The citizen. (Honesdale, Pa.) 1908-1914, 1910-01-07

lney started out briSkly, Emma
showing the way
DO sou know, it's real treat to go
walking with you" she said. 81 know
you love it. I've heard you say so.
Beth cant bear long walks, and, as for
mother, she rarely goes farther than
her piazza rocking chair. But I've
dragged Beth about and learned every
path through the woods to the sum-
mits and plateaus. This is the second
summer I've been here, you know"
DESERVING the beaten path, they as
cended through forests of trees of ev-
cry description, but as they proceeded
along the path, in places ankle deep in
wet moss, and pushed through under
brush that kept Smith busy breaking
way for his dainty but hardy and
seemingly tlreless companion they
came into the fir region, amid hoary
giants that shot sheer to such a height
that they seemed to form pillars for
the canopy of the heavens. Emma re-
garded the great trees with awe, but
Smith laughed. He told her they
were as saplings compared with the
mighty trees of the west. He tried
to describe these and became filed
with the fever of immensity. The
long unfelt influence of the borderless
prairies, the mammoth mountain
chains far flung through the prodigious
spaces of the sunset lands that dimln-
ished their proportions, was upon him.
His soul strained to burst its tethers
and soar upward into the infinite,
where it could expand unrestrained.
Burning words, never used, unimag-
ined before in his unlettered mind, ade-
quate to depict this liberated spiritual
lty, surged tumultuously to his lips
to die there.
For the source Of their inspiration Of
this tremendous flight into the divine
azure from his regulated role of the
commonplace and coldly practical. was
the woman at his side, the one being
in the world who was dear to him and
ever had been, whom he held in little
less reverence than he did his Maker.
He broke off his description of the
forest giants and vast freedoms of
the west with conclusion in his or
binary street surface language.
But there-it's no use me trying to
do any lecture platform stunts.
wasn't born with the gift of the CAB.
Emma, them things have got to be
seen to be appreciated There's no
other way. You understand"
Yes, Emma understood.
Cbn hoI IigtopoJ tn biS hriaf
pected eloquence and had read his
soul in the light of the celestial flicker
that had emanated from it; had seen
the glory of it in his face-a glory
transient as a beacon flash, that was
gone from 1t. leaving only his habitual
noncommittal smile, as he turned to
her and said. you understand"
They continued the climb in silence.
Emma's bosom rising and falling rap
idly upon the rush and swirl of the
torrent that ragged beneath it. almost
sweeping her self control before it.
Timsy indeed loved her! Why had
! this chance revelation of what her in
tions? Because it had set vibrating
every chord of her being, and every
chord of that being, as she had come
! 10 understand also, was attuned TO
his. Together they had beheld the mir
age OF heaven.
At the upper edge Of the forest laby-
rinth they emerged on to Il rocky
! plateau studded with dwarfed frs and
balsam pines, but covered thickly with
aromatic ferns and blueberry bushes.
Jimsy barred his head to the cool
breeze that swept the clearing and
watched Emma, who, with little cry
of delight. had stopped among the
blueberry bushes and was gathering a
handful Of their ripe fruit. She was
glad of the pretext to hide the up
heaval in her heart that she felt must
show in her eyes.
This upheaval, sudden and almost
overpoweringly violent though it was
was not of the mornings forming
She had known the calm, sympathetic
westerner-as he had reminded Cap
tain Williams-ever since she was O
girl in short frocks. She had soOI
come to look upon him as big broth
er, with whom she shared her girlist
troubles and IN whom she confidet
freely, naturally, as matter of course
When she had become a woman and
he had sought her for his bride She
had not been able, with all her liking
for him, to bring herself to consider
him in the light of a lover.
After the scales formed there by the
Establishments and personal pulchri
tude OF Brooks had fallen from hel
eyes and she saw that she had bowet
down to an empty, painted fetch o,
plaster instead of to God In the flesl
she had resigned herself to the 10
destiny had brought her and sough
to make the best of 1t like the pure
woman she was. Household drudger!
and the stern verities of her existenc,
had vanquished and put to flight al
her Illusions. Love was a delusion
1t was not what she had conceived