With absolutely nothing prepared, and with nothing but promises made
and forgotten, old Jim beheld the glory of Sunday morning come, with
the bite and crystalline sunshine of the season in the mountain air.
God's thoughts must be made in Nevada, so lofty and flawless is the
azure sky, so utterly transparent is the atmosphere, so huge, gray, and
passionless the mighty reach of mountains!
Man's little thought was expressed in the camp of Borealis, which
appeared like a herd of small, brown houses, pitifully insignificant in
all that immensity, and gathered together as if for company, trustfully
nestling in the hand of the earth-mother, known to be so gentle with
her children. On the hill-sides, smaller mining houses stood, each one
emphasized by the blue-gray heap of earth and granite--the dump--formed
by the labors of the restless men who burrowed in the rock for precious
metal. The road, which seemed to have no ending-place, was blazed
through the brush and through the hills in either direction across the
miles and miles of this land without a people. The houses of Borealis
stood to right and left of this path through the wilderness, as if by
common consent to let it through.
Meagre, unknown, unimportant Borealis, with her threescore men and one
decent woman, shared, like the weightiest empire, in the smile, the
care, the yearning of the ever All-Pitiful, greeting the earth with
another perfect day.
Pages:
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70