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from his vision those sorrowful, pleading eyes;
but in vain-they refused to be banished.
"Th' kid wants a apple," he thought; "'n'
she'll have it, tew, er I'll eat my old hat.'

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He did not speak all the way to the store, and was the first to enter. Mrs. Hilton was sweeping the floor as the trio walked in and stood She struck awkwardly before the counter. savagely with her broom at a small black dog sleeping under the stove, screaming shrilly: "Tricksy, go to your box!" which Tricksy did without the slightest hesitancy.

"You've got that dog under good control," remarked Tompkins.

"I'd skin him alive if he didn't mind," she said sharply.

"Whar's John?" inquired Hiram.

"Gone up the river, fooling around. Was never known to stay at home about his business.'

Evidently the proprietor's wife was in a disagreeable mood-a frame of mind not uncommon with her and to which the settlers paid little heed.

"I want a few apples," said Tompkins, plunging a brawny hand into the pocket of his corduroys.

"Can't have 'em. Ain't got but half a box left, and want them myself," she snapped, viciously beating the dust from her broom on the edge of the doorstep.

"Only want a few for Pete Sampson's little girl that got burned," resumed the young pioneer, quietly.

"Don't care who they're for. I ain't going to do without apples myself for any Siwash young 'un. Just hate the miserable creatures." Tompkins looked crestfallen.

"But, Mrs. Hilton," he continued, “the child's very badly injured and may not live, and craves apple. I'll pay you double price for them or one, say?"

"I don't care if she does die; then there'll be one less of the dirty tribe. And when apples are as hard to get in here as they now are, and I've only got half a box left and won't sell them to my best friends, it isn't likely I'm going to sell them for Indians to eat-not much," and she flew like mad at Tricksy, who had ventured to leave his box.

At this decided denial, the two young men abruptly left the store, hoping to find an apple among the supplies of some settler farther up the river. Hiram stood reflecting on the conversation that had ensued, now and then send

25

ing a thin stream of tobacco-juice toward the empty wood-box.

"Now, mum, ye surely won't refuse that dyin' kid a apple?" he said.

"Yes I would, too."

The reply came with such suddenness, Hiram was startled. Its quickness may have been prompted by his failure to reach the wood-box, and the several brown streaks on Mrs. Hilton's newly swept floor in consequence.

"Waal, I wouldn't a believed it of ye-I wouldn't thought no human could refuse sech a triflin' thing as a apple to a pore, weak, sufferin' leetle creeter. Why, just think once what if 'twas your own-"

"Thank God, I hain't got any," put in Mrs. Hilton.

"Yes, thank God, ye hain't," returned Hiram thoughtfully; "fer if ye had, I'm feered they'd have a sorry time o't. 'N' ye pertend ter be a Christian, don't ye, Mis' Hilton? Waal, have ye forgot the teachin' o' th' Holy Book? Have ye forgot that Jesus blessed the leetle uns 'n' sez ter his deciplers: 'Ez much ez ye have done it unto one o' these My leetle uns, ye hev done it unter Me'? Now, don't ye s'pose He meant Siwash kids jest ez much ez He did yourn or mine? I 'low He did. Pore young un, layin' down there in that old shack, ain't ter blame fer bein' a Injun. She couldn't help it. When we kin dew a act o' kindness fer th' humblest o' God's creeters, we should orter dew't; we should orter dew unter others ez we'd hev 'em dew to us. I'd give my last apple ter thet leetle gal-don't ye know I would?"

"Why don't you provide for your own family, then, if you are so liberal?" said the woman, sarcastically, "and don't preach to me. Such talk doesn't sound well from you of all others."

"I know I'm pore 'n' hain't got a cent ter my name," replied Mr. Green, feeling his poverty keenly; "but I got a jack-knife ez cost me six bits, 'n' I'll give ye that fer the leetlest apple in the box."

He threw down upon the counter the companion of years. Mrs. Hilton's lip curled scornfully. She turned away without replying.

"Come, mum, ye will sell jest one o' 'em?" persisted Hiram. "Ye'd never miss it, mum, 'n' 'twould dew thet gal a world o' good. Come now, ye shorely won't hev it on yer soul, thet ye refused grub ter a dying child-ye shorely won't say no.'

"I've said no, and I mean it. I guess I can manage my own affairs," she answered, giving the would-be customer a withering glance.

mean

"May God strike me dead if I ever git ez as you!" he cried, fiercely, his voice shaken with emotion and the tears springing to his eyes; 'n' if ye ever have a child, 'n' somethin' orful happens it, may 't please th' Almighty not ter let it suffer for this selfish deed o''ts mother's."

Mrs. Hilton poked the fire vehemently, plunged her hand into the extreme depth of the wood-box as a shade of disappointment swept over her face, then closed the stove door with a bang, muttering something about "no wood," the exact import of which Hiram did not catch. "If yer out o' wood, I'll cut ye some," he said kindly.

"You cut wood!" she ejaculated, looking exceedingly puzzled. In truth, she could not have been more amazed had a tree suddenly fallen on the house.

"Yes, I've cut wood 'fore this, 'n' p'raps fer a apple I'd cut some more.

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Mrs. Hilton thought of her husband far up the river, from whence he was not likely to return before night, of her bread ready to put in the oven, and of the dying fire in the grate. The full realization of her predicament dawned upon her in all its intensity.

"I'd split up that whole pile out yunder," continued Hiram, pointing through the open doorway to a large pile of blocks.

"Well, I guess you can; I must have some wood,' 'she said, hesitatingly.

Hiram's face brightened. He quickly threw off his coat, seized the axe standing in the corner, and went at his task manfully. The afternoon sun, riding above the tops of the stately hemlocks, shone down upon him with considerable warmth; and Mrs. Hilton, observing the beads of perspiration dripping from the end of his nose, felt a keen sense of gratification to know that she was the first person in that section who had induced him to labor energetically. Selecting the smallest apple in the box, she laid it aside to give him when he had completed his job.

The pile of blocks gradually diminished under his steady blows, and at each stroke of the axe the surrounding woods were set to commenting on his unusual performance. A Douglas squirrel, scampering across a log, stopped and regarded the toiler with a look of perplexity in its sharp, little eyes, a blue-jay perched on the topmost branch of an alder praised him for his industry, while a lean, long-nosed Indian dog sat down close by and gazed at him in silent wonder.

The different settlers, on their way to the

grew doubtful as to the infallibility of

their eyesight; and not indeed, until by conver-
sation with the perspiring, hard-working indi-
vidual, were they fully convinced that Hiram
Green and none other stood before them. Could
this be possible? What had happened? Surely
he must have become demented; for when they
asked him "what was up," he deigned no reply,
but, dashing the drops of sweat from his brow,
plied the axe more vigorously. How he did
work! Great blisters rose on his tender palms.
He puffed and wheezed. The sticks of wood
flew right and left. "Gee whiz!" "What's
flew right and left.
struck Green?" "He'll die, sure!" and various
other exclamations of surprise escaped the lips
of the passers-by.

Mrs. Green, seeing the toiling man across the river, remarked the striking resemblance he bore to her absent husband; but, upon maturer reflection, she arrived at the conclusion that the mere fact of his labor decided the question beyond a doubt in the negative.

"There, by jocks, I'm done!" cried Hiram, triumphantly, as the last block fell into pieces. He had been laboring continually for over two hours. His arms ached. He rushed into the store, and, amid a bewildered group of customers, demanded the apple; which being given him, he seized his coat and started hurriedly out, with many curious eyes watching his departing figure. Mrs. Hilton relieved the minds of those present by explaining the cause of Mr. Green's peculiar behaviour.

He would have taken the old canoe, his brother-in-law's property, but, without the assistance of another man, the venture might prove hazardous, therefore he followed the narrow pathway winding along the bank of the river between massive trunks of spruce and hemlock, with salmonberry bushes growing in rank profusion on either side. Leaves crimson and scarlet rustled upon him as he strode, and crackled beneath his feet like sheets of flame. A rabbit, frightened by his approach, went bounding away and hid behind a huckleberry bush, and joyous birds in cool, delightful dells down which he passed showered through the fragrant air, clear drops of melody. His way led over monstrous logs half hidden by the scraggly sallal, glossy with leaves and dark with berries, into deep ravines where the dense foliage held the night in thrall and the deep silence was broken only by the sound of his footsteps, across cold, rippling brooklets singing merrily e'en though their lives are spent in shadow forever away from the sun, and up steep, wooded hillside beneath long, swaying banners of moss (Continued on page 65)

Poems By Allen Crafton

HOME

Is home a spacious monument

Of stone piled high from prosperous years?
Or simple cot, through sorrow's tears
And love grown doubly reverent?
Or is it some bright accident,

A place of laughter chance uprears?
Or yet some ruin time endears
Through memory of a child's content?

Home is reared unseen in the dream of life,
And found in the heart of the smallest flower,
Or the smile of a man, or the challenging power
That leads the spirit and keeps it filled
With the rest of quiet and rush of strife;
Its joys are for him who can quickly build
In desert or mall, at shrine or mart

A transient abode for the growing heart.

DREAM-TRYST

Oh, come to me in dreams!

The wedge of hard, long miles is driven deep Between us; lost, red hours

Have lengthened into redder months of days; And all the ways

Of life are twisted. Yet in fevered sleep

I still may keep my rendezvous with love.
Oh, come to me in dreams!

Meet me above

The torn and graveless dead,

And my weak faith will once again be fed
With visions of the past, with far-off gleams
Of home and peace within a sunrise land.
And in the brief, sweet tryst, 'ere you depart
I shall find strength to stand

Day's iron hammer pounding on my heart.

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By W. T. CLARKE

"If we will take the good we find, asking no questions, we shall have heaping measures.”—Emerson.

UCH has been said, sung and written ex

Mtolling the virtues of early rising. Almost

our first conscious memory of connected words is the venerable nursery jingle: "Early to bed and early to rise makes you healthy, wealthy and wise." From that point on, there seems to be a traditional conspiracy to drive the idea home on the young mind. Middleaged folks constantly present the thought to the youths near and dear to them. Old men tell, with senile pride, how they in their youth continually disturbed chanticleer in his morning nap. The tradition of the unmixed virtue of early rising is an integral part of our folk-lore and as such is blindly, nay reverently, believed in. He who would attempt in any way to belittle this hoary tradition, to lay rough and violent hands on the fondly cherished idea, may expect the fate of the martyrs, may expect to be read out of the pale of right thinkers. His name will become a hissing and a reproach. He will become anathema for has he not cast a black shadow of doubt on one of the beliefs that are a part of our sacred shadow of doubt on one of the beliefs that are a part of our sacred inheritance from antiquity? Yet all such inheritances should be able to withstand the shock of the investigator's probe. If they survive this, then their right to be is established. If they cannot stand the shock then away with them! Let them be cast into the dust-bin of shattered beliefs-let them no longer cumber the fair earth with their gibbering presence. The real, the true will give enough to at least keep the mind busy.

In spite then of the penalty that the iconoclast who lays rough hands on ancient beliefs can expect, I wish to enter a protest against the time hallowed worship of the idea of early rising. Early rising can be defended only if the person practising it has a real reason for his action. Have you some task to perform that can best be accomplished in the early morning hours? Does some real duty demand early attention? Does some recreation demand for its successful outcome that it be done in the hours of early morn? In short, is the enterprise you contemplate one that requires early atten

tion? If a real reason is present then, and then only, is the early rising action justifiable! It was Carlyle, I believe, who somewhere remarks that too frequently the early riser is an abomination to his fellow men. Insufferable during the forenoon because of his conceit. Insufferable during the afternoon because of his sleepy stupidity. Do not join the Carlylian classification!

The insistent tattoo of the alarm clock would not be stilled. It continued as though its one object on earth was to waken the world. Drowsily we pull the bed clothes about our ears hoping to drown the awful sound. Half consciously we assure ourself that soon the din will cease. There it has stopped! But no, it begins again-louder, brassier, more discordant than ever. No use to practice half-way measures, we will have to get up and heave the vile disturber of the calm morning peace out of the cabin door. We arise determined to act firmly in the matter. Then suddenly the consciousness comes that there is an excellent reason why early rising should be practised this morning. There is a fishing trip planned and what better excuse could one have for early rising than this? So we get up half awake, half asleep, and grope our way into our clothes. Gradually the sleep stupor wears away, and then, tackle gathered together, we are ready to start. It is a good hour before sunrise and there is a two-mile walk before us to that part of the stream where we will pit our lures against the trout's uncanny sagacity.

The trail leads dimly, in the half-light of the early morning, through forest and opening, through half marshes and over dry stony places. In the covert of the trees and bushes we can hear the drowsy twittering of the birds. A belated owl occasionally adds his mournful hoot to the early morning sounds. There is a sense of expectancy to be felt as though the world awaited some momentous event, and we feel almost as intruders. This hour really belongs to the wild things who live closer to nature than do we, burdened as we are with our load of conventions. Thoreau remarks that man drags about with him an encumbering load that his civilization prepares for him. Houses, furniture -all the accumulation of material we foolishly consider necessary to our happiness. Cumbered with this load, galled by its chafing weight, we are but illy able to understand the messages

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