Part 20 (1/2)

CHAPTER XXIX

AMONG THE CLOUDS

In the following May, 1896, I took a sky-scraping journey to the great states of Washi+ngton and Oregon The clie by train presented sublie can even feebly describe At the suher than the dome of the Massachusetts State House As we climbed, I could see froines of our train puffing for all they orth around the curves, far ahead

We looked down from the narrow rim of the railroad, thousands of feet perpendicular upon foa the boulders in their courses

Here cascades,down thehundreds of feet into the air as they struck the giant rocks, and at one place we stopped for half an hour to drink froeysers of it effervescing, scintillating, silvery in the sunbeaht in a rocky basin frohty Sacra the stars--so eins in the infinite on high; is enveloped in a dust of earth; expands in its evolution into the angel back into the eternity fros come from the clouds as dew and rain, run their courses, and by evaporation are taken back into their first ho-shoots see like Jacob's ladder to reach froiants of the vastspeed to the mills on the river; there the splendid snow-covered doreat white throne described by St John in Revelation

Now coreen valleys; here and there, a few small houses and flocks of sheep show that these cases are peopled ”far fronoble strife”

These vast solitudes of forests are very iiant fir-trees, pines and spruces, beautifully clothed in perpetual green even to the lower dead limbs which nature has covered with a verdure of moss--like our dead hopes, blasted by the fires of adversity but ht mistletoe is suspended fro the heads of those who have died rather than surrender to the low and base; there deep canyons, brilliant with the dia drops frohts come the dews of heaven to refresh those alk by faith and not by sight ”looking not at the things seen which are tes not seen which are eternal”

Here co our train with a pearly shroud, through the rifts of which, far beloe have gli up at us, above the clouds

Dearly beloved--all seems to say it becometh us, not to sorrow for the dead hopes, broken promises, and bitter disappoint that this is not our ho days, that our true hoood beyond the infinite azure of the heavens, where dear ones are Waiting to welcoht the good fight, and who keep themselves unspotted fro along over the see the rainy season, but now parched and arid by the terrible heat, ere alh withered by the winds which seem to come fro young cyclone would suddenly envelop us with chilling snows from Shasta, and so we oscillated like pendulums 'twixt torrid heats and arctic colds

At last, al-like, cliht us to Portland, the on Here, as in many places on the Pacific coast, people should be web-footed during the rainy season to escape the drowning, and iron clad during the dry season to escape the s of the clouds of shot-like dust The da, then brook covered mountains, is far frohtly on those who survive the cli up powerful erandest nation the world has ever known

The broad-reat far west,their salaries for school work, and this, coupled with their nuiven them an army of lady teachers and superintendents unequaled elsewhere in the world

The county superintendents of schools are elected by the popular vote, and the wo of voters' babies as naturally as ducks take to the water Result,--the ladies secure the political plu driven to h not without vigorous kicking against the inevitable These ex- the outrages perpetrated upon them by their successful women competitors

At an election in a California town, one of theseme for a voter, took me by a button ofthat, unable to endure it longer, I cut off the button and fled He did not noticeon to the button, all alone, gesticulating frantically, and beseeching me to vote for hiht I know, he has notforth his wild appeals

Should I describe fully all the wonderful scenes beheld by me in this wonderland, I should exhaust time and trench upon eternity Suffice it to state that I returned to 'Frisco, fought a successful dictionary battle there, for the Scott, who built the faon

He was president of the city school-board, head of the vast Union Iron Works, and besides perforhtly in favor of the election of William McKinley to the presidency of the United States

I was fairly driven from this city by the ferocious fleas, which seemed to render life alet no rest day or night in e attacks of these unspeakable, insatiate biters,the beautiful bay in the floating palace ferry-boat, I was for a tih a vista of Eucalyptus, oak and el waters of the faht are seen the domes and spires of Oakland, Alameda, and San Francisco; across the valley looreen to their summits, on which rest the serene blue of the heavens, except when, the frequent fogs bury everything froht On one side of the house, at the same time, the trade winds from the Pacific chill you to your very bones, on the other side the burning heat is unbearable Afar off the humble home of Joaquin Miller, poet of the Sierras, clearly appears

There are many beautiful hoains, for their occupants have groeary of the cloud bursts of the long dreary rainy season, then of the parching heats of the equally dreary dry season, when a pickaxe and crowbar are required to dig a potato unless you keep water running fro to return to their old ho seasons are not so ious society on a week's calad I did not when they returned in a couple of days, narrating an adventure which daunted the stoutest hearts On the second night of their cahtful screaht of the great fire kept burning to frighten the wild-cats andlike fiends and coiled for springing The uns and clubs Life is scarcely worth the living with these demons, and their natural attendants, the horrible tarantulas

CHAPTER xxx

DISENCHANTED--HOME AGAIN