White Bluffs spokesman. [volume] (White Bluffs, Wash.) 1907-1938, 1936-12-17
Patterns Of Wolfpen
By HARLAN HATCHER
Copyrigh the IBIS MerriIC Co Service
CHAPTER xIIl-continued

1ts
thia went to the upstairs window
from which she could see over the
barn and orchard to the path
through the Long Bottom. and as
the Finemare and the mule passed
swiftly through the meadow and
out of sight, she put her hands on
the window-sill and bowed her head
upon them and wept silently in her
loneliness. !
Mother died in the month of Sep
TENDER; last month, and it might
have been all the time there ever
was. And now Jesse away for the.
winter to study the law. And Reu-
ben has not come back. The end of
july it was, another lifetime. Tt
may be September, and it may be
spring. - But it is late October,
Mother is dead, Jesse is gone away,
Reuben has not come back. It is
not Wolfpen any more, for Wolfpen
is good place and this is a place
Of sorrow and loneliness. In the
space of one summer. If Reuben
would come. Reuben, September is
here and past and taken with it
my mother, and you do not come.
And your two letters -" She went
to the bureau drawer in her room
and took them again, knowing full
well each word in the thin precise
writing with the perfection Of print.
g. and my father has accepted
the office Of surveyor for the East
ern Iron Works and am to do
most of the field work. The COM
pany has bought several thousand
acres Of land around here because
of the ore pockets and the char
coal timber. am beginning the sur
veys this week and will be in the
field most of the autumn but it will
not stand in the way of my coming
to Wolfpen as soon as can. !. ="
i The other one she knew so we'll
that she merely held it in her hands
while she saw the carefully built
sentences march through her mind.
g. I have been in the hills west
of the river for two weeks and just
came in this Saturday and my moth
er gave me your letter. I am sorry
and I had to read several times be-
fore / could take in what it was
saying. ! liked her so very much.
"She was so quiet and kind and
e. ~ i,o
house that her life was self-con-
tanned and in order like her fine
garden and her quilts. can hard
ly think of Wolfpen nor Of you or
your father without your mother.
1t must be very hard for you. None
of my family has ever died, but
remember how I liked your way of
thinking Of your people in the
graveyard on the Shelf. hope that
in your grief now you can think of
your mother in the same way. /
wish / had known so could have
come. I don't know just when that
will be now, but it will be . !"
She thought it was good letter.
1t was like something written in
a book, but it was Reuben. The
person who wrote was always diff
erent from the person who spoke
to you, and you must grow used to
the difference until you can see the
same person in both. The morning
was gone. and she realized with
surprise that her reluctance to see
Jesse go away for the winter and
her tears for her mother were not
separable from her secret thoughts
of Reuben and that in the end they
had been curiously submerged and
forgotten in him.
In the afternoon Doug came up
the hollow. He looked discouraged.
His eyes were heavy and his mouth
had the pulled appearance Of one
who had made hopes too confidently
and had suffered by their defeat.
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