Charlevoix county herald., 1914-08-29

"All right" he said, II be good.
But wait till have been back in the
country one year, and if you talk to
me like that I'll lick you!"
1t was in a perfect srring- time
that Tom Drexel, the shaggy sick
lion of the Street, went back to the
soil. The pure, cool breezes, family
scented with the sweetness of a
thousand blossoms, blew upon his
throbbing brow and his pallid cheeks,
and carried their precious cleaning
forces deep through and through his
lungs TO his vitiated blood, send it.
renewed and revivifed, tingling to
his very tips. The healing sun beat
down upon him, crisping his hair
with new life, tinting his pale skin
with its ruddy gold. His worn and
jadded stomach returned gratefully
to homely fare.
He watched bud and leaf and bios
some unfold, and fruit form and
swell and wax ripe; lie watched the
brown fields turn to green, the tall
grain shoot up, and head, and beard.
and wave yellow under the sun: he
delved in the soil witt his own
hands; he planted dark, inert grains
and wondered at the .enal mys-
terry of life that lay concealed within
them; he saw the tender shoots creep
through all their marvellous purity of
olive and emerald; he tended each
growing plant with the reverent care
Ill - IL
acle of its birth and growth and ma
turity, and he ate of his own pro-
vender thus magically evolved out of
tasteless dirt.
He was up each morning with the
rose-tinted dawn; through the sunlit
hours he courted blessed fatigue; the
tender peeping of the birds as they
crept sleepily to their nests at dusk
tourd him, too, heavy-lidded and
he slept as he had not slumbered
since he had been barefoot boy. He
played hockey" moreover. There
were days when he stole away, while
the chill dew still hung ,avy on the
grass, with lunch-pail in hand and
pole swung over shoulder, and fshed
all the long, lazy morning and after
noon in the little brook, which, alone
of all things, had not changed since
it had laved his youthful limbs.
There were other times when he lay
whole hours prone upon his back on
tufted grass beneath waving shade,
gazing into the deep steel blue of
the sky, and like Anraeus of old,
gathering new strength from his
mother earth.
Not one trace of regret or discon-
tent marred his joy in this richness
of life that had come to him. He
was back now to his birthright, and
his long years of tense exile had, he
thankfully pondered, ripened him to
appreciate this vast boon that had
become his
The earth and the fulness thereof!
For pictures he had all the subtle
shadings of Natures palette; the
thousand tints of green in the end
less varieties of verdure, the chang
ing, blue of the sky, the purple and
mauve of the distant tree-clad hills.
the yellow of smooth, dandelion-
studded meadows, the blending
browns of the bare earth, the pinks
and reds and scarlets Of ripening
iiuiSS anu bGIiltS, anu ,It WHOlG H.
otous gamut of color in garden and
wayside flowers. For music he had
the morning song of a myriad birds,
the lowing of kline, the cackling of
fowl, the neighing of horses, the
barking of dogs, the clear calls Of
the workmen in the fields, the rust
ling of leaves, the tinkle of running
water, and, at night, the chirping of
crickets and all that broad, endless
undertone with which natures vast,
brooding silence is so mysteriously
underlaid.
The spring passed its blooming
and the summer its ripening, and the
winter fell. Now there were new
joys of crisping air and cracking
snow and pure white landscape, and
the blood flowed ever richer and still
more rich within his frightened veins.
Again the spring drew on and
the world was born anew. Over once
more was enacted the miracle of bud
and leaf and blossom, and fruit that
formed and swelled and waxed to its
ripeness, and Tom Drexol was a new
man, keen of eye, brown of cheek,
erect of carriage, tense of muscle,
elastic of step, feeling within him a
glorious thrill and ii. Cling. as if he