Bart Ridgeley

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.