The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1931-04-03

(a 1881. Mcclure Newspaper Syndicate.l
(WNU ServiceD
THE grayish little town of Della
lay scattered off both sides of a
railroad track. If you glimpsed
it at all, you caught sight Of it
from the window of your coach be-
cause not more than two or three
trains a day stopped at the small
matched station of Della, with its
small waiting room of pot-bellied
stove, tin water cooler and composite
ggage-and-telegraph agent.
Two thousand souls resided in
Della. One the south side of the
tracks, which was probably the least
desirable from the realty value point
of view, Mr.. and Mrs. Isaiah Moore
conducted a grocery store. 1t was an
old-fashioned green grocer's establish
ment with porch roof, reaching like
an awning over the wooden sidewalk,
supported by wooden props for pillars.
There were three inverted barrels
standing outside the Moore grocery
store for loiterers; probably the only
three such barrels in the state.
Mr.. and Mrs. Moore lived in two
story frame house one block removed
from this place of business. 1t was
typical frame house; six box-like
rooms, no modern improvements.
truck garden in the side yard, picket
fence closing il in from the wooden
sidewalk, pump with a tin dipper
dangling. a woodshed which contained
grocery deliveries, dog house, sum-
mer kitchen and some beautiful old
plane and maple trees.
Mrs. Moore, who divided her days
in the grocery store with her husband,
did not have a great deal of time for
housekeeping; but just the same her
spring crocuses and summer roses and
late dahlias could vie with the best in
Della. So could the primness of the
interior of her little frame house
Spick, span, rigid, filled with the cold
smell of mating, horse-hair covered
furniture and unaired front parlor.
But the Moores had a dream. 1t
had begun back in the days when
young Isaiah Moore, evenings off from
his fathers grocery store. had wooed
the pretty Abby Ross in the stiff front
parlor of her fathers house in Della.
Even back there, Isaiah was full of the
dream Of the ''wide-open spaces" Ev-
cry pre-nuptial plan of theirs, even
that which had to do with the imme-
date reality Of Moore's grocery store
and taking up residence in the little
frame house in which they were to
live for subsequent thirty years. was
tinged with that sunny vision of the
remote 'wide-open spaces"
OF course, the usual happened. Quick
tides of life caught up Abby and
Isaiah and carried them along to a
destiny not planned by themselves. A
year after their marriage, the father
Of Isaiah died, leaving him the some
what doubtful legacy of the debt-en-
numbered grocery store. The next
year, Abby's twins were born, to die
five years later in local epidemic.
II is probable that, more than any,
thing that had ever happened to them,
this unseemly catastrophe frustrat-
ed the ambition of Abby and Isaiah.
or at least inhibited it for the period
of the next five or ten years.
The Moores found themselves
clutched by circumstance, restrained
by routine, saddened by calamity. And
so during the years that this erst-
while vision Of the ''wide-open spaces"
lay fallow, thirty springtimes swung
around into the little garden surround
ing the frame house. Thirty winters,
many Of them bitter and cold. with
thick layers Of snow on the slat roofs
and the runty cornfelds of Della;
thirty autumns that minted into gold
and russell the fine old oak trees and
plane trees and maple trees that lined
the leisurely streets of Della; thirty
summers that warmed Abby's roses in
to life and kept the three barrels in
front of Moore's grocery store crowd
ed with loiterers.
Intense seasons, all of them, filled
with too much rain or too much snow
or too much heat or too much wind.
The hard, chapped face Of Isaiah
Moore, when he came out of the GRO
cry store to survey snow scape, or
to watch the blasting heat dance
across the cornfelds of the outlying
country, automatically, even after
thirty years, turned to the west.
There was something almost fanatical
in his craving for the milder. sun
kissed "open spaces" He yearned for
the relaxation of kindlier climates. for
the gandeur of mountains and the bril-
liant and coy security of the far
famed bungalows of the western coast.
So did Abby. When sleet beat
against the little wooden box of the
house they called home. when icy
ufpdc raorad in tho