Part 9

He sent his present by mail, for Mary’s parents were trying to break up the youthful flirtation, and had forbidden her to encourage the young man any longer. He sat away back in the school room on the commencement night, but not too far back to notice the fact that she was not wearing the pin he gave her as a graduation present. No, but at her throat she wore the gold pin Oliver Birdsall had given her. He knew the pin because he saw young Birdsall buy it. This young man was the son of wealthy parents, and would be very acceptable to Mary’s parents. Lyndal saw his rival throw a bouquet of carnations at the feet of Mary at the conclusion of her address. She picked it up and smiled her thanks back to Oliver, and Lyndal read his fate in that smile—Mary Mackey was forever out of his reach.

Oh, the agony of the moments that followed that revelation. Had Mary ever dreamed of the sorrow she was creating for the poor boy when she led him on, would she have done so?

Playing with human hearts is a very dangerous game, yet some heartless, thoughtless people take great delight in love conquests. They find a morbid pleasure in the pain suffered by others. To have some one plainly longing to possess them, satisfies their vanity. Youth is cruel and heartless. To feel that hearts are aching for their smiles is food for their ambition. They want to be heart breakers and the destroyers of peace. The triumphant look Mary glanced at Lyndal as she passed out of the school room on Birdsall’s arm, brought comfort to her giddy soul.

Did she ever regret it? It is hard to tell. Some people love notoriety and to have some one die for them is the climax to earthly triumph. I have often tried to picture in my mind the feelings of poor crippled Lyndal Mason as he walked home through the darkness of the night, with a denser darkness falling like a pall of gloom all around his throbbing heart.

In the morning he did not come downstairs at the usual hour, and when his mother went to his room, she noticed a peculiar odor of laudanum on the air. With a wail of injured mother love she fell upon his stiffened form and kissed his white face in a frenzy of despair. Could Mary Mackey have seen this sad picture, would she have been sorry? I do not know. They say she looked stunned when presented with the message written by Lyndal on that fatal night. It was written with an unsteady hand, and said: “Good-bye Mary—your plaything is at rest.”

TRUE FRIENDSHIP

True friendship never changes, never grows weary of serving, never dies. I have in my mind two men I once knew in Colorado, Barney Kennedy and Fred Gordon—“Little Fred Gordon.” Kennedy was a big, robust son of the Emerald Isle, standing six feet in his shoes, and strong as an ox; Gordon a puny little fellow, born in Iowa, and weighing scarcely 140 pounds. I expected everything of Kennedy, but Gordon was only a little, common place man who would not attract attention.

When the gold excitement in Alaska was raging in 1897 these two men left home together, for they had been both friends and companions for many long years, and struck out for the promised land in hopes of finding the delusive metal. But hunting gold in Alaska is full of danger, privations and hardships, and before the first year had passed away these two friends found themselves 200 miles from a doctor, and Kennedy dying of scurvy. The giant was helpless, and dependent on his little friend. Gordon tried to get some one to assist him in taking his sick friend back to Skagway, but these men had come out to dig for gold, and had no time to waste on dying men who were strangers to them.

But Gordon’s friendship was of the true sort—the kind that never fails, and only dies with the possessor. He started out alone to drag his friend 200 long, weary, horrible, soul-depressing miles through the trackless snow to a physician.

Think of such an undertaking, for friendship’s sake—to drag a 200-pound man on a sledge, with provisions enough to feed them for fifteen days.

Kennedy was unable to stand alone, and was awed by his comrade’s bravery and daring courage. Could he succeed? The sick man was frightened at the gloomy prospect. Two hundred miles over the virgin snow, and dragging three times his weight on a clumsy sled. All day trudging along, and at night camping on the dreary waste of unfriendly ice and snow. How far it seemed back to civilization and a warm room. How cold the moon and the stars appeared away up in the blue sky. God was supposed to be up there, too, but he seemed to be farther away than the remotest star on these lonely nights. But the undaunted Gordon refused to give up. His optimism never failed. He must reach civilization and a physician, for Kennedy’s sake.

One hundred miles are successfully, though painfully trudged over; then twenty added—140 traversed, when one night Gordon camped to await the morning. Weary and worn out with many days of exertion, he slept soundly, dreaming of home and friends, wife and children. When he awoke the stillness of the frozen north seemed more depressing than ever before. There were many weary miles to travel yet; but he got up with resolutions as strong as ever. He prepared the morning meal before he attempted to wake Kennedy. But Kennedy would never awaken again.

Gordon was shocked and heart-broken on making the awful discovery. His big-hearted Irish friend was beyond the aid of an earthly physician.

Perhaps it was the loneliness and the utter helplessness of the big man that took away his courage and caused him to give up and die; for he had seemed very much depressed before Gordon went to sleep that night.

But Gordon’s friendship did not die, and for four wearisome days he tugged at the sledge dragging the dead body of his friend over the crunching snow, too true a friend to desert an old companion even after death had robbed the body of all that was loving and lovable, and the generous Irish heart was silenced forever.

Who but Gordon could picture those last days and lonely nights, when he labored so hard at his task, and camped alone on the dreary snow at the side of his friend. He must sleep close to the body at night to prevent the hungry wolves from devouring all that was left of his friend.

Alone with the dead and the awful dreariness and bitter cold, and the realization that the trip had been a failure. Friendship had done all that friend could do for the living, and all that friend could do for the dead. The town was reached and Kennedy given decent burial, and Gordon returned to the States.

Little Fred Gordon. To look at him one would never dream of such friendship and courage. When I knew him he was keeping a feed store at the corner of Fifth and Main streets, Grand Junction, Colorado, with no thought of that awful experience in the land of delusive gold.

SIGHING OF THE PINES

To me there is something fascinating about an old deserted house standing near a lonely country road. The sashless windows and open doorways always remind me of some strange animal gasping in the agonies of death. And I fall to wondering whether the people were happy who once occupied the home when it was new. What were their hopes and ambitions? Did they love some one, and were they loved in return? Did children once play around that damaged door and look out through those windows and long to go out in the world and accomplish great things?

A few Sundays ago I rode out over the country roads near my home, and finally came to a road on which I had never traveled before. It led down a valley that extended to the creek a few miles below. We drove down this road after inquiring and learning that it connected with the creek road. We knew our bearings when safely on the creek highway. We had not driven a mile before we came to the ideal fascinating deserted house. All around it rank weeds and briars were growing. The one door facing the road was very low, and on closer examination we discovered that two of the lower logs had rotted away, allowing the house to settle down two feet or more. The windows were small and warped out of shape, and not a single sash in place. The mortar and packing were gone from the crevices between the logs, and the old stone chimney was ragged and battered at the top.

But the wonder was that the shingles were in pretty good condition. They had been hewn from the virgin pine and shaved by the man who built the house some eighty years ago.

It was a story-and-a-half house, the upper half-story consisting of the garret only. The upper floor was missing and one could see to the rafters when looking in the open door.

While we were sitting in the buggy and looking with a peculiar awe upon the old home, an old man came along and we asked him who had built the house. He stopped and walked over to the fence, put one foot on the second rail to rest his leg, and pointing to the old ruins with his crooked cane, said:

“This is the Fred Beaver home. He came here from Germany in 1824, and settled on this piece of land. He had only been married six weeks before he sailed for the new world. He had barely enough money to bring him and his young wife to America. He had a cousin living near here at the time, and that is how he came to locate here in the woods. His wife was never contented, but kept longing and longing for the dear old home across the sea. They were very poor, so my father told me, often not having enough to eat, and this made life still more dreary for the homesick wife.

“At the end of five years, they had two children—Frederick and Elizabeth—Elizabeth is still living down in the town, a very old woman. After the children were born, Mrs. Beaver realized that she could never go back to her home across the sea. She would never have the money to pay her passage. She felt like a caged lion pining behind iron bars. Before the babies came she hoped to save money enough to go back and take her husband along—providing he would go. If not, she would go alone. He was a hunchback and not really kind to her, though he loved her after the manner of a wild animal loving its mate.

“One day Beaver came home and found the children crying with hunger. They were only four and two years old. The boy could talk enough to inform his father that his mother had gone up to the loft and would not come down. The man climbed up the ladder and was horrified to find his wife hanging to a rafter—dead. She had taken the rope out of the bed to hang herself with. Her longing and longing for the home across the sea had ceased forever. If you will come to the door I can show you the rafter on which she was hanging. No? Don’t care to?

“Yes, the father lived right here with the children after that. He got a house keeper from somewhere in the neighborhood. He was young and the love of life was still in his soul, but he never married another woman. Years afterward the children would find him sitting under the rafter on which his wife died, weeping like a child.

“Yes, the son, young Fred, built the new house over yonder, after he got married, and took his father there to live. But the old man would come back daily and sit in the open door and sing the German hymn that was the favorite with his wife when they were courting across the sea.

“Yes, they say the house is haunted, since the old man died. People passing on moonlight nights insist that they see Beaver and his wife sitting in the open door, and hear a low crooning song. Me? Oh, I think the noise is the sighing of the pines over yonder.”

THE HOME-SICK HORSES

“Do horses think?” asked a lady of my acquaintance, and I hastened to assure her that they did. I told her of the horse my boy drives every Saturday evening to sell newspapers to the farmers near our home. Just so soon as the horse sees that the boy is delivering papers he turns into the gate of every regular customer and stops. If strangers get into the buggy old “Vinci” turns his head to see who it is and what they look like.

“Yes,” replied the woman, “and they have melancholy thoughts, and become home-sick, like human beings, too. The saddest thing I recall from my farm life happened when I was a girl of twelve years. We had a little team of bay horses named Colonel and Rock. When they were seven years old father sold them to a man who lived away back on the mountains. I cried when the man drove them away—cried because I hated to part with them, and because the poor horses did not realize that they were sold and were being driven away, never to return to the old barn and eat from the old manger. And every time I met the horses on the road I noticed how lean they were getting, and how melancholy and dejected they appeared. I could see sorrow written all over their faces.

“I used to lie in bed and think of the long weary trips they were obliged to make out over the rough mountain roads, and always pictured them leaning in their collars and drawing the heavy load to their new home. I don’t believe they were ever satisfied and contented with their new master, but always dreamed of returning to the old home some glad day.

“Two years after they were sold they were turned out into the pasture field for the night. Somehow I went to sleep thinking of Colonel and Rock that same night. Were they thinking of me? Some believe in the transmission of thought waves, and if this is true, why not the transmission of animal thoughts, as well as human thoughts that go out unspoken to distant friends?

“At midnight a storm came up and the fence surrounding the pasture field was blown down in several places. After the storm was over both horses found a broken panel in the fence and walked out of the inclosure. It was ten miles back to their old home. I can see them look a ray of intelligence into each other’s eyes, and then mutually start southward over the lonely mountain road. They could hear the sound of the locomotive whistle coming out through the night air, and they knew that near the old barn there was a railroad track where these iron monsters passed many times every day.

“And I was at home dreaming of just such a trip as they were making, only I dreamed that I was with them and talking to them and telling them how much I missed them since they were taken away.

“Early in the morning I awoke from my dreams and rushed to the back window and looked toward the barn. ‘Mother!’ I shouted, ‘out yonder at the barn stand dear old Colonel and Rock! They have come back home!’ She came to the window and looked and gave a glad shout of surprise, for she, too, felt sorry ever since the horses were driven away. How glad I was to see them! but how my heart smote me when I saw how lean and dejected they looked. I would put on my clothes and go out to feed them out of their old manger.

“But while I looked a man came dashing up on a big black horse. It was the owner of Colonel and Rock. He had gone out early in the morning and saw that the horses were gone. He found the place where they left the field and saw that their tracks turned toward the river. Did he, too, realize that Rock and Colonel were never satisfied, and were always longing for the old home?

“Mother went out and begged that the horses might be fed in their old stalls before taken away, but the man was angry, and cursed Rock and Colonel, and jerked at their bridles viciously and cut them severely with a wicked whip as he lashed them into a trot and started back over the old home-sick mountain road. At the bend of the road both horses turned and looked back longingly, and I burst into bitter tears.”

THE BLIND CIGARMAKER

Riding into the city one day on the overland stage I looked far ahead and there I saw a man coming down the middle the road. The highway was ankle deep with dust, and I surely thought the man was drunk. I remarked to the stage driver: “There comes a blind man;” and then I laughed, for I still thought the man was intoxicated.

As we drew near I could see the man feeling his way with a heavy cane. He was blind, and I had laughed at his blindness! But, as God is my judge, I did not know it until after we drew so near to him that I could see his cane.

The blind man heard the stage approach and stepped to the side of the road for us to pass. And then I recognized the poor fellow—it was Peter Paul. I knew him thirty years ago, when his diminishing eyesight warned him that total blindness was near at hand.

Mentally Peter is far below the average, but he realizes that society owed him sufficient brotherly love to make an attempt to save him from the awful calamity of total blindness. He was a poor cigarmaker, and barely earned a livelihood. He had no money to pay for treatment that would help his poor eyes.

Think of it, in a land of Christian civilization a man is left to walk in literal darkness right at our door, while zealous men and women send thousands of dollars to so-called heathen lands, to save the people there from so-called mental blindness. Justice and common sense should teach us to save the literally blind man at our door first, and then go out to enlighten the blinded mental eyes of the heathen. Charity begins at home: if charity jumps over human suffering at home, and goes far abroad to do spectacular work in the name of religion, both charity and religion are misplaced.

I spoke to the blind man as the stage passed, and the response came so very promptly that any one could see how gladly he received the greetings of a human voice. And then came the words that showed so plainly that the blind always feel a sense of danger when walking alone: “Am I near the river bridge?” I told him how far it was to the bridge as the stage whirled by, and then I turned and watched the poor fellow feeling his way down the dusty road.

He carried a big box strapped to his shoulders in which he took cigars to the town to sell, or trade for goods. He long ago married a widow who lived in a village twenty miles north of the city, where he had been born and reared. He still manufactured a poor variety of domestic cigars, and when a stock accumulated beyond the local trade he would load a dozen boxes on his back and start for the city, stopping to peddle his goods in every little hamlet along the road.

Many good people ridiculed the idea of Peter Paul enjoying the society of a wife. They thought it an extravagant idea. He should be denied all this, because of his calamity. Men who value woman’s love next to nothing, simply laughed at Peter. He could get along so easily without such a luxury. But I tell you, dear reader, the man who puts no value on woman’s love has more of the animal in him than true manhood. He makes the poorest citizen of all men. And Peter Paul, though stone blind, has as much right to value woman’s love as any other living man. His world is dark enough, God knows, without denying him the one ray of light and happiness that falls across his midnight road.

Perhaps the stage driver wondered why I was so silent during the rest of the ride into town, but I could not erase blind Peter Paul from my mind. Not only Peter, but in the city he had a brother and sister who were blind. These two lived and kept house, being assisted by good neighbors to obtain the necessaries of life. They inherited weak eyes from their maternal parent, and through poverty and neglect they were allowed to drift into absolute blindness without a single effort on the part of society to save them from the awful calamity.

Seems to me that whatever knowledge science has gained in the treatment of human eyes should be a free gift to humanity. If ever a public fund was needed to save the unfortunate from such a calamity of darkness, surely the treatment of the eyes should be as free as the salvation of Jesus Christ.

I shut my eyes and see poor old Peter feeling his way down the dusty road, with a big box strapped to his back, and I can not help but believe that God is holding society guilty of brutal neglect. Seems to me that when blind Peter Paul goes feeling his way to the gates of heaven many of his sins will be taken from his back and charged up to society.

THE THREE CLASSES

Montgomery Quiggle once said: “The world’s population is divided into three classes—those who have forged ahead of accepted theories, those who have only reached the level of accepted theories, and those who are slowly trudging along behind the march of progress without any theories at all. And the strange thing of it all is, the middle class rule, instead of those in advance.”

In fact, those in advance are punished for their advanced ideas, are ostracised, maligned, mobbed and often imprisoned at the dictates of the middle class, while the rear class of mere thoughtless plodders cheer the proceedings when an advanced thinker is thus caught and punished.

It has always been thus. Galileo was an early victim, so was Bruno, Savanarola, and a thousand other bright mental lights who threw beams of illumination far in advance of the thick-headed middle class. The thinker has always been a martyr to truth and justice. The man who would remove the mental fetters that chain the human mind, has always been treated as a heretic and traitor to good government and morality.

And the mobs that are chained to the old fogyism are always ready to crucify the thinker who would dare devise means of setting them at liberty.