Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1911-11-05

OF ner lover was fa1nt and blurred, ana IN
stead she saw the patient quiet face of her
chairs on each side of the hearth, and the
evening dusk through which she and the old
man smiled at each other as they came in
from the long days labor.
There were times when she thought of go
ing out and seeing the great world about
which her lover had talked to her, and yet
from all that he had told her she knew that
she would find no more there than the river,
the trees, the gray boulders, and the sunset
could give here. Monotony never quite be-
came nothingness; for she had quick ear,
and caught the silent voices, hushed only
while the voice of love was speaking. There
came to her heart too, with the thought of
change, a vague premonitiOn that change
would come to her if she but waited.
More years passed, and peace and silence
spread about the little house, and dropped
over the meadows and the woods and the
gray boulders. One day the father ceased
to go out to his labors, and the brown maid
with a new pang in her heart, doubled her
own. Finally her father lay down, and folded
his hands, and shut his eyes, and turned his
face to the wall, and after a few days he
made his exit. She carried him out and laid
him under the ground in the farther field
beside the eldest and opposite to the next
W Iue elueSl. OIle 11ldue Il HlOuIlu over Tic
place SO that she could remember just where
it was and come out day by day and sit
there for company.
THE years passed, and new spring came,
and the brown maid went out over the
woodland ways where once she had walked
with lover, ever and ever SO long ago; and
the sap was rising in the twigs and shedding
purple mist over the bushes, and the March
sun filtered down lightly through the twigs
and made delicate lacework on the ground.
And the maid turned to lay her hand upon
the knife in her heart, and 10! the flesh had
healed over and there was no pain there.
For love had passed. just as the eldest and
the next to eldest had passed, and just as
her father, who had built the balcony and
understood her need of the stars and had
smiled at her in the dusk of the evening
when labor was done, had passed; and she
knew that, if she could, she would call
nothing back.
Then she laughed aloud and sang little,
although her Voice sounded strange and
cracked from long silence; but she knew
that she wanted to 60 back and talk to the
oaks and the river and the bushes. So she
went out and sat down under the oaks in
the early spring sunlight, and laughed lit
tie, and said to them:
"What are you doing?'
ave are making life" said the oaks, @and
growing acorns."
"But are you not tired?" she asked. "Have
you not made enough acorns?"
"Life goes on, and there IS never enough,
said the oaks. "And as for that, we intend
before we die to shed enough acorns to cover
the earth and to climb the mountain and dry
up the stream
AUST think of it!' said the maid and she
laughed. "How strong and how brave you
are!"
Then she went down to the river, and sat
on its bank, and dabbled her bare feet in the |
water.
3Well, said the river, "you have been
away quite time | have missed you"
"Have you reached the sea yet?7 asked
the maid.
mo; but don't you see how fast am
going? l shall reach it, and then all will be |
rest and happiness
"Are you sureo" she asked.
"Of course. Is it not ones instinct from |
the very first little yelling up of the spring |
in the mountains? 1t is Destiny, and over
whatever rocks we bound, beside whatever
obstacles we turn, it is ever the sea we are |
making toward, the sea and the sea- full |
ness"
$50 it is, said the maid. And she knew
then that she too was walking the way of |