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Kansas University Weekly.
stand upright. In one corner was his cot, bed, one quilts and dirty red blankets in the same disorder as he had left them the morning before when he went to the railroad with cattle. On the cold rusty stove was the greasy pan in which he had cooked his salt meat for breakfast; the dirty dishes were on the table with some frozen biscuits and a can of condensed milk. It was all cold and comfortless and lonely, and the man was as cold and tired as a man can be who has ridden thirty miles on a bitter January day.
With his numb hands he started a fire in the little stove, but it smoked dismally and only added to the cheerlessness.
He was terribly blue and lonely,—he didn't know why. His cattle had sold well, and after his debts were paid there would still be enough left to take him through the winter; but after all what did it amount to,—a bare living,—and such a living. He looked around the squalid little whole and the thought came over him that this was his home, the only shelter he had in the wide world, this dirty desolate dugout. He was alone, absolutely alone on that vast level prairie ten miles from the sound of a human voice. If he were to die there no one would be the wiser for days and days. The sense of his loneliness had never seemed so strong to him as it did at that moment. And all the time the wind shrieked and howled and the stove smoked dully.
It seemed to him that if he could hear the sound of a voice the dull weight would be lifted from his heart. He arose and went to the little window on a level with his eyes—nothing but flying snow. It was growing dark, and he wished he could see the distant light that nightly shone across the prairie. But the swirling snow hid everything, and he had not even that companionship.
What was it all for, he wondered, this desolate starved life,—he lived—but was it worth while? For years he had hoped that this long lane would turn, that his hard work would bring him something beside a bare living, but the years had passed, taking with them his young
manhood, and each year brought with it some new privation and took away some old ambition. For the first time he realized that he was almost middle aged and what had he to show for all those years of toil? Nothing, absolutely nothing. And all the time that terrible sense of loneliness seemed to be clutching at his very heart.
He pictured to himself all that the next summer would hold for him: the long hot days when he could scarcely breathe for the heat, but when he would have to work on and on hoping against hope that the blighting hot winds would not come to destroy the product of his labor. Then when the hot winds came, as he knew they would, and he saw his tender crop burning and scorching before his very eyes, the utter hopelessnes of it all would come over him, and another ambition would be killed. It seemed as though he could not bear to live through another of those burning blighting summers. And all the time alone. From morning till night alone! Oh God, was it worth while!
The stage driver on the road two miles south of the dugout wondered, when for two days after that blizzard night no smoke could be seen coming from the stove pipe in the dugout roof. Something must be wrong he thought, if Bob Wilson was without a fire in such freezing weather as this.
On the fourth day he was really alarmed and determined to drive around that way on his return trip. But he was late starting and it was not till the fifth day that he drove up to the dugout and with a hearty "Hello Bob!" pushed open the door. He started back in alarm. Hanging from the low rafters was the body of a man, frozen and dead. It had not been worth while. GERTRUDE WINSLOW HILL.
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The Rivals.
No more diverting piece of pure English Comedy than "The Rivals" has been produced since its first appearance. It is occasionally said that the play has become antiquated, but