The Madison journal. (Tallulah, Madison Parish, La.) 1888-current, 1920-01-31
Observation-Disclosures SaEzMFaEzEaEag3EaE@
~ GEORGE ACNEW CHAMBERLAIN
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put them to baling and packing. troSl
the reeds along the river he dragged
TO light veritable feet of scowS. They
were appended along the bank, scraped
calked and pitched. one after an
other they were iOated out into waist
hiph water and anchored. The days
we're no longer enough. Every woman
in the camp was set 10 making long.
tightly bound palI> leaf torches and
the pickanins from eight years w
were organized into squads TO light
the night shift through the short hours
of darkness. M'sungo took his sleep,
if he took any, leaning against Il tree
near the nest of hand-presSure baiing
machines.
All hands were kept steadily at work
until it was completed. At its finish,
when all the available material was
stacked along the edge of the forest in
great oblong piles that looked like
newly cut timber, M'sungO gave q
great spread.
To each ten men he allotted tin
of marmalIde; to each twenty box
of crackers. a sack of -four. one load
of salt and demiiOhn of cheap but
sound wine. Andrea watched this
wholesale depletion of the white mans
stores and began to wonder. As she
wondered. her heart went way up and
then way down. Was this the begin
ming of another end? Was she sorry
or was she glad? She looked back on
the few days IF her new life and they
! seemed already 10 have stretched into
years. She was too young or too care
less to have learned that time passes
slowly only to those who are in a rut
of daily routine, dragging tragically
under the blows of sorrow and almost
forgetting itself entirely when joys are
various.
The day came when the last of the
barges, towing little scow stacked
with an overflow remnant bales.
was dispatched and M'sW could
take q long breath and turn his at
teDtion to putting the camp in order.
| This in itself was no small task. All
branches, chips, bark, refuse and other
rubbish consequent upon the work In
the forest was gathered and burned
Then, as squad after squad of labor
ers left for home and the planting
their grass huts, scattered without the
limits OF the permanent craal, were
also set on fire.
within a week of the first rains,
said Msungo to listless Andrea, 1.-THE
wilderness will have returned alto
gether to its own to all outward ap
pearance. Three weeks after that
anyone penetrating to the clearing We
have made will find nothing beyond
flourishing shamba or corn patch, thu
very natural property of the craal."
On q night of downpour Andrea sa
In her roOm hands crossed upon dis
carded book in her lap and eyes wide
ly fixed on some point of focus far be
yond the encircling walls of her hut
She was frightened, for her soul hat
come to talk with her and there wa
no escape. She could not phone vi
taxi and a party of four and go t
a show and supper afterward, thu
losing the universal guest.
With a childish gesture of despair
, she cYept into bed, curled up with he
face against the pillow and wept. TIT
more she cried, the more it aimed
O the more IL rained, the more she cried
There was no end to that--no end-n'
- Sleep did its best to take and holt
her but tonight its grip was uncertain
and long before morning it saw defea
: coming and made a dastardly retreat.
s Andrea awoke, not slowly, not swim
V ming up 10 consciousness throug
d drowsy gradatiOns, but suddenly wit
$ swapping of eyes wide open on
It great emptiness. She was alone, te
e ribly alone, and hopelessly awake. Sll
lay staring up at the uncheerful lai
n tern that she had purposely left burr
e. ing. Its chimney was smoked. Gu