Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1918-07-04

| to carry her through whatever black
days might come to her there alone.
She would gladly have cooked her
supper in the kitchen fireplace, and
laid down to sleep under her own roof.
1t seemed the natural thing to do. But
she had not expected to find the cabin
livably arranged, and she had prom
ised 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 yell
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 year-round
habiliments of green. The days short
ened 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, Hazels eyes
ing. Often at night she would lift her
self on elbow at some unexpected
sound, her heart leaping 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
jured herself to be patient, to wait
doggedly as Bill would have waited, to
make due allowance for immensely of
distance, for the manifold delays which
might overtake a messenger faring
across those silent miles or a 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-
seriousness of the fact, she underwent
a marvellous schooling in adaptation,
self-restraint. She had work of a sort,
tasks such as every housewife finds
self-imposed in her own home. She
was seldom lonely. She marveled at
that. 1t was unique in her expert
ence. All her old dread of the pro-
found silence, the painless 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 plant
to the cold, star-jeweled skies, she lis
tened without the old Shudder. These
things, which were wont to Cypress
her, to send her imagination Keeling
along morbid ways, seemed but ma
81 Of ia1, rI, hor.-
self was part.
Often, sitting before her glowing
fireplace. watching a 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 a fact, and be glad. Gran
vile and all that Granville stood for
had withdrawn to a more or less re-
mote background. She could look over
the frost-spangled forests and feel
that she lacked Notwithstanding 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.
A simple routine served to fill her
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 with
a little rifle in the crook of her arm
prowled at random through the woods
partly because it gave her pleasure
to range sturdily afield, partly for the
physical brace of exertion in the crisp
air. Otherwise she curled comfortably
before the fireplace and sewed, or read
something out of Bills catholic as
sortment of books.
1t was given her, also, to learn the
| true meaning of neighborliness, that
kindness of spirit which is stified by
stress in the crowded places, and slim
| ulated by like stress amid surround
ings where life is noncomplex, direct,
where cause and effect tread on each
others heels. Every day, if she failed
| to drop into their cabin, came one of
her neighbors to see if all were well
with her.
Quite as matter of course Jake
kept steadily replenished for her a
great pile of frewood. Or they would
come. babies and all, bundled in furs
OF Jake's trapping. jingling up OF an
evening behind the frisky bays. And
while the bays munched hay in Roar
ing Bill Wagstafrs stable, they would
cluster about the open hearth, popping
| corn for the children. talking, always
with cheerful optimism.
| Behind Lauer's mild blue eyes Turk
ed q mind that burroWed necessarily