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Show BECAME HERMIT WHENJ3IRL DIED RECLUSE IN MAINE MOUNTAINS REVEALS ROMANCE WHICH " DROVE HIM TO SOLITUDE. WORKED LONG TO WIN BRIDE Returning to Claim Her, After Three Years' Absence, He Met the Funeral Fu-neral Procession Carrying Her Body to the Grave. Bangor, Me. Far up the valley of i the Crooked river, in Washington county, beyond the limits of the logging log-ging camps, lives Jack Wilber, the hermit of Peaked mountain, who for 13 years has dwelt in solitude in a log hut. Something of a mystery has always surrounded this slender, palefaced recluse, rec-luse, whose physique did not seem strong enough to withstand the hardships hard-ships of a winter in the Maine woods, and who in every way appeared on-fitted on-fitted for the life which he had chosen to lead. It was known that Wilber had to his credit $30,000 in a local bank, and this made his conduct all the more inexplicable inex-plicable to those who knew of his lonely existence. The explanation has, however, been provided by two lumbermen, who returned re-turned to Machias from a trip through the Crooked River valley and whe partook one night of the hospitality of the hermit They induced him to telt his story, which reveals the causes which induced him to forever isolate himself from the haunts of civilization. civiliza-tion. This romance of his life, he says, he has never told before. "My home was in the west," said Wilber. "and when 1 was yet a young boy my parents' died and I was intrusted in-trusted to the care of a uncle and aunt who lived in Montana. My new guardians seemed to resent the additional addi-tional burden which had been thrust upon them, and my life with them waj not pleasant. "As I became older the slights became be-came still more unbearable, and hafl "Yes, Jack," She Replied, "I Will Wait for You Three Years." it not been for the growing attachment attach-ment between myself and their daughter, daugh-ter, Mary Stoningham, I would hae long before started out to find emiitoy-ment emiitoy-ment and, if possible, a less irksome existence. "One night, when 1 was about 20 years old, I asked Mary if she woali trust me and wait for me three yean. During (hat time, I said, I would earn enough money so that we could gel married and go east. " 'Yes, Jack,' she replied, 'I will wait for you three years, and I know I caa trust you.' "The story of my attempts to gain a living for the next two years is not of especial interest, but at. the end of that time I succeeded in purchasing a building lot of L. P. Small, who owned a large ranch in southern California, and by whom 1 was employed. Soon after natural gas was discovered on the ranch, and I sold my section of it for j:io,ooo. "The three years were nearly up. and my first thought was of Mary Stoningham, with whom 1 had been i constant communication. "When I arrived at the little town where she had lived with her parents ; deposited my money in a bank and then started for Mary's home. "On the way I met a funeral pro cession. I asked a former acqualnt-arce acqualnt-arce who was dead. His reply shattered shat-tered in a moment the air castles wiilch I had been building, for he tolil me that my Sweetheart had died only two days before, after a brief Illness. My money now seemed valueless to me. All the charm of life had gone. 1 did not feel that I could meet my uncle and aunt, so I immediately withdrew with-drew my money from the bank and took the first train east. 1 kept on in that direction until I came to tbe wilds of Washington county, In Maine, in the easternmost part of the country, coun-try, and here I erected my log huL Here Is where I shall always stay. "When I go It shall be to me Mary, and until then the loneliest place is none too lonely for me.' |