The Reading-Club.
THE LIGHT FROM OVER THE RANGE.
"D'ye see it, pard?"
"See what, Rough?"
"The light from over the Range."
"Not a bit, Rough. It's not daybreak yet. Yer sick, an' yer head bothers ye."
"Pard, yer off. I've been sick, but I'm well again. It's not dark like it was. The light's a-comin' — comin' like the boyhood days that crep' inter the winders of the old home."
"Ye've been dreamin', Rough. The fever hain't all outen yer head yet."
"Dreamin'? 'Twa'n't all dreams. It's the light comin', pard. I see 'em all plain. Thar's the ole man lookin' white an' awful, just as he looked the mornin' he drove me from home; and that woman behind him, stretchin' out her arms arter me, is the best mother in the world. Don't you see 'em, pard?"
"Yer flighty, Rough. It's all dark, 'cepting a pine-knot flickerin' in the ashes."
"No — the light's a-comin' brighter and brighter. Look! It's beamin' over the Range bright and gentle, like the smile that used to be over me when my head lay in my mother's lap, long ago."
"Hyar's a little brandy, Rough. Thar: I seen it though my eyes are dim — somehow — hyar, Rough."
"Never, pard. That stuff spiled the best years of my life — it sha'n't spile my dreams of 'em. Oh, sich dreams,5
