The Tomahawk. [volume] (White Earth, Becker County, Minn.) 1903-192?, 1917-04-26
his clothes. Well, it was all part

of the queer experience.
",Vhy will you stay stranger to
yourself? Why don't you begin to
know who you are?'
The speakers words arrested his at
tontion. 1t seemed as though she were
talking directly to him.
"sKnow We not We are gOds?' AS
long as you keep on, like the Prodi-
gal, eating husks, you will never know.
Arise and go to your Father. He is
willing to give you all that you can
possibly need or want. But you must
go to him. You must claim your re-
lationship."
Much more she said that seemed to
thrill and light up dark corners in
the mans consciousness. After the
others were nearly all gone he went
up to her. "May L-when you have
more time-speak to you?" he asked.
"Why, yes" she said pleasantly.
"Can YOU come" She was about to
name an hour the next day when some
thing in the mans face arrested her:
Fright now?" she added. But wait!
Have you had any breakfast?"
It was new sensation for him to
| be ashamed to admit Me had not. But
with this woman it must be the truth.
| SO he told her. At once she took him
to the dining room, and asked another
lady to see that he had a lunch, and
then to come to her. After his meal
he was taken to an upper room hand
| pot n
study and library.
"Does it seem sure to you," he
asked, "that what you have said this
morning is true?" l.,
IT am sure" she said. II have proved
it, If I had not wouldn't dare to
speak,"
IT think I am not the same man
was when I came in. It's strange,
YOU know-I don't want to be the
same man."
Then she drew from him something
of his early life. He had left the high
school with great hopes of literary
success. His father had died when he
was a small lad, and his mother could
not afford to send him to college.
Routine work at desk or counter
simply drove him mad. He was born
a dreamer, and he meant to put his
dreams on paper, and live by them.
But the stories and poems he wrote
came back to him. He did not study
the popular taste with practical eye.
He would not make concessions, he
was not pliable to the general. HIS
relatives one and all united in giving
him advice which was to stop fritter-
ing away his time, and go to work.
'In the sweat Of thy face shalt thou
eat bread" But as Ruskin adds: 1t
was not written, "In the breaking OF
thy heart" His mother had encour-
aged him, but when she died, and to
bitter Encouragement was added dire
poverty, one day he tried to END 1t
all. but had been found before life
was quite gone, hurried under arrest
to a hospital, and brought back to
the struggling, unhappy living. he
was hauled up in court, properly pun
ished, and set adrift without kind
word, an offer Of help, or the slight
est inducement to not again try the
experiment with better chances OF
success. She, Mrs. Berlan, the speak
err, did not tell him he was weak and
good for nothing, because he had let
himself become tramp and a dere-
| lict. She told him to wipe the past
| off the slate, and begin then and there
to know himself. She asked him II
| he was willing to work at anything
till he could get his start at his own
work. Yes he was. The next day Mrs
Berlan found him clothes, and a job.
He also did some secretarial work
for her. One Sunday the pretty girl
who played the piano did not appear,
and Mrs. Berlan was troubled that
they were to have no music.
evil you let me try?" Trask
asked.
Mrs. Berlan assented with some
trepidation. Against her own teach
ings, the lurking devilishness in his
eyes made her fearful. But when one
of Mendelssohn's "Songs Without
Words vibrated through the room,
played with fine feeling, she sat back,
closed her eyes, and enjoyed it.
This was the way the pretty girl
and the man became acquainted. She
told him he must write something, and
let her try to sell it. He insisted it
was no use. But something in her
made him do it. She took it to her
brother who was a magazine editor,
and told him he must read it at once.
When she walked into the Office on
schedule time she looked at the ed
itor and said: "Well?"
"Where did you find it?" he asked.
"That isn't to the point. Are you
going to print it and pay for it?' she
demanded.
81 am. And am also going to fall
on your neck for bringing the story.
Why, the man is genius"
ct suppose" she remarked, shat is
why they wouldn't publish his work.
George, I actually feel respect for
| vo,, ~