The Argosy — page 335: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

316 Across the Plains. Ah, mother, with your grey hairs, ah, Flossie, with your sparkling face! It was the thought of you that held me up through all the toil, and the hardship, and the disappointment, through the bitter cold and ~ the burning heats, that made up my life there. But the work was very, very profitable, and I toiled unceasingly : and so, in what seemed a wonderfully short time, my reward came. I amassed the moderate competence I had fixed upon; and was now bearing it back with me on my road home again. With this realized sum and the profits of the bit of land, we should now be at peace. I remember in that long ride over the plains how often I took out the small leathern bag I carried, and caressed it, and peeped inside at the little yellow glittering heap there. | Five thousand dollars! Everyone of my companions had stayed to © double and treble that sum ; but it was enough forme. Iknewthatin — that little leather bag lay a pleasant home, lay warmth, and food, and pretty new clothes for Flossie; and peace, and comfort, and blessed rest for mother. ‘Thetears grew hot in my eyes to think of it! I shook the little wallet to hear the pleasant jingle of the gold, sweeter to my ears than the song of New Englandrobins. “ Oh, dear!” I murmured ‘“‘it seems strange that a little heap like that can do so much good, can ' bring so much happiness!” And then there came back to me the words that I used to repeat every Sunday evening when I was a little boy, my childish voice slipping along after my mother’s sweet solemn one—‘‘ Thou shalt have no other gods but Me.” ‘‘Was it making a god of the gold,” I asked myself, ‘when I valued it chiefly for what it would do for my mother and Flossie?” Nay, no! surely not. I pictured them in my thoughts, sitting in the dear old room that | grey December night; with the winds crying drearily outside, and the coals all blossomed into live fire in the small grate ; and mother on one side of the table, her hair frosted a little thicker with grey, and Flossie on the other, with the dewy bloom in her cheeks and the sparkle in her eyes. Some night not far off I should burst in suddenly on the dear old lady and the young girl sitting there ; and my breath came hot at the anticipation, and my heart grew hungry with the excess of hope. Opening the door of the stage, I looked out. The darkness was gathering. ‘There was the same wan, deathly sky, as though it carried in its depths some great dumb agony—the same grey stretch of dreary plain as far as my eyes could see into the night—no joy of stars, no glory of moon; nothing but still desolation. And then as I looked, something with a damp chill struck into my face ; and I knew the snow had come. The snow had come !—and Leavenworth was yet afar off. I drew in my head and shut the door. I remember thinking that the mules were trusty and the driver knew the highway over thé desert ; -and worn out at last, I must have fallen into a deep sleep. | Gomicbooks.co