Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-07-01

If he had not dropped it, would have
meant little here.
Joe had believed that when confronted
by days real work Wayne's deter
miHation would weaken. Mavne was a
man OF whims. 10 be sure but Joe mad
no illusions as TO the nobility of labor.
and having himself enjoyed the fieshpots
of the craighill kitchen he was confident
that the food of the miners boarding
house would give Wayne pause. II moth
ing else did. But Wayne kept dosgedly
to his resolution. He had received his
commission to labor from Jeans hands
and he had come into her country as into
holy land He was not a miner. and
under the law could not go down into the
earth. as he had expected. to wrest coal
from its great caverns: but Joe found
work for him as a teamster al the Flor
ence colliery, hauling timbers and other
supplies. and he himself instructed
| Wayne in his duties. The humor of the
thing tickled Joe: Wayne Craighil with
a pipe I'm his mouth, driving mule team
and running when the whistle blew. was
certainly funny. And when the days
work was done Wayne smoked and taxi
ed with the motley crowd at the board
ing house and made them like him-as
was his way. He caught a GLIMPSE now
and then. through the office window. ~
Craig. the chief engineer-a classmate OF
his at the Tech. bending over blue
prints of the workings; but they never
met face TO face
mines. and came up at night as black az
the blacklist. but with his cheer un-
abated. He watched Wayne carefully.
believing that at any time the old pas
sion for drink would reassert itself: and
he wrote. with much labor. half humor
Gus post card bulletins of Wayne's doings
| to Walsh and Wingfield. Humping
mules and eating boiled pork and greens
with the dagoes- Hasn't drank a drop
read one of these reports: and Walsh.
growing and swearing i'm his glass box.
/ gave currency to a report that WAYNE
was on ranch in Colorado: but Paddock
and Wingfield knew the truth and mar
| veled. and Paddock insisted that they
must let the man have his way.
1t must not be thought that Wayne
Craighill was tamely submissive to this
| new order of life. His arms and back
ached for the first week. but he profted
by his wood-cutting i'm the Virginia hills.
| where his palms had been well toughened
by the AK. The little room in which he
slept was without single comfort that
he had known: he had been faStidious at
| table, and only the honest appetite ere
ated by his days work made possible
the food set before him. He was pos
| sessed by righteous feeling that he was
Furnishing his body for all its misdeeds:
his spirit too. was subjected to hourly
| humiiations. He had been cursed as a
fool by dull boss but had swallowed
the cursing meekly. At supper one night
| his neighbor produced bottle of whisky
and passed it down the line. 1t was vile
| stuff. but the odor of it struck home.
Wayne rose abruptly and almost ran
| from the room. And all this time he
heard nothing of Jean, though he had
| seen the house where she had iived-a
! little cottage of one story. with flower
i garden about il, now sadly gone TO
| weeds. 1t had last been opened. he
| learned, when Andrew Gregory was bur-
| led from it. He passed ii daily. picturing
her as she had lived there and wonder
ing if the place would ever know her
/ again.
AS his muscles hardened the days work
worried him less, and he fell into the
| habit of taking long walks at night to
exhaust his surplus energy. The goal OF
| these was usually Golden Bridge. point
| about a mile from town. The bridge
| golden i'm nothing but its name-was
! covered wooden structure of pictur-
esque type happily preserved in this re-
gion. He used to climb out on the stone
pier at one end of it and sit there, hear
! ing the song of the Susquehanna amid
| blur of frog choruses and chants of in
sects. And these times were sacred To
thoughts of Jean, for this was her coun-
| try, these her hills, with their filmy
scarfs of summer cloud thrown over their
shoulders. and this her river, that had
| known all the years of her life. And
| there one night she came, as though In
| answer to his longing.
| Go be continued tomorrow