The Emmett index. [volume] (Emmett, Idaho) 1893-1925, 1913-08-21

ening when the wind rattle
in the deserted rooms Of tn
old hotel and made the faded sign
up and down the dreary streets creal
the old man and his daughter wen
over their books, balancing, account
ing interest, figuring on mythica
problems that the world had Ions
since forgotten.
When the spring of 1893 opened
Barringer looked ten years older thar
he looked the spring before. The
grass on the range was sere and great
cracks were in the earth The win
ter had been dry. The spring open
ed dry, with high winds blowing
Through May. There were but five
people on the townsite that summer,
Barringer, his daughter and the post
masters family. Supplies came over
iland from Maize. A bloody county
Iseat war had given the rival town the
prize of 1890. Barringer had plenty
of money to buy food, for the county
commissioners distributed the taxes
which the railroad paid.
1t was his habit to sit on the front
porch of the deserted hotel and look
across the prairie to the southwest
and watch the breaking clouds scatter
into the blue twilight. He could see
the empty water tower silhouetted
against the sky. The frame build
ings that rose in the boom days had
all been moved away, the line of the
horizon was guarded at regular inter-
walls by the iron hydrants out on the
prairie, that stood like sentinels hem
ming in the past The dying wind
secthed through the short, brown
grass. Heat lightning winked dew
lishly in the distance, and the dissolv-
ng clouds that gathered every after
noon laughed in derisive thunder at
he hopes of the worn old man sitting
IN the warped boards of the hotel
porch. Night after night he sat
here, waiting with his daughter by
lis side. There had been a time
when he was too proud to go to the
Cast, where his name was a byword. ;
Now he was too poor in purse and
pirit. So he sat and waited, hoping !
ondly for the realization of dream {
which he feared could never come {
rue.
There were days when the postmast- {
RS 4-year-old child sat with him. c
he old man and the child sat one
vening when the old man sighed: !
If it would only rain, there would be t
alf a crop yet! If it would only r
ain" The child heard him and sigh v
i imitatively: eyes, if it would only I
ain-what is rain, Mr.. Barringer?" b
e looked at the child blankly and p
1T for long time in silence When a
e arose he did not have even a pre- c,
'nse of hope. He grew respondent "
ON that hour, and sort of hypo- n
londria seized him. 1t was his fan Of
: to exaggerate the phenomena OF il
e drought. e.
That fall when the winds piled the
nd in the railroad "cuts" ard tbs hi
'airie was as hard and barren as the hi
'ound Ground a cabin door. Barrin-
RS daughter died of fever. The old st
an seemed little moved by sorrow. r.
1t as he rode back from the bleak BIT
aveyard, through the sard cloud, gl
the carriage with the dry, rafting tn
oke, he could only mutter to the he
friends who had come st
md we laid her in the hot and dusty III
nb." He recalled an old song da
lich fitted these words, and for days
pit grooming: ooh we laid her in
and dusty tomb"
That winter the postmaster left.
e office discontinued. The county
tried to get Barringer
leave. He could not be persuaded
go. The county commissioners
re not insistent. 1t gave one Of
m an excuse for drawing 81 day
m the county treasury; he rode
m Maize to Aqua Pura every day
h supplies for Barringer.
The old man cooked, ate and slept
the office of the hotel. Day after
: he put on his overcoat in the win
and made the rounds of the va
t store buildings He walked up
down in the little paths through
brown weeds in the deserted
sets, all day long, talking to him.
. AT night, wher the prairie wind
lied through the empty buildings his
wing snow and sand down the his
S, and in little drifts upon the wei