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About The Hesperian / (Lincoln, Neb.) 1885-1899 | View Entire Issue (June 5, 1896)
THE HESPiEIMfAN They came to me and kissed me; and I kisBed their powdered wrinkled cheeks. They bent over me and patted me, and said in their quainc, trembling voices: "Ruth Alden's grandchild. Sister Ruth's grandchild. Oan it be? Sister Ruth's grandchild." Then they sat down in the stiff, high backed chairs and folded their little, wrinkled hands on their black brocaded aprons, and looked at mo. "And such a little while ago, Ruth was hero, and wc all played togother, little girls. And then, Ruth went away, so far west, and this is her grandchild come back Ruth's grandchild." They talked to mo, of how my grand mother and they had grown up togother just such a little while ago, and how they had longed for years and years that Ruth might live to come back from the west, and be happy again in the old home. And yet, somehow all the time, I fancied they looked reproachfully at us, and I tried to hide under my skirt my pretty tan slip pers with the pointed toes; and I wondered what they thought of my shirt-waist, and my high white collar and boy's nccktio. It was very foolish, 1 know; but I could not help being a little ashamed of all the new things we have nowdays. There was some thing so peaceful and restful about this old life, something sweetly prim and monot onously pleasant. At last, I kissed the old cheeks again, and my three great-aunts kissed me and called mo again "Sister Ruth's grandchild." And I left them with the days darkening about them. 1 went down the path between the old elms with the old sunlight sleeping beneath them. Edith Henry. E. R. Guthrio, 1540 O street, the reliable bicycle man, can mend your wheel in short order and the right way. If you want a Rambler call on him they're the best The profs, all rido 'em. . See Dr. Hodgman for first class dental work at very low prices. I, . : Jones. Shall all praise the successful, the salt of the earth, And he daring no less, unsuccessfully dying, Be fameless? Shall true estimation of worth Be rather for doing, than dying in trying? The cruel Sioux swept through the plain in the year Of our story, and left only ashes and bones. Hidden dangers were thick all along the fontier. Our men were all heroes and the youngest was Jones. Only twenty not handsome his lips never parted With laughter; just new to the prairies that fall; And once at a glimpse of a woman he started, Turned about on his heel and frowned at the front wall. So we fancied some trouble too deep to be righted But Jones never told us. The snaky Sioux crept Mad for blood, upon homes that had well been affrighted, Had they known; but unheeding their danger they slept. At the fort in dim twilight with light ease he tossed To his mustang the saddle and galloped away Out into the darkness he galloped was lost Was heard from no more, but the villagers say, That at dark dreary midnight a horse warned the place, A riderless horse with its saddle blood red, And they heeded; but somewhere, down, prone on his face, In the chill and the darkness, a scout Jones Was dead, E. F. Piper. Joint Program of the Literary Societies. JUNE 0, '90. Music (piano solo) Miss Helen Langher Recitation Mr. Boomer Story.-. N, C. Abbott Music (vocal solo) Miss Abbott Oration Mr. Martin Paper Miss Woodford, editbr-in-cTrief, Miss Thompson and Mr. Searson, assistants Music (vocal solo) Miss Smails Poem Miss Annie Prey Soliloquy Miss Francis Morton Music. . . .- Go to Rector's for your soda.