Jasper County Democrat, Volume 7, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 July 1904 — SUNSET [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

SUNSET

By F. B. WRIGHT

I found the old man in his favorite place, a grassy nook on tbe mountain aide, gazing across the lake to Where the opposite mountains rose from the water's edge. Darrel had a great store of wisdom—not tbe wisdom of the towns, bnt the lore of the woods, of the snow born streams and the mountains. His voice was as soothing as the wind through great pines or the rush of the river through its gorges. Darrel had lived among these mountains for thirty years, and, please God, he would die here, be said. He would listen Interestedly to what I told him •f life In the great cities, but at the end his eyes always turned with satisfied affection to the ranges that shut him In. “It's mighty nice, I reckon,’’ he would say, “but I couldn’t get along without the sound of the river in my ears or the smell of pine and cedar. Once I thought”— What it was he had once planned I never knew until this night. “Jim,” he said as we lay back in the soft grass smoking—“ Jim, he was my

partner. We was pardners from the first, though he was younger than me. Thar warn't never a better man than Jim. White as you make ’em, straight as one of these here pine saplin's, spry as a deer. We prospected it together, an’ we timbered it, an’ we ranched it share an’ share alike, come good times or bad, until”— The old man paused a moment. One pinnacle of snow was like a flame of Are, and far down below the darkling lake reflected the flame. “It was twenty years ago that Mary came here with her father, old man Drury. He took up a claim down td the end of the lake. Mary was just a little gal then, that I could take on my knees an’ play with an’ teach to fish an’ paddle a canoe. An’ year by year she growed and growed, pretty as some flower put down here in a crevice of the rocks. An' then one day—l mind it well—l seed she was a woman an’ that I loved her. Thar wasn’t never no spring like that spring, nor no day like that day. “I didn’t tell her so—l was feared a’most to touch her. I was so rough an’ rude an’ she so like a flower, but I thought on her a heap. It didn’t make no difference whar I was, layin’ out on the mountain side with only the stars for a roof, workin’ in the shaft or settin’ in my shack listenin’ to the wind howlin’ through the timber an’ the cracklin’ of the fire, Mary was everywhar. She was In the first star that came shinin’ out at night. In the first flowers that sprung up In the bottom lands. The voice of the river in the shallow places was like her laughter.” The old man pointed a sinewy finger down toward a clump of trees below us. “It was thar on that point, with the river on one side an’ the lake on the other, that I built my house, settin’ up here of an evenjn’. It was to be a real house—not a log shack—an’ vines all over It an’ a garden. Many a night I’ve built that house an’ lived In it an’ watched Mary rockin’ the cradle. I used to travel, too, them nights, me an’ Mary, to the east an’ faroff kentries what she’d read about. “Jim used to wonder why I left him an’ come out here by myself, but It was because I wanted to be alone an’ think about It all. I never told him nothin’ of how I felt. “An’ then one evenin’ I went down to Mary’s bouse for to tell her. It were gettin’ dark, as It might be this very evenin’. I landed quiet an’ came up the path, an’ then I knowed what I might have knowed all along, for Jim an’ Mary were settin’ lookin’ at the sunset —an’ each other—an’ I knowed they loved each other, an’ that was nigh ten years ago. “I had forgot that I was old an’ rough, an’ she was young, an’ that it was as natural for her to love Jim as flowers to love tbe sun, but I didn’t think of that then. I was wildlike as I paddled away up the lake an’ climbed the trail to tbe shack an’ sat thar In the dark cursin’ him. God forgive me. - “He come home by an* by, did Jim. I could hear him whistlin’ way down the mountain side as if be was happy.

He sat In the doorway, lookin’ np at the stars an’ talkin’ about the claim we had an’ if the mine panned out an’ of the money we’d get for onr red cedar logs. An’ then be said, shylike, aa If ’twas something wonderful: •What do you think, Jack,’ says he, I’m goln’ to be married soon—to—to llary,’ he says. pit was well he couldn’t see my face then In the dark, for something got holt of my heart when I heerd him ■ay tt in so many words. I said something, I dunno what, but he was too happy to notice, or maybe he thought I was hurt at his breakln’ our pardnershlp. Anyway he went on talkin’ of his plans for makln’ money, of bulldln’ a home, of how he loved Mary an’ she him. I hardly heerd him, though the words come back to me later. I was kind of dazed like. I saw a man onct whose foot was crushed by a fall of rock in a minit. He didn’t seem to feel no pain right at first, an’ maybe ’twas the same with me. “It was after Jim had quit an’ gone to bed an’ I roamin’ abroad through the dark that I felt It All night I tramped through the timber, thlnkln’ an’ flgbtin’ with the wild beast In me. I had loved her first. Thar was plenty other women for him to be happy with. What right had he with his good looks an’ youth to come between us—he, my pardner, to steal the flower I had watched an’ tended? “I was crazy that night—plumb crazy. Along toward day I come down the mountain straight as a stream for the cabin an’ with my mind made up. 1 would kill him whar he was. He should never have Mary. As for me, I warn’t thlnkln’ about myself. I went into the shack an’ found my bantin’ knife. Jim was lyin’ In his bunk, the faint light from the window on his face, an’ he was smilin’. Once I tried to send the knife down an' failed, an' twice I tried, but again the strength lb my arm seemed to give out I stood thar lookin’ down at him, an’ then I flung the knife away an’ came out here an’ watched the dawn come up over the mountains an’ tbe mist roll offer the lake an’ thought of all that Jim had been to me —an’ of Mary. It was natural she should love him an’ not me. Me! I was right old enough to be her father, let alone bein’ rough an’ ill favored. As for Jim, how was he to know that I cared, or if he did know he couldn’t help lovin’ whar nature told him to/' Like to like. Youth to youth, wh<y could help lovin’ Jim —or Mary ? / “I wrostled it out here, with the sun cornin’ 'up a glory over the mountains, an’ at the last I seen how foolish I had been an’ knowed it was Mary’s happiness I wanted—an’ Jim’s. “They was married an’ lived here for awhile until Mary’s little gal died, an’ then she couldn’t seem to bear the place, an’ Jim took her east—him an’ me. for what I had was his’n. I get a letter onct In awhile. They’re happy an’ doin’ well." Darrel pointed to a vine covered bowlder near by on which there was cut a rude cross. “After little Mary died—so pretty, so tiny—l brung her here in my arms an’ laid her thar—Mary cryin’ beside mean’ now I love to come here an’ set after the day’s work is done. No; 1 couldn’t go east. I couldn't leave her,” he said simply. The blush had died from the sky. The crests of the mountains shone out cold and white. The night bad come, but it was a night radiant with the light of myriads of stars.

“JIM WAS LYIN’ IN HIS BUNK."