Show AT LIFES CROSSROADS A romance of Carmel-by-the-Sea Written for the Utah Independent by Wanda A. is a star from Heaven that points the And leads us to Its beautiful Yours is a colossal mission that Nature bids you It to welcome every soul who your gates with a wholesomeness that your endowments give you ample power to Take these weary children from the busy marts of the veritably under your protecting wing and deal with them as an all-wise mother soothes and pacifies a fretful Expectantly they do not disappoint Awake the avaricious merchant from his lethargy of Stay for a from fancy's the intemperate zeal of the Heal the faltering imbecile with thy exhilarating salton sea mingled with the balsamic odors of the Renew courage and strength In every dear mother's that she may more nobly render her sacred Cheer comfort and bless and you will be crowned with laurels of gratitude that will rest upon your valiant ever adding a halo to your So apostrophized a lone as she stood on an eminence at Cypress Point which defines the Northern extremity of Carmel and well she might apostrophize for the site of Carmel-by-the-Sea is one of the spots on the shores of the only spot where seven hundred acres of pine forest condescends to the very edge of the its waters advancing and receding affectionately lave the shore as if their sole duty toward their Creator was to express a ceaseless discontent The white silicon sand gleams in the sunlight like pulverized At certain periods of the year the water is so replete with that the encroaching breakers appear at night like gigantic rolls of a phenomenon so ai to be almost Incredible to the tourist until the spectacle has been witnessed The historical interest of the traveler hovers around the picturesque Carmel It nestles cosily under a protecting the Padres never made a mistake in selecting the sites to build their Near by the graceful Carmel river flows placidly to the To the left the Santa Lucia mountains stretch their arnn serenely from north to strange that distance always Idealizes these profound sentinels of our atmospheric Influences lend their aid and tone and soften the panorama and in their to their own liking capricious continually changing as though always seeking a new but never arriving at Away to the other side U Del world-famed and From there the widely reputed drive of seventeen miles twists and winds through various now extending straight with all the dignity of an aristocratic now curling like a vine through a region that reminds one of a New England now skimming boldly the open now playing hide and seek thru miniature vales and dells and finally brushing the outskirts of the little village of The sea-gulls dive and soar at for these unflagging snowy pinioned rangers of the ether ate all but sacred to the of the ocean's The woman standing as she did high on the cliffs formed an entrancing picture accentuated by a background of Cypress trees Identical with the cedars of ancient The woman had scaled the cliff with Incredible dexterity to gain this superb vantage for she wished nothing to be between her and the She looked out across the abundant water that swelled its huge In obedience to the tyrannical not a sailing craft of any sort was she was Intensely but with the most gratifying companionship she had ever The woman paused as she reached a rift in the Jagged rocks that seemed to suit her she raised her arms and caressingly stroked the uneven walls about befitting she thought She looked far down where the rocky cliffs stand at bay while the waves with many sullen and angry growls lashes its Imperturbable sides In She and her rambling thoughts were something like deep-voiced and strong with many a roar and ly sings the anthem of the ages and the pines bow their proud beads In humility and reverence to chant the while the rapturous echoes of these majestic reverberates on the sensitive of the soul of Thus the elements give expression In a voice of praise to In the on the and thus that Nature sings to the listening heart the and the whisperings of the pines like sweetest vespers In our soothes and hypnotizes until It lulls us to delicious then the roaring sea grows bold as Its victim succumbs and to our sleeping ears comes Its wild tales of battles of conquests of bounding life and paling seductive tales of love and wily tales of exaggerated histories of ages m and prophecies of ages yet to and milder tales that sink Into the pulsating heart like truth holding to our dreaming a lucid reflections of our other lives that was Is to The winds with more of relate their stories In storms and In sweeps and sighs and then recline at c ruin Intervals In soft but you untiring the your story Is always but never A prolonged period of agonizing discontent had prompted the woman for In her present a consoling refuge was this companionship of Her disposition was habitually and her nature but with these occasional periods of exasperating discontented gloom that literally swallowed her At these times she could see nothing to live nothing to strive for and nothing to Illumine the heart with The gayety of those around her annoyed her and she at their conduct to their taper natures granting that they had never looked beneath the surface lute the troubled sea of She could have given no valid reason for had she been there was no circumstance In her life to warrant it She was the only child of orthy Her father had died when she was but fifteen years of he bad been a man of marked ability In many and was considered a genius by those nearest but be had passed on before the daughter bad really made the acquaintance of his strong The comparatively small financial resources bad been placed entirely Into the hands of the so confident was the mother of the girl's ability to creditably execute those affairs so conscious of her own weakness and The strongest efforts of the girl's life had been to prevent any cloud from obscuring the sun even for an hour from the little mother's The mother's absolute reliance upon the daughter was picturesque to a Like the simple mother duck In the barnyard had nurtured and reared this majestic graceful whom she depended Idolized and revered but understood not The mother would gaze for hours Into that splendid that magnificent with child-like admiration and striving to fathom the Intricacies of that but It was not to Although felt the sacred honor of being the medium of her the woman herself would always remain foreign to At such a time as this the daughter would affectionately stroke the pretty maternal heed always delineating without difficulty her Innermost never replying verbally to these vague seeming to know the futility of such a but she would think with a comforting is the and I am the Like a delicate wax doll that lacked the little mother was carefully shielded from Perhaps this lack of understanding from those nearest was unconsciously one of the small threads that formed the twine of moody that spasmodically bound itself so tightly about She mentally reviewed her life from her earliest memory of it anxiously making bold notes of the unpleasant experiences and reluctantly recognizing the Presently she began to admit that the bright spaces were remarkably in to be they formed the Just here she stooped to pick up a fluttering leaf of paper that the rising breeze had carried to her She scanned its contents then removing a pencil from her hair she wrote for many then folded the writing and placed it in her The brief diversion had brought about a her was Then she began to question the reason for these blanks of if there was no tangible could they not be And was it selfishly ungrateful to rear these precipitous black mountains of morbid imagination to retard And Presently she was conscious of an inward peace creeping over like the brilliancy of the rays of a midday sun falling upon one's pathway in the blackness of was this and with it came one of those moments when all nature seems to creating an astonishing and it placed the woman in an attitude of to her listening heart came the is the Father's good pleasure to give you the be continued next |