The Kadoka press and Kadoka reporter. [volume] (Kadoka, S.D.) 1910-1923, 1918-05-03

| days might come 10 HeF IHeTe dlOne.
She would gladly have cooked her
supper in the kitchen fireplace, and
laid down to sleep under her own roof.
II seemed the natural thing to do. But
she had not expected to find the cabin
livably arranged, and she had prom
sed the Lauers TO spend the night
with them. SO presently she closed the
door and walked away through the
woods.
September and October trooped
past, and as they marched the willow
thickets and poplar groves grew yel-
low and brown and carpeted the floor
Of the woods with fallen leaves. Shrub
and tree barred gaunt limbs To every
autumn wind. only the spruce and
pine stood forth in their ycar-round
habilimcnts of green. The days short
oned steadily. The nights grew long,
and bitter with frost. Snow fell, blank
citing softly the dead leaves. Old Win
ter cracked his whip maSterfully over
all the North.
Day by day, between tasks, and
often while she worked, HazerS eyes
would lingcr on the edges of the clear
ing. Often at night she would lift her
self on elbow at some unexpected
sound, her heart leGping wild with eX-
pectation. And always she would lie
down again, and sometimes press her
| clenched hand TO her lips to keep back
the despairing cry. Always she adj
iured herself to be patient, to wait
doggedly as Bill would have waited, to
make due allowance for immensity of
distance, for the manifold delays which
might overtake messenger faring
across those silent miles or Il man hur-
rying TO his home. Many things might
hold him back. But he would come.
1t was inconceivable that he might
not come.
Meantime, with only a dim con-
sciousness of the fact, she underwent
marvellous schooling in adaptation.
self-restraint. She had work of sort,
tasks such as every housewife finds
self-impoSed in her own home. She
was seldom lonely. She marveled at
that. II was unique in her expert
ence. All her old dread of the pro-
found silence, the pathless forests
which infolded like prison wall, dis
tances which seemed impossible of
span, had vanished. In its place had
fallen over her an abiding sense of
peace, of security. The luSty storm
winds whistling about the cabin sang
restful lullaby. When the wolves
lifted their weird, melancholy plaint
to the cold, r-jeweled skies, she lis
tened without the old shudder. These
things, which were wont TO oppress
her, to send her imagination reeling
along morbid ways. seemed but ma
tural aspect of life, of which she her
self was a part.
Often, sitting before her glowing
! fireplace, watching flame kindled
with her own hands with wood she
herself carried from the pile outside
she pondered this. 1t defied her pow
ers of self-analysis. She could only
) accept it as fact, and be glad. Gran
Vile and all that Granville stood for
had Withdrawn TO more or less re-
mote background. She could look over
the frost-spangled forests and fee
that she lacked nothing-nothing save
, her mate. There was no impression OF
transient abiding; no chatting to be
! elsewhere, to do otherwise. 1t was
home, she reflected; perhaps that was
why.
eli n
days. She kept her house shining, she
cooked her food, carried in her fuel
; Except on days of fortnight storm
, she put on her snowshoes, and will
little rifle in the crook of her arm
prowled at random through the wood:
partly because it gave her pleasur,
to range sturdily afield, partly for thu
physical brace of exertion In the crisI
,ir. Otherwise she curled comfortabl!
before the fireplace and sewed. or reat
something out of Bills catholic as
sortment of books.
II was given her, also, to learn th'
true meaning of neighborliness, tina
kindliness of spirit which Is stifled b,
stress In the crowded places, and stlm
| uidteu Dv ike stress dIlllu SurTOuuu
ings where life is noncomplex. direct
where cause and effect tread on eacl
others heels. Every day, If she faile'
to drop into their cabin, came one o
her neighbors to see If all were wei
with her.
Quite as a matter of course Jak
kept steadily replenished for her
great pile Of firewood. Or they woul
come, babies and all, bundled in fur
of Jake's trapping. jingling up Of a
evening behind the frisky bays. An
while the bays munched hay In Roar
ing Bill Wagstaff's stable, they woul
cluster about the open hearth, pOppin
q corn for the children. talking. alway
e with cheerful optimism.
- Behind Lauer's mild blue eyes lurl
% ed mind that burrowed incessantl
e to the roots of things. He had live
a and worked and read. and, ponderin
1t all. he had summed up few Of tn
verities.
life, It iss giffen US. und We mu.
OF 1t make der best We can," he sal
once to Hazel. fondling a few booi
q he had borrowed to read at hom
IN Life iss goot yust der lifting of life.
Z. only We 60 not astray alder der VOC
ne ish dings-und IL der self.breservatlo