his eyes as he felt again the
suspense before the attack, the hug, the
strain, the nip and tuck, the final crash
ing throw. The other man had had a
rib broken, and had spit blood for
month. Matilda pitied him and had
scorned Joshua, and had said openly
that he was brute. But when it came
to the pinch, she chose the victor as he
had known she would
And she had been worth fighting for
tall, black-eyed, and fair proved, with
hair that she tried in vain to straighten,
bu that chung in fairy rings and thistle
down corkscrews down the sun-tinted
nape.
Not that Matilda had been the first.
There was Lucy. Her image was dim
mer, nothing but the moonlight could
have brought it back. He turned it in
his mind, as one turns an old daguerreo-
| type that presents only faded blank to
the view, until at happy angle it
| catches the light, and the long forgotten
face starts out of it like a ghost. She
had belonged to the aristocracy; her
mother had had a carpeted best room,
with shells on the mantelpiece. and when
Lucy had gone in a decline there were
not wanting envious neighbors who
looked upon her death as punishment
heaven-descended upon sinful pride.
Joshua had had his own ideas, half con.
temptuous of the weakness of woman,
wholly tender of the girl, about that de-
cline
Social lines were drawn, even in the
golden age, and an uncouth bov, only
half evolved from his native SOIL could
hardly aspire to the granddaughter of
INIgifF nd L..
so much, the outward and visible SYM
boil OF the carpet had made him pause.
And while he had paused, Lucy had died.
Not that he regretted her, or felt the
loss OF what he had never possessed.
Only, as the moon climbed higher, and
the valley mists changed from gray to
silver, and the dim horizon enlarged till
the piazza with its streaming vines
seemed an island lifted out of wide
and silent sea, the thought of her was
family sweet and strangely clinging
Parthenophi is lost, and l would see him
/ For he is like to something l remember
4 great while sincep long, long time ago
Now he knew for the first time whom
Alma was so like: knew why the turn
OF her slim neck or the yelled glance of
| her eyes haunted him at times like half
| tcDiShpeISu LIuSIC, anu something ike
awe fell upon him at the thought of
Natures mysterious Inheritance, that
had passed by the father AID mother
after the flesh, to link a stranger. a
shade out of the dead past, to his living
child. Now he understood the pang that
| visited him when she incurred her
mothers frequent displeasure and bitter
judgments.
He could not interfere; according to
old custom, the girl was to her mother,
and he rarely demonstrated with his
wife on any subiect-less from forbear.
ance, perhaps, than because of deep
conviction that men and women spoke
| different tongues, and were more anti
podal strangers than any two men,
however disparate by birth or circum.
stance, could ever be. But he said to
himself tonight that Lucy had died I'M
der like nagging tongue-Lucy had
died for the lack of love. Alma was like
Lucy--to lose her for the second time!
The moon was almost at its height.