Chapter 13 - THE SHINING GOAL

He talked for an hour, pouring forth such a torrent of elo- quence that, when he took his blankets to the bench in the orchard, he left them thrilled and uplifted.

'It was as though he had been up on a moun- tain, talking with God." Mary's voice shook and her eyes were wet. "But we cannot let him go. He would die in some wretched, lonely way."

"I don't believe it ; but what if he should?" Ethan had been carried off his firmly planted Yankee feet, as by the sound of trumpets and drums. It was the man's point of view: courage and faith were equipment for any task; and life was the thing  the vision, the adventure. The woman must hold fast to the good already gained.

"But, Ethan, Johnny is growing old!" "He doesn't know it. He never will know it. Don't you dare tell him." The tone was exultant. It had been an unforgctable ex- perience to see consecration rekindle the fires of youth.

"That's just it. He lives in a dream  " "It's a brave dream that will make him work to the last day of his life as if inspired. I hope he'll never wake up. Mary, what has he lost, after all? Except for a measure of his physical strength, nothing that would ever be of any use to him. And, like most men of his wiry build and active mind, he has a won- derful vitality that will stand him in good stead. What a world this would be if we could all be delivered from self-distrust and fear  forget the things that paralyze effort; age and failure, sickness and sorrow."

"That's a beautiful thing to see in Johnny, but you know, Ethan, that he is incapable of taking care of himself. If anything dreadful happened to him it would break the heart of the West."

" No, it would not. The West would glory in him. Johnny has in him the stuff of heroes and martyrs, and such men are not to beheld back. He loved your dear, sweet mother, and the tragedy of it has finally turned his brain, but that had no power to hold him from the work to which he was called in his youth. And how are we to hold him? Have we the right? If we meddle in this he would die, after a few, miserable, wasted years. We could not bear that, Mary. I think we must have the courage to let him go."

She suddenly surrendered. "I know. I knew it all the time he was talking, but was not reconciled." Then her eyes, too, glowed as if with reflection from Johnny's soul of flame. "Did you ever see any one as jubi- lant? Such light is not to be hidden under a bushel. It is to be set on a hilltop for all the world to witness!"

Something of Johnny's own spirit sustained them in the months of waiting for the ripen- ing of seed; and any lingering doubts of the wisdom and kindness of their resolve were dispelled as his energy and happiness mounted with the sun. An orchardist, he knew su- premely how to wait, and wings were given to time by his moral necessity of filling every possible hour with useful work. But even if he had not been the busiest person on the

Ufarm, he would not have 1 been impatient to be off. Not since he Left Pittsburg a genera- tion before had he spent the dramatic season of growth in one orchard ; arid this dear plan- tation which he had twice set out for Betty's earthly paradise was haunted, now, by her gentle shade. Companioned by the beloved dead whom he confused with the living, every day of time was but a blissful moment of eternity.

Morning and evening and in the noon- hour of rest he watched the small, green hips form as the petals fell, and, through genial weeks and months, expand to their full roundness. As the equal nights came on with turbulent weather, he was often awak- ened by the vigorous threshing of the trees and the mellow dropping of the windfalls. The apples filled so with bursting juices that their skins were stretched to a satiny luster, as thin, fine-grained and defensive as gold- beater's parchment; and all the moods of summer and the alchemy of earth and sun were condensed in every little painted sphere, and the very breath of the Creator was hid- den in the seed.

And then, cider-making time on the pioneerfarm! The cattle were out on the dwindling pastures. The corn stood in brown shocks in the fields, with frost-rimed pumpkins lying like harvest moons in the stubble. Multi- colored leaves sifted down through the drowsy air of Indian summer. The small press, a rude, home-made but competent affair, was set up in the orchard, where every tree, so irregularly planted, so individual of growth and habit, had a personality and an intimate history of its own.

The apples, not sorted as to kind, but only as to perfection and keeping quality, lay in variegated heaps of ruby and russet, green and gold, on the ground. The culls were pared, cored and cut up for the big kettle of cider-apple butter which was made out of doors, over the brick oven or a gipsy fire; or they were tumbled pell-mell into the hopper of the press. As the amber juice gushed out it was drunk at once from a gourd or tin dip- per, boiled and sealed in bottles for use in mince pies, or was turned into the vinegar- barrel. The choicest fruit was stored in bins in cool, dark, cellars, or was buried in pits lined with bright straw. No child needed a light to find his favorite variety. He couldburrow and fetch up the most elusive by the feel of it in his hand, and his nose would confirm his judgment. Now the north wind might blow, the robin fly south and Johnny be out on some bleak road, but there would be comfort and pleasure of his providing at the winter fireside.

The whole family helped him wash the seeds out of the pomace and dry them on the chimney-shelf. From the wagon-gate they watched and waved to him until, with the long stride which carried him so rapidly over great distances, he disappeared around a bend of the road. The hearts of Ethan and Mary went with Johnny along every mile of that brave journey, whose limit was the length of days allotted to him and the goal an or- chard on the utmost horizon.

Their forethought went with him, too. Mary had spent time and reflection on a letter to Dr. Hildreth. It was the right of the people of the West, who loved him, to know how it was with Johnny. As capable as he had ever been of doing his beautiful work, his own safety and comfort must now be a charge on those he had served so long and so unselfishly. People were prepared forhis changed appearance, his lapse of memory, his extravagant mysticism, and the exagger- ated sympathies which impelled him to strip himself of the necessaries of life. They were asked not to recall to him the sad things which he had forgotten, to indulge his con- soling beliefs, attend to his physical needs, and have the courage and faith to let him goon.

In Marietta the letter passed from hand to hand. Men talked about it in thoughtful groups on the street, and women parted with misty eyes at garden gates. Copies of it were made, and sent on to other towns. Copied again and again, Mary's letter went 'round from Pittsburg to the prairies, re- minding every one who had an orchard, and every one for whom he lived only to replant the orchard that had been destroyed, of the debt of love and gratitude that was owed to Johnny. There was no waterway or post- road or wild trail in the region which did not ring with his name; no child who did not listen wide-eyed to his brave and tender story; no family shrine from which a prayer did not go up that his days might be long in the land and his pathway lined with his

THE SHINING GOAIown blossoming trees. In thinking of him the social and religious conscience was awakened, and other men and women were stirred to neglected civic and neighborly duties. Thus, while still living, Johnny became a poignant and admonishing memory.

And if it had been a startling thing to the people of a generation before to see the gentle, zealous and undefended youth, it was now an arresting and uplifting experience to have this fervid and unconsciously aging man come in, erect under his beneficent burden, clad in any insufficient and nondescript way, his white hair streaming in the winter wind. It was as though the bitter frosts which had laid the blight of discouragement on so many had touched Johnny grievously, too, but only to strengthen his purpose and sweeten his spirit. A sermon and a song, he journeyed down the Scioto and Hocking valleys, and up the Muskingum. The grateful affection and respect in which he had always been held deepened to the reverent love which has been, everywhere and in every age of the world, ac- corded to moral superiority.

His was the honored place at board and fireside where, by many innocent deceptions,

J 9he was persuaded to accept the best. And, although few people had much surplus cloth- ing, warm garments were always found for Johnny. He progressed rapidly and gleaned a great store of seeds, for now children helped him wash them out of the pomace; hero- worshiping farm and village boys tramped with him on every highway, assisting him over many a delaying difficulty, and when his leather bag grew heavy, men discovered that they had errands his way and gave him lifts in wagons. In not a few instances towns and churches took up collections and bought horses and new clothing for him. Such wealth, however, he held only in trust for the next needy stranger he encountered. So, in the course of a few years, people learned to sup- ply his immediate necessities with anything of small value that was serviceable. And in Ohio, at least, where his errand kept him on main-traveled roads in the oldest and most thickly settled districts, he never suffered privation for a longer time than it took him to make the next house.

One day early in March he reappeared at the old home, "to spend the day with Betty." A neighboring farmer, returning from thenearest village in a wagon, had picked him up on the road, along which he was stagger- ing under the weight of two big bags of seeds. From a last year's scarecrow, fallen in a corn- field, he had taken a crownless hat and a gun- nysack coat. The winter of toil and travel had stripped his spare figure of every ounce of surplus flesh, and from his thin-featured, ascetic face his large dark eyes shone, brilliant and eager, from the urgency within.

"Johnny dear, you are half frozen!" Mary cried. Quick tears filled her eyes. She never could get used to seeing him come in like this. She did not rest now until he was warmed and fed, and clothed decently in one of Ethan's good suits. He had trifling gifts for the chil- dren  marbles for the boys and bright hair- ribbons for the little girls. It was in this way, and for religious books to distribute among the elders in scantily supplied cabins on the prairies, that he spent the small sums of money which many people slipped into his pockets.

After supper, when the children were in bed, Johnny and Mary and Ethan and the little empty rocking-chair gathered around the open fire in the old grouping. While

Mary knitted and Ethan shelled seed-corn Johnny read aloud from the New Testament and from the copy of Swedenborg which he always carried in the bosom of his shirt. At the end of every day, whether alone or in company, he had this sweet hour of com- munion and prayer. Wholly preoccupied, then, with the other world, he seemed to lose touch with earthly persons and things. To any audience, and with an astonishing poetic imagery drawn from his intimate knowl- edge and love of the most elusive things of nature, he described his visions and reported his talks with angels.

These fantastic accounts were listened to everywhere with pleasure, respect and even credulity. Johnny had a personal charm that was felt by every one, and a voice of beauty and persuasion, and when he spoke of his faith or his mission, which was faith trans- mitted into work, his speech was so inspired, his countenance so lighted with the fires of fanaticism, that people quite lost their sober judgment.

Mary and Ethan were carried away now when he sprang to his feet, swept his halo of silver hair back from his face, and, like anyprophet of old, delivered his burning message. He was going into the wilderness, with nothought for the morrow, to take eomfort and beauty to brave men, wistful women and defrauded children. Angels would watch over

SWEPT HIS HALO OF SILVER HAIR BACK FROM HIS FACE, AND, LIKE ANY PROPHET OF OLD, DELIVERED HIS BURNING MESSAGEhim, ravens feed him, manna fall from the skies. All the days of his life he would walk in safety, blessedness and peace until his task was done.

Their hearts sank. In the moment of re- action they looked at each other in sick dis-

2 3may. Was this dear visionary, who was "not all here " because a good part of him was already in heaven, to be let go, perhaps to wander about aimlessly in perilous wilds? But almost at once they were reassured. The part of him that was on earth was all practical, informed, efficient. During the win- ter he had read the newspapers and talked with leading men. He had overlooked no detail by which he could give the greatest service to the greatest number in his new field, and with the least danger of his plant- ing being brought to an untimely end.

Taking a bit of charred wood from the hearth, he sketched a rough map of the old Northwest Territory on Mary's white-pine table. Then, with three swift strokes, he marked the northwestward trend of migra- tion, above the navigable streams of the Ohio River Valley  the National Road which was being pushed through the centrally loca.ted capitals of the three Southern states to the Mississippi; the post-road soon to be opened between Detroit and Chicago; and the hun- dreds of miles of canals that were projected along the Maumee, Miami and Wabash, to connect Lake Erie with the Ohio River.

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" Thousands of people are breaking those iron trails to the West and settling near them, and those are the routes I must follow. In another dozen years there will be tens of thousands. Then there will be towns and nurserymen. But in that time a generation of children could grow up without the mem- ories of orchards."

A dozen years! He was fifty-eight, and in the hard, half-century of pioneering in the Middle West many were old at forty-five.

When he had gone to his comfortable bed in the loft chamber, Ethan could not contain his pride in him. "He'll do it, Mary. Johnny knows what he is about. He'll live long and finish that task. You might as well try to stop the Holy Ghost."

Mary had knelt and repeated the prayer she had learned at her mother's knee before she answered. "Whether his life be long or short, he will live the Beatitudes and see God every hour."

When Johnny rose at an early hour in the morning, Ethan brought a horse to the door for him  a big, strong animal that could carry him and his belongings with ease. He disposed his seeds, and the new tools and

2 5small camping outfit provided for him, on the horse, and spared a moment to give him the pleasure of nosing in a pocket for an apple. But when Ethan urged him to mount he shook his head. That was a heavy enough load for any horse. Not until there were orchards in his new field of labors would he look upon blossoming or fruiting trees again; nor could he stop every spring for a day with Betty. He often saw her, now, in some fa- miliar or angelic guise, but it was only here that he fully recovered her.

"Is Betty asleep?"

"Yes, Johnny, she's asleep," Mary man- aged to answer, with a tender smile.

"Don't waken her."

He led the horse up to the road. They knew he would walk all that weary way, and that he was not likely to have this good horse for his baggage for any length of time. He would gradually strip himself of every comfort and advantage. So he would go to the end of his earthly journey, keeping only the essential things  his seeds, his tools, his love for Betty and his purpose.

At Sandusky he left the horse behind for an emigrant family stranded by the loss of ananimal on the road, and crossed the cold lake to Detroit on the windy deck of a freight- boat. He had no recollection of having been there since the war of twenty years before, when the place was a lethargic, wilderness fortress and Indian trading-post. These hur- rying crowds enchanted him  so many peo- ple for him to serve! Dragging his roped baggage across the gang-plank, he mounted the steps which led up from the dock.

Without help it would be difficult to go on. But help came to Johnny, now, when it was needed, and his relations with men were on the simple religious basis of the duty and joy of giving and receiving. With entire confidence he stood still and looked out over bobbing hats, piles of goods and a confusion of tangled trucks and teams, until he caught the serene and kindly eye of a French Recollet friar. The Franciscan missionary was evi- dently just starting on a journey, for he rode one pony and led another. Making his way through the press, he dismounted. It was a friend, whose face and name and habit of life were erased from his memory, who laid a fraternal hand on Johnny's shoulder.

"We go the same way, man frire, and 327upon much the same errand. So put your belongings on my extra animal and we will walk in company." Thinking it well that, in the midst of their temporal concerns, men should be reminded of their blessings, he raised his hand and voice. ' ' Let us give thanks to Our Lady that Johnny Appleseed moon has risen on the woods and prairies."

A cheer went up from those within hearing and hats were thrown in the air. Johnny did not know that the hope of orchards had been cruelly dashed from the lips of the people of this region once, nor that the promise of his re- turn had been glad tidings to settlers and an inducement to new-comers. The extravagant welcomes and consideration which greeted him seemed only the natural response to his own love and elation. Now his way to join the procession which was moving across the marshy ground to the West, was lined with cheers, hand-clasps, uncovered heads, lifted babies and faces which, at the sight of his white hair and eyes of consecrated and ardent youth, paid the silent tributes of hearts made suddenly humble. A hush fell upon the crowd for a moment as that passionate pil- grim disappeared in the forest.

There were more people in the country than he had expected to find, and more corn and cattle. In many districts game practi- cally disappeared after the winter of the d< snow, and in the hard years which followed farming was pursued with desperate energy. But, except on the road westward from De- troit, where the horn of the stage-coach to Chicago presently woke the echoes of the woods, it was another decade before traveling became safer or easier. Until the National Road and canals were opened, little could be brought into the country or sent out; and until near the middle of the century people who had settled at any distance from navi- gable water continued to live in the most primitive way.

In later years, and by chroniclers who suf- fered none of the hardships of the first gener- ation in that region, much was made of Johnny's bare or bark-sandaled feet and his scant and nondescript garments. But very few people wore shoes in the summer months, and most were reduced to odd makeshifts in the way of clothing. What they had they shared with Johnny. And while he always gave away the best that was given to him,his condition was not piteous and all his ec- centricities were endearing. The hemp -bag shirt and pasteboard hat in which he ap- peared at times, were robe and crown for a new St. John of the wilderness.

As far as was possible he was watched and guarded, for in the care of himself Johnny was "plumb foolish." Sublimely delivered from fear, he waded bare-legged across any snake-infested swamp which lay in his path; and, filled with reverence and compassion for all life, he refused to build a camp-fire where ants had their underground villages or moths were flying. He had been known to feed a sick wolf which followed him like a dog, and to put out a fire he had made against a hollow log in which he discovered a hibernating bear, and to sleep near by in the dark.

But no harm ever befell him, a thing to be accounted for only by his own belief that he was under Divine protection. His en- durance, too, was nothing less than a miracle. Year after year, while he withered and wrinkled like any winter apple losing its juices by slow evaporation, but sound and sweet to the last, he covered hundreds ofmiles of country, and was never known to be ill. When the earth stiffened with frost he went out to his gleaning of seeds through Toledo, and he returned to his plan ting through Detroit, Fort Wayne or the Quaker settle- ments of eastern Indiana before ever a prairie furrow was turned up to the sun. In his an- nual rounds one of his sources of happiness was to note how the children, colts and calves, and his own little trees, playing in wind and sun, grew tall and strong to take up the sober duties and higher joys of life.

Before the first of Johnny's trees in that region were in bearing, beard had started through the tanned cheek of "Billy" grown to young William W r orth. When he had fenced in a quarter-section of prairie on the river- bank north of Fort Wayne, broken the sod for corn and built a little white cot, he asked Johnny to plant an orchard for Madeleine Bourie. The house was of the style that was dear to the French trader from the province of Quebec. Long and low, its roof, which sloped out over a narrow front veranda, was set with tiny dormer windows. When its clapboards were whitewashed, honeysuckles and Prairie Queen roses trained up the porchiposts, and Lombardy poplars planted to flank the picket-gate, it was a pleasant home in- deed to come upon at the end of a day's journey. Johnny always slept there one night when he passed through the town. And for Madeleine, who had the brown hair, blue eyes and engaging manners of her Norman race, he laid out a garden and orchard pat- terned after the old home of his heart in Ohio. Suddenly, in a thousand scattered places, Johnny's earliest trees bloomed and fruited. The wilderness fell back, abashed. Birds and bees came in from the woods. Cabins which had been but rude and unloved shelters in bitter lands of exile, were transformed into homes overnight, and people took root in wild soil tamed by these domestic trees. His or- chards bore other crops besides apples  beauty, contentment, the hope of better days, the social gathering, memories. Year after year his trees increased in number and in value, for grafting-buds were taken from old orchards in Detroit, Piqua and Dayton, and gradually carried westward. When the new trade routes were opened Johnny had nur- series in market-towns to turn over to other men. The dozen years were more than gone,and he had finished tin's task. But there were other fields for his planting farther horizons.

He was seventy-two years old when, in thespring of 1847, his eager feet took the path of blossoms up the Valley of the Maumee toward the new goal. Early in March he stopped at the old home for his day with Betty, so buoyant, so full of happy plans for his new undertaking in the northwestern corner of Indiana, that, although he was looking very old and feeble, Mary and Ethan gave up their intention of trying to persuade him to remain with them and end his days in com- fort. His comfort, his spiritual necessity, was in his continuing task. For him time was merged in eternity. When his work on earth was done there would be orchards for his planting and nurturing in the Garden of God. In going up through the Black Swamp, in a soft and foggy thaw, he had a mild at- tack of malaria. He managed to reach Toledo, but only to lie in bed there for a month. Be- wildered by the prostration which had so slight a cause, and by the trembling weakness and shortness of breath that paralyzed effort when he was up again, he crept out into thewarm sunshine of a late April day, to look upon trees that were on the point of bursting into bloom.

The planting season would be over before he could reach his new field, and friends pleaded with him to remain where he was for the summer to recover his strength. He did consent to send his seeds and tools to Fort Wayne by canal-boat, but, for himself, he meant to walk. A leisurely tramp up that happy valley in apple-blossom-time would be a holiday, and it would set him on his feet again for his summer of exploration.

What a transformation had been wrought in this valley by the courage and faith and killing labor of two generations of men! It thrilled Johnny's heart to think of the share he had had in that brave work. Even a dec- ade before this hundred-mile depression had been all but impassable in the spring; and a flatboat voyage down the dark-walled, sluggish flood in the autumn, when he had put in his seeds, had been a dismal experience. Now, Toledo had pulled itself up out of the mud, and, a garden-girt city of four thousand people, stood on its green peninsula, between the shipping on the bay and the barges onthe canal, taking its rich toll of travel and trade. There were still stretches of swampy woods that came right down to the towpath,but for the most part the low plain lay open to the view. From high banks along the rapids a wayfarer could look down upon miles of foaming waters, and running back from every busy little bowered town, the prairies stretched from swell to swell, be- tween belts of woodland, with corn-fields, meadows and comfortable homes hidden in bloom.

Going up that valley was like a vision of the road to heaven and w T hat lay at the end of it, which had once enchanted him. Along the bank of a full-flowing river he had fol- lowed a path of blossoms, until he had come to gleaming gates of morning opening on limitless fields of spring, with mounds and banks of bloom on every horizon. And in a secluded paradise of ordered loveliness he had found Betty, restored to her youthful beauty, and weaving garlands for the shining heads of the little children gathered around her.

Every hour he was obliged to rest. Kind people, he noticed, were very apt to join him and to keep him company for a stage of thejourney. If alone, he gathered the harvest of the poetic eye and ear. He ate in any doorway, slept wherever he happened to be at nightfall  for every roof was a home for him; but he was off again before any one else was stirring. Little ones sent to call him to breakfast ran back, disappointed.

"Oh, mother, Johnny's gone!"

The older people looked at each other across cheerful tables sadly. Many who watched Johnny moving slowly up the valley, as if in a happy dream, did not expect ever to see him again; and they waited anxiously to hear that he had reached Fort Wayne.

It was near sunset one evening, when the blossoms were white with age, that Made- leine Worth, busy in her kitchen, heard the picket-gate click on the latch. She ran down the path to meet Johnny. Although weary and faint that he tottered to a fall, his eyes still had that undying look of his far-away youth, as of one who sees only the distant and splendid goal.

"Did my seeds come?"

"A week ago. You should have come with them. We have been afraid  Dear friend, you have been ill!"

"It was nothing  not worth mentioning. I will be better soon."

Under cover of clasping her firm young hands about his arm as fondly as any grand-j>j :'" .' ','''  

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HIS EYES STILL HAD THAT UNDYING LOOK OF HIS FAR-AWAY YOUTH, AS OF ONE WHO SEES ONLY THE DISTANT AND SPLENDID GOALdaughter, Madeleine helped him up the steps. He sank breathlessly into the armed chair of hickory splints. In a moment she broughtout a bowl of hot milk, and said that he should have fresh eggs and wheat-bread toast and apple-blossom honey for his supper, because he was "company." Tucking bright calico cushions around him, she left him and, with misty eyes, returned to her work of preparing the evening meal.

He sat there blissfully, watching the loos- ened petals blow before the wind, and lis- tening to the vesper songs of the birds and the laughing chatter of the very young chil- dren who had a bark playhouse in the or- chard. He was never alone now. Old friends returned, thronging the sacred room of mem- ory, as he looked out between the sentinel poplars, across the green and flowery prairie to the setting sun. He was asleep when William came in from the fields.

The boy who had said, "You lean on me, Johnny; I'm strong," was now a man to lean upon. A stalwart pioneer of the second generation, in his youthful prime, he looked down upon Johnny, sunk among the cushions  wasted to emaciation, bleached to trans- parency, worn out by his half- century-long labor of love! William could not eat his supper for the lump in his throat. He madeup his mind that Johnny's wanderings should come to an end. He would be unable to travel at all for some days, and he and his clever Madeleine must find a way to keep him al- together.

Rested and refreshed, Johnny's soul of flame burned with its old heat and brightness for an hour. People were going into north- western Indiana, settling on the sand-dunes and in the oak-openings of the old lands of the Pottawatomies ; around the shores of the many lovely lakes that dotted the northern prairies, and on the rich plains which bor- dered the southern margin of that million- acre mystery, the swamps of the Kankakee. Most of them would be sixty miles from any outlet. He might go on to the vast prairies of eastern Illinois. In another dozen years 

He wanted to take a blanket to the orchard, but clouds had spread across the sky and the soft wind felt like rain, so he was persuaded to sleep on a pallet on the porch floor. Once in the night William came out with an extra covering, and found him asleep.

Before daylight he awoke suddenly. In his dream he had heard the old boat-bugle of early days on the Ohio River  distant,ineffable, such as had seemed to call the soul of Mary Lake to life everlasting. It was not yet morning, but the rain had ceased. He could have an hour in the orchard before starting on the journey to his new field of labor. When his heart had quieted down from its wild beating he took up his seeds and tools and went down the steps into the odorous darkness.

He may have slept, to dream again, for he thought himself in another, dearer orchard. Some happy memory made him smile when the breeze shook down a shower of drops and of cool, scented petals on his upturned face. At the back of the house the meadow sloped to the grassy bank of the river. He could see the stream which still lay dark, and the rosy drift of dawn which bloomed above it.

The first rays of morning light were re- flected from the fluttering leaves of the wet poplars. The prairie was spread out, gray, then silver, with beaded rain. There was a twittering in the tree-tops. A meadow-lark fluted from the pasture. Madeleine, coming out to call Johnny to breakfast, saw his empty bed, with startled blue eyes that filled with tears.

"Oh, Billy, he's gone!"

But no trail was broken across the drenched grass of the prairie, where the rising sun awoke a sea of sparkles.

Johnny was gone, to an eternal day with Betty, and to plant orchards in the Garden of God.

