The Ward County independent. [volume] (Minot, Ward County, N.D.) 1902-1965, 1915-08-19
ON LIES HIGHWAYS
STRANGE MEETINGS THAT FATE
WILL BRING ABOUT.
Graduates Of the Same University, In
Different Circumstances, Communsd
In the Northern Woods-"The
Weary Ways Of Men,"

"A graduate VI q 81c6t uAAVoTUlIy W01
camped one night six years ago in the
woods of northern Michigan. He and
his companions, lying upon q bed OF
spruce boughs, with their feet to the
fre Of blazing pine roots, heard twigs
cracking out in the darkness. They
sat up quickly rs man emerged from
the shadow into the freight, young
man, unshaven, unkempt, battered by
fate, and carrying bundle under his
arm.
The stranger ate and then he sat on
his launches by the fire, with bis
knees in his arms, and smoked and
talked. In pause of the converse.
ton the graduate, looking dreamily
out toward the shadowy forest aisles,
and hardening to the soughing of the
night wind in the pine trees, quoted
this bit from Mathew Arnold's "Dover
Beach,"
The sea of faith
Was once, too at its full, and round
Lay like the folds Of bright girdls
furld
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
OF the night-wind, down the vast edges
drear,
Aud naked shingles Of the world.
There he paused, and Immediately
the stranger took up the quotation and
continued it:
All, love, let us be true
To one another! For the world, which
seems
To lie before US like a land Of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, SO new.
Hath really neither Joy, nor love, nor
light,
Nor gertrude, nor peace, nor help fol
pain;
And we are here as on a darkening plain,
Swept by confused alarms of struggle and
flight
The stranger was q graduate of the
same university. For seven years he
had been drifting, with no definite
aim. but always carrying in his bundle
three books. the "Rubaiyat," Media
tons of Marcus Aurelius' and the
oxford Book of English Verse;"
The stranger took from his bundle
the book of verse, and the other grad.
uate dug out Of his knapsack COPY OF
Matthew Arnold's poems, and there
By tho freight in the forest they sx-
changed books, and sat until morning
talking, and then they ate again and
tho stranger took his bundle under his
arm, and, as they shook hands In part
ing. he quoted T. d. Browns:
10 live within . cav.-it u most good;
But II God makes Z day
And someone come and say: %
10! I have gathered faSgots in IL
Woodr' az
Fen let him stay, 20
And light a nxe. and tan . temporal
30 ait till morning. when the light IL
That he his path may read, rs
Then bid the man God-speed.
His morning is not thine. yet must thou
own
They have a cheerful warmth. those
ashes on the stone!
And so they parted, and each forgot
to ask the others name, and they
never met again.
::
One day last week that same uni
versity graduate, who had been camp
ing in the northern woods, went into
restaurant on Grand avenue in
Kansas City for bite and a sup. It
was a cheap short order" place. The
woman who came to take his order
glanced at a little golden watch key
that hung from his fob and smiled.
When she returned with his ten-cent
plate of beans and coffee she looked
again at the key, which was the in.
sigma of the Phi Beta Kappa honor
fraternity, and said:
EFT tn in Arcadia vixist1?" ('And
you have lived in Arcadia?")
The graduate stared in astonish-
ment, fingered hts fraternity key, and
asked:
"You recognize that"
Il? Certainly. have a key myself.
But keep it in my ROOM"
and how came you here? What's
the story?"
For answer she quoted this line
from Ernest Dawson:
"The weary ways Of men," and went
for another order Of beans.-Kansas
City Star.