LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume II, Issue 177, 2 January 1875, Page 3

LITERATURE.

ACROSS THE PLAINS. A TRUE NARRATIVE. We had been out three days and three nights, each day, each night, dragging its long, slow, heavy hours over us, with the same grey, hopeless blank of sky overhead, and the same wearisome reach of sandy plain underneath. A dreary, fixed, eternal monotony of landscape, that had some awful power in it—something worse than any fierce wrath and raging of storm, as its spirit entered into and took possession of the soul. There was a damp, still cold in the air that pierced your very marrow, chilling and numbing all the life that it touched, just as the scene outside chilled one's thought and feeling. And yet I kneAV that beyond the horizon, which shut us down with its grey gloom, with its awful chill and torpor, there was strong, bounding, joyous life, and warmth, and love. It seemed ages since we had entered that death in life: but in another day, as the driver said, we should "strike civilisation." How every sense ached and hungered for a sight of the little, long, low habitation where we were to take our first real meal after leaving the mining regions ! —and, yet, how my eyes sickened at the sight of the gloomy adobe-houses, where we paused occasionally to take a hasty lunch and change the tired mules in the old stage ! Then, the meal over, back again into the coach—or waggon, as you may please to call it— and we went plunging on, on, towards the dear old East—towards the warmth, and light, and bustle—towards the great cities, with all their throb and burden of life—towards the pleasant old towns that dream along the railroads—towards the familiar faces, and voices, and ways —and oh, heart of mine, towards home! It was in the opening o£ December, but the roads were unusually good for the season; although that dead grey sky, with some dreary pathos in it that reminded me of human faces I had seen, out of which all the spring and hope of life had vanished —that dead grey sky had grown a little darker and heavier each day. Still we hoped that the snow would not fall before we got beyond those wide, treeless plains of Western Kansas, and beheld signs of human life and cultivation, for which one pair of eyes at least were famishing—famishing. My companions, three in all, were from Denver city ; they had been, like myself, delving among the mines there, and the marks of toil, hardship, exposure of every sort, lay on each of us. I was, by half a score of years, the youngest of the party. My travelling companions were men with heavy, stolid, lymphatic forms and faces, but not without occasional gleams of kindly humour and generous nature breaking through all their grumbling, and dozing and general sense of weariness and discomfort. But though we were shut up together in that old stage and from all the world ; isolated on those vast, dreary plains of Western Kansas, there was a vast distance between these men and me. Each one had made his "pile," and was going home to the States to share it with wife or child, or relative ; but none of felt the hot, fierce impatience —the wild, sick, unutterable longing —which held possession of me through those days and nights. For two years I had kept it in check with strong will and iron purpose, but now the fire burned and the thirst consumed me. And still the mules dragged, and toiled, and panted over desert plains ; but their faces were set—oh, how I blessed God in my heart—their faces were set to the eastward. Mother and little Flossie ! What were they doing that night, I wondered, in that little bit of a brown nest of a cottage in that old fanning district on the Massachusetts Bay, not many miles from Boston ? That low, century-old homestead with its gambrel roof was the best we could afford after father died, and we were thankful enough to be able to keep up that. At the time my father died I was a schoolboy. And there was nothing for it but to send for me home that 1 might take take up the helm on the farm which my father's hand had dropped. They were struggling years that followed ; struggling for food and raiment and shelter. Expenses swallowed lip everything : 1 was inexperienced in regard to the land. Mother was broken down; and Flossie, my one little sister, with the lights and shadows in the fine gold hair that gave her her household name Flossie, with her sparkling ey»a and her little peach-.blossom

of a face; the soft, bright dimpled little thing, could do nothing but cling to ub hv her youth and helplessness. How we weathered it through the years that followed I but my boyish one to, keep,the door. I worked at whatever ' to do with my might; bafc each, grew harder and harder .*»keej> <&.:fi(QJjb; above water. ~ '-',<*•,» About that time we beMurto IfeVfguiijpv: of the vast fortunes,th*fc J*jreeeW W<iPj£tE - A the mountains of Colorado. And I remember it as though it were buC j^pfcfc 1 day—when I had worked herder tk« jfefr man ever worked mind the thought of Colorado; If J*|i|Hß:>£? only go off there and make a fonfijjOß others were doing ! Not a vast did not care for that: I indulged no of wealth and luxury—but just a that would take away the daily JS| ' was wearing into all our lives, and .MM ,<' mother and Flossie in comfort—ah, if ISll do that ! JmV'ij -^ The notion fixed itself in my braioL JB *' ■ gave me no peace night or day. At IhC'] '". broke it to them ; and so, by degrees jlfjf' {'i began to see the prospect with my own W§Jk \ And—no matter about the time and wajKyi;: started at length for Denver City, and jgljjpf -" to work in the mines. Ah, mother, with your grey hairs, ah, Flossie, with your sparkling face ! It was the thought of you that held me up through all the toil, and the hardship, and the disappointment, through the bitter cold and the burning heats, that made up my life there. But the work was very, very profitable, and I toiled unceasingly : and so, in what seemed a wonderfully short time, my reward came. I amassed the moderate competence I had fixed upon; and was now bearing it back with me on my road home again. With this realised sum and the profits of the bit of land, we should now be at peace. I remember in that long ride over the plains how often I took out the small leathern bag I carried, and caressed it, and peeped inside at the little yellow glittering heap there. Five thousand dollars ! Everyone of my companions had stayed to double and treble that sum ; but it was enough for me. I knew that in that little leather bag lay a pleasant home, lay warmth, and food, and pretty new clothes for Flossie; and peace, and comfort, and blessed rest for mother. The tears grew hot in my eyes to think of it! I shook the little wallet to hear the pleasant jingle of the gold, sweeter toJuraen than the song of New England robhjje. dear!" I murmured, "it seems strajra~lsuA a little heap like that can do so can bring so much happiness !" there came back to me words thatJjijiefry repeat every Sunday evening little boy, my childish voice slipping •■■Jjffg after my mother's sweet solemn oners''Jjyjg ll shalt have no other gods but Me." * Was it making a god of the gold,' I asked myself, ' when I valued it chiefly for what it would do for my mother and Flossie ?' Nay, no ! surely not, I pictured them in my thoughts, sitting in the dear old room that grey December night; with the winds crying drearily outside, and the coals all blossomed into live fire in the small grate ; and mother on one side of the table, her hair frosted a little thicker with grey, and Flossie on the other, with the dewy bloom in her cheek and the sparkle in her eyes. Some night not far off I should burst in suddenly on the dear old lady and the young girl sitting there ; and my breath came hot at the anticipation, and my heart grew hungry with the excess of hope. Opening the door of the stage, I looked out. The darkness was gathering. There was the same wan, deathly sky, as though it carried in its depths some great dumb agony—the same grey stretch of dreary plain as far as my eyes could see into the night —no joy of stars, no glory of moon ; nothing but still desolation. And then as I looked, something with a damp chill struck into my face; and I knew the snow had come. The snow had come !—and Leavenworth was yet afar off. I drew in my head and shut the door. I remember thinking that the mules were trusty and the driver knew the highway over the desert; end worn out at last, I must have fallen - deep sleep. SpM^ A sudden rush, and plunge, and sent us all off our seats !—a shakin|!j,fßd quivering that threatened compound fractures of the whole ._ of the old stage! It righted itself v. had time to call out; not, however, until > every occupant had been more or lae*.seriously bruised. We gathered as best we could, and looked out. ~", ■ ','. The dawn and the snow struggled tpgetjier in the air outside; one glaring white, nail seemed to be spread over the earth". The driver was screaming to his mules and pulling the reins in a frantic sort of fashion. ' What is the matter ?' we shouted, [simultaneously. 'Matter enough,' he answered. 'The mules have got down in this gully, four feet deep in the snow, and we'll never get 'em out. And that's not the worst on't. I have lost the way.' Do you know the horror of hearing those Avords out on that vast, silent plain, with the snow placid as sunshine, cruel as treacherous waters, hiding away every sign and mark by which we might have regained our lost track ? We were out of the vehicle in a moment. The driver dismounted, and we all stared around us and at each other. The coach seemed hopelessly lodged in the deep gully, which was choked with drifts of snow that had fallen before we left Denver City ; the patient mules stood half buried in the drifts, inflexibly obstinate under the cruel rain of blows with which the driver vainly attempted to impel them forward. It was impossible for the animals to advance through the choked-up hollows in which the stage had lodged itself. We were tired, worn out, hungry men, for we had not tasted food since we left the last ranch, twenty hours before ; but the hope of life was sweet, and we bent to work with all the might of our will, and all the strength of our inured frames. How we tugged, and grappled, and strained together to extricate the stage ! While before us the patient mules stood still, with their heads drooped forward and their flanks deep burial in. the, snow. ai'JiiVsS And the drops gathered 011 our forefcajMtt, as though we were toiling in harvgtt||Mdiy or in the mines we had left: to shoulder, we worked and wrestledjsLb*t : it was in vain. What could we dojfs(hoi*, shovel or spade or implement of aasebft to clear away those dreadful drifts jffjjgijowl-L-.. And at last we stood still, aiul * others'faces, and read there the f«»|--we dared not speak. „.- .~ ?, (To be continued.) ~.