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About The Hesperian / (Lincoln, Neb.) 1885-1899 | View Entire Issue (May 14, 1895)
0 THE HESPERIAN m !f knocked the clothes pole down, and tangled the line, and tore the clothes in the- prickly locust hedge. Then the sun was sad, and covered its face with thick black clouds, the sky wept gloomily, and the fickle breezes flow to hide themselves for shamo in the hollows of the wood. But the sun was kind. It soon smiled' again, so brightly that every tear was dried, and the earth looked all the brighter for the weeping. Now, how the merry breezes danced and flow ! They chased among the apple and the cherry trees, and teased the modest buds until the blossoms burst out saucily. Then they romped with the shining wasps and bees, and with them tossed the fragrant blossoms until the air was white with falling petals. But now the breezes are weary of play. They- have grown stroug and steady. They are now the stern winds that bend the great tree branches, as they sigh sadly through tho clustering leaves. Theso spring winds make the whole world brothers. At least all of us can imagine that the rest of people are our brothers. Wo breath tho same air as they do; we must bo kin. Tho wind whisks up from the north west, and in one brief minuto of human sympathy you and I feel as the fur-wrapped Alaskan squaw does. You involuntarily pull up tho bear skin under your chin and I cord up some more blubber in tho baco burner. Then tho next instant the breeze from Cuba strikes us and wo loath bear skins and blubber, and sigh for yams and bananas. But hardly have you yawned out tho first uya'' of tho "yams," hardly have I bleated out tho first "ba" of tho "bananas" before your yams change to yawls and my bananas switch off to boats or bilge water. All just because tho wind has como up in tho oast from tho Atlantic. Oh, tho feeling of kinship that comes swinging in on the spring breeze. In fact I speak for myself, you can speak for your self in fact, tho only time when I fool like myself is when the breezes are all blowing straight up or straight down. Even then I am conscious that tho breezes must be com ing from somewhere, good or bad, and I un consciously adjust myself to the inhabitants of that somowhoro sjood or bad. It was a wild night. Tho wind blow and blew, carrying with it dust and leaves and scraps of paper and rofuso from tho street, and now and then a fierce umbrella or a rollicking hat. I held my hat on with both hands, and plowed my way through tho tumultuous ether. On a corner, where tho wind blow up and down and from all four points of tho compass at once, with every possible combination and variation known to street corners, a young lady passed me. Just as wo came alongside, a sudden gust snatched her sailor hat, and carried it wildly toward mo. I sprang forward and grasped it with a force that almost crushed tho flimsy straw. Tho wind carried my own away into tho night, but 1 had saved tho maiden's. I hold it fast. Then there was a jerk. It was not tho wind; it it was tho tug of a cord ! I trembled. I relaxed my fingers and mut tered "I bog your pardon;" and the wind blew tho words to the maiden. There I stood, with tho billowy other rolling over my cold, perspiring brow, and gazod into the darkness. "I kind o' like jes' a loiterin' roun' When the green gits back in the trees Jes' potterin' roun' as I durn please When the green, you know, gits back in the trees." Yes, just sauntering around on tho cam pus looking for dandelions, just sitting down on tho grasp, just not studying at all. Just standing on tho steps watching tho boys play tennis, and wondering how thoy can boar to work so hard on such days. Just fooling how warm it is, how pretty tho grass and the trees look, how happy one might bo if one were a bird. Just watching things grow, just thinking not at all, just dreaming and dreaming. Trying to forgot that ono must work to live, trying to imagine how it would bo to go sailing on ono of those fleecy clouds, sailing on and on forever.