The daily morning oasis., 1918-01-13

lowed storm, bursting through the noun
tain-notch and sweeping the river into
the meadows, where the haycocks were
already afloat, and the gaunt mountain
cattle floundered believing.
The stage from White Lake arrived at
noon with the mail, and the driver walked
into the post-office and slammed the
soaking mail-sack on the floor.
'Gracious!" said the little post-mistress.
eyes m" said the stage-driver, irrel-
evantly; "them letters is wetter an Pm
madder'n a swimmin' shanghai! Upset.?
Yes min Snow Brook. Roads awash,
meadders is flooded, an the waters "a
swashin' an a-sloshin' in them there
galoshes" He waved one foot about
carelessly, scattering muddy spray, then
balanced himself alternately on heels
and toes to hear the water wheeze in his
drenched boots.
"There must be a hole in the mail
pouch" said the postmlstress, IN gentle
distress
There certainly was. The letters were
soaked; the wrappers on newspaper and
parcel had become detached the interior
of the governments mail-pouch resembled
the preliminary stages of paper-pulp
vat. But the postmistress worked so
o'clock she had sorted and placed in sepa-
rate numbered boxes every letter, news
paper, and parcel-save one.
That one was letter directed to
"James Helm, Esq
"Nauuoo, via White Lake."
and it was so wet and the gum that sealed
it was so nearly dissolved that the post
mistress decided to place it between
blotters pile two volumes of government
agricultural reports on it, and leave 1t
until dry.
One by one the population of Nauvoo
came dripping into the post-office for the
mail, then stopped out into the storm
again, umbrellas couched in the teeth OF
the wind But James Helm did not come
for his letter.
The postmistress sat alone in her office
and looked out into her garden. 1t was
a very wet garden; the hollyhocks still
raised their flowered spikes in the air;
the nasturtiums, the verbenas and the
pansies were beaten down and lying prone
in muddy puddles. She wondered wheth-
er they would ever raise their heads again
those delicate flower-faces that she
knew so well, her only friends in Nauvoo.
Through the long drought she had
tended them, ministering to their thirst,
protecting them from their enemies the
weeds, and from the great, fuzzy, brown
and-yellow caterpillars that travelled
over the fences, guided by instinct and a
raging appetite. Now each frail flower
had laid it's slender length along the earth,
and the little postmistress watched them
wistfully from her rain-stained window.
She had expected to part with her
flowers; she was going away forever in a
few -somewhere-she was not yet
quite certain where. But now that her
flowers lay prone, bruised and broken,
,the idea of leaving them behind her dis
tressed her sorely.
She picked up her crutch and walked to
the door. 1t was no use, the rain warned
her back. She sat down again by the win
dow to watch her wounded flowers.
There was something else that distressed
her, too, although the paradox of parting
from a person she had never met ought to
have appealed to her sense Of humor.
But she did not think of that; never,
since she had been postmistress in Nauvoo,
had she spoken one word to James Helm,
nor had he ever spoken to her. He
had key to his letter-box; he always
came towards evening
1t was exactly year ago today that
Helm came to Nauvoo-a silent, pallld