The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1916-12-16
MARY ALIENS VOTE
written for The Catholic Bulletin.


Mary Ellen was coming home. The
great loving expectations of her home
town were running out to meet her.
There were also some expectations
behind her watching her future, but
more eager than all, were the happy
far-seeings that gave that little char
acteristic tilt to Mary Ellen's pale
face. 1t expressed usefulness like
that of the upward tilt of cricket's
chirp,-cheerful and yet all a-wish
for something.
Mary Ellen had finished her edu-
cation" which meant, also, that a
great vague yearning had begun in
her soul. She must find some sort
of a vast world-garden in which she
could plant the numerous ambitious
seeds of personal progress and free.
dom she held in her hands. Emer-
son had been her guide throughout
her college course and every bit of
book-lore she had been offered had
it's truth tested by the light of this
fiery apostle of the interior free-will
IIIS VI lIlC SOuls III law o1AC AGAO OSOA
handed over by the freedom of her
little native town in the wild coun-
try Of Lake Superior and the unre-
stricted life of the pine-woods to the
freedom of the soul traced out for
her in the writings of her chosen
philosopher.
She had spent the summer in a
breathless watching over her dear
germ ideas, waiting for what would
spring up and grow. And she found
that, even in the. New England home
of Emerson, she talked a strange
language. So Mary Ellen was COM
ing home to the earlier freedom.
And for very JOY of the old places,
the familiar roads, the jack-pine
country, and the limitless skies, she
cast away the poor little seeds that
held all her high hopes and would.
willingly have let herself be bound
to the heavy ore-ears that lay along
the track. -. &., s ~
The great Open Pit Mine of the
Range stretched out, sunken and
vast before her. Its red soil walls
held in an immense gathering of
machinery and men all engaged in
picking out that rusty underground
floor of the world,-all earth-bound!
On it's deselate banks, a dreary little
mining settlement stood in the clear,
blue sunshine with such an appear
ance of stupid nothing-doing that it
seemed always to be saying, ID How
much better it is to be busy under
ground than buried alive in Gods
pure upper air"
1t was, indeed, a benighted, earth
bound, materially -minded country
Mary Ellen was coming to. The peo-
pie had long ago entered their very
souls into this fiery, rust-colored
metal They were too busy to spread
out their energies and lead the life
of personal liberty and progress.
Their evenings were spent without
the liberal influences of music and
art, and their nights without the stars.
But they were the people for her;
their women knew the freedom Of the
pines along the North Shore, even
though they ignored the freedom of
the ballot.
A great sweep of rude land led up
to the town-metropolis. The fatal
forest fires rolling their fierce waves
down ever its; level surface had SO
scorched it from end to end that its
only living features left were faces of
smooth blank boulders. fingers of gil
gantic charred pines, and the mockfng
purple smile OF. the fire-weed. AS her
train entered. the. little town, the ex-
pectancy of homecoming was all sex-
pressed in Mary E1len's dark eyes.
The girls eyes had always done this
business of expression for her. They
had all degrees of darkness and could
be round and TRANQUILITY happy or |
narrow hateful bitssof CLEANS through
long dashes. Sometimes they pur-
pied with kindness like the eyes of |
her fayorite jersey: joy made golden |
warmth .radiate from theirsde hazel
centers. They stood there the faith