Page:Samantha on Children's Rights.djvu/305

 pint of a needle, it must have removed one or two of the hillocks of gloom that towered up in high ranges in front of me when I meditated on the future of the girl I loved so well. But I sot crouched down there in the gloom, and had no idee how they wuz goin' to be leveled down and light break through, nor how many heartaches wuz to go on below while the light broke through high up, and as mysterious as all things earthly are if we come to realize it.

Oh, my poor Jack! I never dreamed that it wuz your little hand that wuz to touch these solid, gloomy pinnacles and shiver 'em down to the earth. Dear little boy! how many times did I say I wished you wuz safe from the trials and temptations of this world and its tribulations? Wuz my wish took as a prayer, and did the Lord grant it in mercy? But, oh, poor hearts below! how you must ache on as long as you are wrapped up in this human clay, soft stuff this human clay is, anyway, and as easy to take impressions as putty.

But to stop eppisodin' and resoom backwards agin. The day I wuz to return to the bosom of my family, that bosom incarnated in the form of my beloved pardner appeared on the seen in good season, no later than nine A. M. Celestine wuz also to depart that mornin', she went a few minutes previous to my companion's arrival, for she went on the Loontown stage that passed at a quarter to nine.

She got up very early and did her packin', she had got most of her easels and canvases and paint brushes packed up, and her landscapes and panels and things all padded at the corners and wropped up safe for the journey. But Celestine said she couldn't leave till she took a last look at the lake from the west piazza, the lake