The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1912-08-19
CHAPTER [. Thm Music.


 The Music.
 ~Y&IHrEN, John. I hear musicy'
 The words came in a gentle whisper from the woman's < A lips. One white, thin hand aifted. itself weakly to the rough face of the man who was kneeling beside her bed, and the great dark eyes from which hs had hidden his own grew Continuously bright for a moment as she whispered again:
 @Iohn. hear musicv'
 As sigh futtered from her lips. The main s head dropped until it rested very near to her bosom. He felt the quiver Of her hand against his cheek, and in its touch there was something which fo1d John Cummins that the end of all life had come for him and for her in this world of snow and ice and for est very near to the dome of the earth. His heart beat fercely, and his great shoulders shook with the agony that was eating at his soul
 ssXes, it is the pretty music, my Me lisse; he murmured softly, choking baekshis sobs. tsIt is the pretty music fin the skies"
 The hand pressed more tightly againstlhis face.
 t sIts not the music in the skies, John. Tt is real-real music that hear''
 3It,s the sky music, my sweet Me lisse. Shah Ieopeh the door so that we cant hear 1t better?'
 when be. looked again at the wo- man her eyes were open, and there glowed in them stiIl the feeble fire of a great love. Her lips, too, pleaded with him in their old, sweet way, which: always meant that he was to kiss them and stroke her hair and tell her again that she was the most beau tiful thing in the whole world.
 aMy Melissey
 He crushed his face to her, his seb- hing breath smothering itself in the softa masses of her hair, while her arms rcsesweakly and fell around his neck He heard the quick, gasping struggle for bHeath within her bosom, and, zaintIy again, the words:
 sTt-is-the-mu of-my-peo sIt is the music of the angels in the skies, my sweet Melisse It is our mu- sic. Twill open the door.'
 The arms had slipped from his shoulders Gently he ran his rough fingers through the loose glory of the woman's hair and stroked her face as softly as he might have caressed the cheek of a sleeping child.
 'I will open the door, Melisse.'
 His moccasined feet made no sound as be moved across the little room which was their home. At the door he paused and listened. Then he open cd it, and the floods of the white night poured in upon him as he stood with His eyes turned, to where the cold, pale flashes of the aurora were playing over the pole.
 Ittwas an hour past midnight at the post, which had the barren lands at it's back, door. It was the hour of deep slumber for it's people. But tonight there was no sleep for any of them Lights burned. dimly in the few rough aog homes. The company's store was aglow, and the factors office, haven of the men of the wilderness, shot one gleaming yellow eye out into the white gloom The post was awake. It was waiting. It was listening. It was watching.
 As the woman's door opened, wide and brimful of light, door of one of the log houses opened and then anoth- CT, and out into the night, like dim shadows, trod the moccasined men from the factors office and stood there waiting for the word of life. or Heath from John Cummins, Tn their own fashion these men, who without knowing it lived very near to the ways of God, sent mute prayers into the starry heavens that the most beau spared to them.
 It was just two summers before that this beautiful thing had come into Cummins' life and into the life of the post. Cummins, red headed, 1.-the as a eat. big souled as the eternal noun tain of the Crees and the best of the company's hunters, had brought Me lisse thither as his bride. Seventeen rough hearts had welcomed her. They had assembled about that little cabin In which the light was shining now, speeches. in their adoration of this woman who had come among them, their caps in their hands, their faces shining. their eyes shifting before the glorious ones that looked at them and smiled at them as the woman shook their hands, one by one.
 Perhaps she was not strictly beauti ful as most people judge, but she was haaut1fpl here 400 miles beyond civ