Part 8 (2/2)

How strangely to-night my memory flings From the face of the past its shadowy wings, And I see far back through the mist and tears Which make the record of twenty years; From the beautiful days in the Golden State, When life seemed sure by long leases from Fate; From the wondrous visions of ”long ago”

To the naked shade that we call ”now.”

Those halcyon days! There were four with me then-- Ernest and Ned, Wild Tom and Ben.

Now all are gone; Tom was first to die.

I held his hands, closed his glazed eye; And many a tear o'er his grave we shed As we tenderly pillowed his curly head In the shadows deep of the pines, that stand Forever solemn, forever fanned By the winds that steal through the Golden Gate And spread their balm o'er the Golden State.

And the others, too, they all are dead.

By the turbid Gila perished Ned; Brave, n.o.ble Ernest, he was lost Amid Montana's ice and frost; And out upon a desert trail Our Bennie met the spectre pale.

And I am left--the last of all-- And as to-night the white snows fall, As barbarous winds around me roar, I think the long past o'er and o'er-- What I have hoped and suffered, all, From twenty years rolls back the pall, From the dusty, th.o.r.n.y, weary track, As the tortuous path I follow back.

In my childhood's home they think me, there, A failure, or lost, till my name in the prayer At eve is forgot. Well, they cannot know That my toil through heat, through tempest and snow, While it seemed for naught but a struggle for pelf, Was more for them, far more, than myself.

Ah, well! As my hair turns slowly to snow The places of childhood more distantly grow; And my dreams are changing. 'Tis home no more, For shadowy hands from the other sh.o.r.e Stretch nightly down, and it seems as when I lived with Tom, Ned, Ernest and Ben.

And the mountains of Earth seem dwindling down, And the hills of Eden, with golden crown, Rise up, and I think, in the last great day, Will my claim above bear a fire a.s.say?

From the slag of earth, and the baser strains, Will the crucible show of precious grains Enough to give me a standing above, Where in temples of Peace rock the cradles of Love?

”That is good, but it is too serious by half,” Miller said, critically.

”What is a young fellow like you doing with such a melancholy view of things?”

”It's a heap better to write such things for pleasure in boyhood than to have to feel them for a fact in old age,” said Wright.

”I say, Harding, have you measured all the faet in that poem?” remarked Corrigan, good-naturedly.

”We have been talking too seriously for two or three evenings and it is influencing Harding,” was Miller's comment.

Brewster thought it was a good way for Sammie to spend his evenings. It would give him discipline, which would help him in writing all his life.

CHAPTER VII.

The next evening Wright had business down town.

”Carlin was right last night,” began Miller, ”when he said that all men were naturally lazy. Laziness is a fixed principle in this world. I can prove it by my friend Wand down at Pioche.

”When he was not so old as he has been these last few years, he made a visit to San Francisco, and one day, pa.s.sing a building on Fourth street, saw within several hives of bees, evidently placed there to be sold. Some whim led him within the building and, from the man in charge, he learned that in California, because of the softer climate, bees worked quite nine months in the year; that a good swarm of bees would gather a certain number of pounds of honey in a season, which sold readily at a certain price, making a tremendous percentage on the cost of the bees, which was, if I remember correctly, one hundred dollars per hive. The idea seemed to strike Wand. He had fifteen hundred dollars, and all that day he was mentally estimating how much money could be made out of fifteen swarms of bees in a year. The figures looked exceedingly encouraging. They always do, you know, when your mind is fixed upon a certain business which you want to engage in.

”That evening Wand happened to meet a friend who had just come in from Honolulu. This friend was enthusiastic over the Hawaiian Islands. There was perpetual summer there and ever-blooming flowers. Before one flower cast its leaves, others on the same tree were budding. Their glory was ever before the eyes and their incense ever upon the air.

”Wand fell asleep that night trying to estimate how much money a swarm of bees would make a year in a land of perpetual summer. The conclusion was that next morning Wand bought twelve hives of bees, and that afternoon sailed with them for Honolulu.

”He found a lovely place for his bees, and saw with kindling pleasure that they readily a.s.similated with the new country and went to work with apparent enthusiasm.

<script>