1896. 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. 



103 



THE WANDERER. 



Cfpon a mountain height, far from the aem, 



I found a j-holl. 

 And to my listening tar ll.c lonely thing 

 Ever a song of ocean seemed to sing, 



Ever a talo of ocean seemed to tell. 



How came the shell upon that mountain 

 height? 

 Ah, who can say 

 Whether there dropped by some too careless 



hand 

 Or whether there cast when ocean swept the 

 land. 

 Ere the Eternal had (ordained the day? 



Strange, was it not? Far from its native deep, 



One song it sang, 

 Sang of the awful mysteries of the tide, 

 Sang of the misty sea, profound and wide. 



Ever with echoes of the ocean rang. 



And as the shell upon the mountain height 



Sings of the sea 

 So do I ever, leagues and leagues away, 

 Bo do I ever, wandering vv'hero I may, 



Sing, O my home; sing, O my home, of theel 

 —Eugene Field. 



IN WARTIME. 



Just below the dam the water ■wheel of 

 Euzebio, the miller, creaked noisily in 

 its ponderous revolutions, while from 

 the opposite bank the mill of Anselmo 

 growled a muffled accompaniment. 

 Friends from childhood, the lives of 

 these two old widower millers of 70 

 gave a silent contradiction to the popu- 

 lar axiom concerning men of the same 

 employment. 



And the picturesque beauty of the 

 spot! Behind Euzebio'smill the pasture 

 ground sloped gently to the river's edge, 

 and, crossing it, ran the pathway down 

 which the mules were driven, laden 

 with grain for the mill. Along the bank 

 a row of tall popJars threw fantastic 

 shadows upon the placid surface of 

 the millpond. The river slipped easily 

 along between its sandy margins, now 

 glistening in the sunlight, now hiding 

 itself within the recesses of some cane 

 plantation and emerging at length to 

 fall in clear and transparent streams of 

 sparkling water upon the wheel, which 

 churned them into a snowy whiteness. 



In summer, when the water was low, 

 the two old comrades used often to visit 

 one another, boldly cros.';ing the stream 

 by the stepping stones below the dam, 

 but when the autumn rains had swollen 



the slow moving river into a noisy tor- 

 rent they were obliged to content them- 

 selves with calling from bank to bank. 



Sometimes Euzebio would say: 



"Speak louder, Anselmo. I don't heai 

 yon. ' ' 



"What do you say?" the other would 

 ask, advancing to the river's edge and 

 leaning forward anxiously. 



And Euzebio, making a speaking 

 trumpet of his hands, would shout: 



"I don't understand." 



When they finally succeeded in mak- 

 ing themselves heard, they would agree 

 that the water wheels were more noisy 

 than they ut^ed to be, and that the river 

 had never been so turbulent. Ah, yes! 

 It was the creaking of the wheels that 

 kept them from hearing and not the 

 weight of the years pressing upon their 

 shoulders ! 



Euzebio had a son, a fine looking fel- 

 low of 22, tall, well built and as 

 straight as an arrow. A great worker, 

 daybreak would find him already busy 

 in his father's mill. "He toils like a 

 Moor!" the neighbors would say ap- 

 provingly. Every one liked Simon, and 

 he was a general favorite at the merry- 

 making of the neighboring villages. 

 Sometimes after one of these gatherings 

 the priest, a staid and solemn personage, 

 would come to remonstrate with Euze- 

 bio upon his son's behavior of the night 

 before, whereat the old man was accus- 

 tomed to shake his head reprovingly and 

 cast down his eyes, whether to better 

 express his condemnation or to hide the 

 twinkle in them no one ever knew. 



And Anselmo had a daughter, Mar- 

 garida by name, a pretty girl of 19, 

 with that sweet, natural beauty of the 

 country, and her loveliness of face and 

 form was but a fitting accompaniment 

 to a gentle and loving disposition. Mar- 

 garida and Simon had been playmates 

 from babyhood, but when the girl had 

 reached her fifteenth year this childish 

 intimacy began to give place to a maid- 

 enly reserve on her part and to an atti- 

 tude of chivalrous devotion on the part 

 of her companion, while in his heart a 

 deep and earnest love was slowly 

 springing into life. 



Margarida would feign annoyance 

 whenever Simon summoned up the cour- 

 age to speak of his love and of the p:nn 

 her indifference gave to him, and A\i h 

 a frown on her pretty face vvcuid 



