Читать книгу Looking Back: An Autobiography - Merrick Abner Richardson - Страница 18

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About noon, the first day out, I met three Indians and we took lunch together, they furnishing bear meat and I cheese and crackers, which I had borrowed from Stubbs. After this I trudged on, following an old trail in a westerly direction, hoping to find Indians who could give me shelter for the night, but finding none, I started a fire at dark to scare the wolves away and prepared to stay in the woods alone.

As darkness came on and my fire lit up the woods, I was lonely and yearned for a friend, while a strangeness came over me which caused me to shudder. The excitement had past, and I was left to contemplate as to the course I had taken and where my pathway of life might be leading me. I saw myself, as only a short time before, a promising young man of the wild wood harbor village; but now alone in the wilderness, soon to be a ragged, friendless outcast. Was my condition better or worse than Fanny's or father's? Silently I knelt and implored the unseen to forgive all and keep me pure in heart as I wended my way over mountains of trouble and through vales of temptation.

While pondering I heard the flapping of wings, and a large owl came and lit on a dry limb above me and began its lonely hooting. The night was still, save the occasional bark of a wolf and the echo of the bird's dreary chant, which under ordinary circumstances would have startled me, but now rising to my feet I gazed at the intruder with an eye of gladness and longed to caress him as a friend, while I murmured, "Your lot on earth as compared with mine is to be envied. Carelessly and thoughtlessly your days pass with no regret for the past or anxiety for the morrow, while my sympathetic heart, actuated by an ingenious brain, dashes cold waves of sorrow against bleak rocks of cruel destiny."

I closed my eyes and again implored my Heavenly Father to increase my strength to tread the thorny way. Then I pondered over my condition again and cried, "Oh, the heart—the human heart—that beats in sympathy! Oh, the soul that longs to comfort some one and yearns to be loved in return!"

Gazing high into the far away Eternity where all seemed lovely and serene, I said, "Silence is the token of love. Fanny is; yes, she still lives, but she is silent and in her silence she loves me still."

Then the stars, hills and trees, like friends, came near and shared with me my troubles, and as I sank upon the ground overcome I thought I was a child again and mother whispered low and sweet, "Love your enemies and Jesus will love you."

Resting upon a bed of leaves with my boots for a pillow, the angel of dreams took me in her fair arms. Fanny and I were walking beside a laughing crystal stream, gathering wild flowers, whose fragrance seemed to fill the balmy air, where familiar birds came and warbled sweet notes over our heads while the soft sunshine bore upon the scene, peeping into the shady grove and forming our peaceful nook into a perfect bower of love. Here upon a bank strewn with tiny violets I kneeled at Fanny's feet and asked her to become my wife. She did not speak, but looked on me with her own sweet smile as she glided softly away. I arose to follow her, when I awoke and found myself alone in the dark woods.

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POOR JIM, LONELY BUT NOT ALONE, FANNIE IS NEAR.

Morning came at last, and not being able to taste my food, I trudged on, and in a few days reached Springfield, where I first assumed the name of James Hall. There I worked about ten days for a man named Anson Newell, but when I learned there were two families there from Salem I feared detection and decided to go.