Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio

hing of his failures and disappointments, and were more sympathizing than the coarse and ribald men whose rude taunts he had just heard, and to whose admiration he was as indifferent as to their sarcasm. These were grand and beautiful maple woods, free from tangling underbrush, and standing thick and stately on wide, gentle slopes; and to-night the lisping breath of the summer evening came to this young but sad and burdened heart, with whispers soothing and restful.

He had never been so long from home before; the nearer he approached it, the more intense his longings grew, and he passed rapidly through the open glades, disappearing momentarily in the obscurity of the thickets, past the deserted sugar camp, until finally the woods grew lighter, the trees more scattered, and he reached the open pasture lands in sight of the low farm-house, which held his mother and home. How strange, and yet familiar, even an absence of only three months made everything! The distance of his journey seemed to have expanded th