fall; to hear a shriek from Del that froze her blood; to see the solid ceiling gape above her; to see the walls and windows stagger; to see iron pillars reel, and vast machinery throw up its helpless, giant arms, and a tangle of human faces blanch and writhe!

She sprang as the floor sunk. As pillar after pillar gave way, she bounded up an inclined plane, with the gulf yawning after her. It gained upon her, leaped at her, caught her; beyond were the stairs and an open door; she threw out her arms, and struggled on with hands and knees, tripped in the gearing, and saw, as she fell, a square, oaken beam above her yield and crash; it was of a fresh red color; she dimly wondered why, - as she felt her hands slip, her knees slide, support, time,, place, and reason, go utterly out.

“At ten minutes before five, on Tuesday, the tenth of January, the Pemberton Mill, all hands being at the time on duty, fell to the ground."

So the record flashed over the telegraph wires, sprang into large type in the newspapers, passed from lip to lip, a nine days' wonder, gave place to the successful candidate, and the muttering South, and was forgotten.

Who shall say what it was to the seven hundred and fifty souls who were buried in the ruins? What to the eighty-eight who died that death of exquisite agony? What to the wrecks of men and women who endure unto this day a life that is worse than death? What to that architect and engineer who, when the fatal pillars were first delivered to them for inspection, had found one broken under their eyes, yet accepted the contract, and built with them a mill whose thin walls and wide, unsupported stretches could never keep their place unaided?

One that we love may go to the battle-ground, and we are ready for the worst: we have said our good-bys; our hearts wait and pray: it is his life, not his death, which is the surprise. But that he should go out to his safe, daily, commonplace occupations, un

noticed and uncaressed, scolded a little, perhaps, because he leaves the door open, and tells us how cross we are this morning; and they bring him up the steps by and by, a mangled mass of death and horror,- that is hard.

Old Martyn, working at Meg Match's shoes, she was never to wear those shoes, poor Meg! - heard, at ten minutes before five, what he thought to be the rumble of an earthquake under his very feet, and stood with bated breath, waiting for the crash. As nothing further appeared to happen, he took his stick and limped out into the street.

A vast crowd surged through it from end to end. Women with white lips were counting the mills, Pacific, Atlantic, Washington, - Pemberton ? Where was Pemberton ?

Where Pemberton had blazed with its lamps last night, and hummed with its iron lips this noon, a cloud of dust, black, silent, horrible, puffed a hundred feet into the air.

Asenath opened her eyes after a time. Beautiful green and purple lights had been dancing about her, but she had had no thoughts. It occurred to her now that she must have been struck upon the head. The churchclocks were striking eight. A bonfire which had been built at a distance, to light the citizens in the work of rescue, cast a little gleam in through the débris across her two hands, which lay clasped together at her side. One of her fingers, she saw, was gone; it was the finger which held Dick's little engagement ring. The red beam lay across her forehead, and drops dripped from it upon her eyes. Her feet, still tangled in the gearing which had tripped her, were buried beneath a pile of bricks.

A broad piece of flooring that had fallen slantwise roofed her in, and saved her from the mass of iron-work overhead, which would have crushed the breath out of Hercules. Fragments of looms, shafts, and pillars were in heaps about. Some one whom she could not see was dying just behind her. A little girl who worked in her

room-a mere child-was crying between her groans for her mother. Del Ivory sat in a little open space, cushioned about with reels of cotton; she had a shallow gash upon her cheek; she was wringing her hands. They were at work from the outside, sawing entrances through the labyrinth of planks. A dead woman lay close by, and Sene saw them draw her out. It was Meg Match. One of the pretty Irish girls was crushed quite out of sight; only one hand was free; she moved it feebly. They could hear her calling for Jimmy Mahoney, Jimmy Mahoney! and would they be sure and give him back the handkerchief? Poor Jimmy Mahoney! By and by she called no more; and in a little while the hand was still. The other side of the slanted flooring some one prayed aloud. She had a little baby at home. She was asking God to take care of it for her. "For Christ's sake," she said. Sene listened long for the Amen, but it was never spoken. Beyond, they dug a man out from under a dead body, unhurt. He crawled to his feet, and broke into furious blasphemies.

As consciousness came fully, agony grew. Sene shut her lips and folded her bleeding hands together, and uttered no cry. Del did screaming enough for two, she thought. She pondered things calmly as the night deepened, and the words that the workers outside were saying came brokenly to her. Her hurt, she knew, was not unto death; but it must be cared for before very long; how far could she support this slow bleeding away? And what were the chances that they could hew their way to her without crushing her?

She thought of her father, of Dick; of the bright little kitchen and suppertable set for three; of the song that she had sung in the flush of the morning. Life - even her life-grew sweet, now that it was slipping from her.

Del cried presently, that they were cutting them out. The glare of the bonfires struck through an opening; saws and axes flashed; voices grew distinct.

"They never can get at me," said

Sene. "I must be able to crawl. If you could get some of those bricks off of my feet, Del!"

Del took off two or three in a frightened way; then, seeing the blood on them, sat down and cried.

A Scotch girl, with one arm shattered, crept up and removed the pile; then fainted.

The opening broadened, brightened; the sweet night-wind blew in; the safe night sky shone through. Sene's heart leaped within her. Out in the wind and under the sky she should stand again after all! Back in the little kitchen, where the sun shone, and she could sing a song, there would yet be a place for her. She worked her head from under the beam, and raised herself upon her elbow.

At that moment she heard a cry:

"Fire! fire! GOD ALMIGHTY HELP THEM, THE RUINS ARE ON FIRE!"

"For God's sake," a voice cried from the crowd, "don't stay there with that light!"

But while this voice yet sounded, it was the dreadful fate of the man with the lantern to let it fall, and it broke upon the ruined mass.

That was at nine o'clock. What there was to see from then till morning could never be told or forgotten.

A network twenty feet high, of rods and girders, of beams, pillars, stairways, gearing, roofing, ceiling, walling; wrecks of looms, shafts, twisters, pulleys, bobbins, mules, locked and interwoven; wrecks of human creatures wedged in; a face that you know turned up at you from some pit which twenty-four hours' hewing could not open; a voice that you know crying after you from God knows where; a mass of long, fair hair visible here; a foot there; three fingers of a hand over there; the snow bright-red under foot; charred limbs and headless trunks tossed about; strong men carrying

fall; to hear a shriek from Del that froze her blood; to see the solid ceiling gape above her; to see the walls and windows stagger; to see iron pillars reel, and vast machinery throw up its helpless, giant arms, and a tangle of human faces blanch and writhe!

She sprang as the floor sunk. As pillar after pillar gave way, she bounded up an inclined plane, with the gulf yawning after her. It gained upon her, leaped at her, caught her; beyond were the stairs and an open door; she threw out her arms, and struggled on with hands and knees, tripped in the gearing, and saw, as she fell, a square, oaken beam above her yield and crash; it was of a fresh red color; she dimly wondered why, as she felt her hands slip, her knees slide, support, time,, place, and reason, go utterly out.

"At ten minutes before five, on Tuesday, the tenth of January, the Pemberton Mill, all hands being at the time on duty, fell to the ground."

So the record flashed over the telegraph wires, sprang into large type in the newspapers, passed from lip to lip, a nine days' wonder, gave place to the successful candidate, and the muttering South, and was forgotten.

Who shall say what it was to the seven hundred and fifty souls who were buried in the ruins? What to the eighty-eight who died that death of exquisite agony? What to the wrecks of men and women who endure unto this day a life that is worse than death? What to that architect and engineer who, when the fatal pillars were first delivered to them for inspection, had found one broken under their eyes, yet accepted the contract, and built with them a mill whose thin walls and wide, unsupported stretches could never keep their place unaided?

One that we love may go to the battle-ground, and we are ready for the worst: we have said our good-bys; our hearts wait and pray: it is his life, not his death, which is the surprise. But that he should go out to his safe, daily, commonplace occupations, un

noticed and uncaressed, scolded a little, perhaps, because he leaves the door open, and tells us how cross we are this morning; and they bring him up the steps by and by, a mangled mass of death and horror,—that is hard.

-

Old Martyn, working at Meg Match's shoes, she was never to wear those shoes, poor Meg!- heard, at ten minutes before five, what he thought to be the rumble of an earthquake under his very feet, and stood with bated breath, waiting for the crash. As nothing further appeared to happen, he took his stick and limped out into the street.

A vast crowd surged through it from end to end. Women with white lips were counting the mills, Pacific, Atlantic, Washington, Pemberton? Where was Pemberton?

Where Pemberton had blazed with its lamps last night, and hummed with its iron lips this noon, a cloud of dust, black, silent, horrible, puffed a hundred feet into the air.

Asenath opened her eyes after a time. Beautiful green and purple lights had been dancing about her, but she had had no thoughts. It occurred to her now that she must have been struck upon the head. The churchclocks were striking eight. A bonfire which had been built at a distance, to light the citizens in the work of rescue, cast a little gleam in through the debris across her two hands, which lay clasped together at her side. One of her fingers, she saw, was gone; it was the finger which held Dick's little engagement ring. The red beam lay across her forehead, and drops dripped from it upon her eyes. Her feet, still tangled in the gearing which had tripped her, were buried beneath a pile of bricks.

A broad piece of flooring that had fallen slantwise roofed her in, and saved her from the mass of iron-work overhead, which would have crushed the breath out of Hercules. Fragments of looms, shafts, and pillars were in heaps about. Some one whom she could not see was dying just behind her. A little girl who worked in her

His

An old man was crawling along upon his hands and knees over the heated bricks. He was a very old man. gray hair blew about in the wind. "I want my little gal!" he said. "Can't anybody tell me where to find my little gal?"

A rough-looking young fellow pointed in perfect silence through the smoke.

"I'll have her out yet. I'm an old man, but I can help. She's my little gal, ye see. Hand me that there dip per of water; it'll keep her from choking, maybe. Now! Keep cheery, Sene! Your old father 'll get ye out. Keep up good heart, child! That's it!"

"It's no use, father. Don't feel bad, father. I don't mind it very

much."

He hacked at the timber; he tried to laugh; he bewildered himself with

cheerful words.

"No more ye need n't, Senath, for it'll be over in a minute. Don't be downcast yet! We'll have ye safe at home before ye know it. Drink a little

The crawling smoke turned yellow, turned red. Voice after voice broke and hushed utterly. One only sang on like silver. It flung defiance down at death. It chimed into the lurid sky

without a tremor. For one stood beside her in the furnace, and his form was like unto the form of the Son of God. Their eyes met. Why should not Asenath sing?

"Senath!" cried the old man out upon the burning bricks; he was scorched now, from his gray hair to his patched boots.

The answer came triumphantly, —

"To die no more, no more, no more!" "Sene! little Sene!"

But some one pulled him back.

MISSOURI is the stone which the

builders rejected. Under early Spanish rule, Florida, the Land of Flowers, was a vast, indefinite region, stretching north to the Canadian lakes, and westward to the "Mother Mountains." Travellers described the portion of it bordering the " great Yellow River of the Massorites as barren and inhospitable.

When it passed under French domination, all Paris, headed by famous John Law, went mad over the fancied gold and silver of "Upper Louisiana,” but held it worthless for culture and habitation.

Seventy years ago, sanguine, warmhearted, red-haired Thomas Jefferson filled our executive chair. He was sixty; he was in power; but he reversed the ordinary rule. Neither age nor official responsibility could make him timid or conservative. Indeed, they increased his daring. As a candidate, he had been the narrowest of strict constructionists. As President, he became the broadest of latitudinarians. Alexander Hamilton was the bugbear of his life. Until the great Federalist lay dying on Weehawken Heights, with Burr's bullet in his breast, the great Democrat always believed with horror that Hamilton meant to turn our government into a monarchy. Yet Jefferson himself did an act which few constitutional kings would have attempted. He deliberately and confessedly went outside of his legal powers; purchased Louisiana of Napoleon for fifteen million dollars, and more than doubled the area of the young Republic.

Real estate has advanced in price and receded in quality since then. Jefferson was lampooned mercilessly for buying worthless regions which we did not want, and had not the money to pay for, and nobody knew the boundaries

of. But the people acquiesced in manifest destiny, as they always will until the tricolored flag shall stream over every acre from the North Pole to the Isthmus of Darien.

Men and women still under forty remember how their school geographies included much of Missouri in the Great American Desert, -just as Plutarch relates that map-makers of his day depicted the regions they knew nothing about as "sand wastes, full of wild beasts and unapproachable bogs." In 1819 Thomas H. Benton was editing "The St. Louis Intelligencer." The struggle for the admission of Missouri to the Union had already begun. Young Benton was on the ground. He was destined to become the champion of this embryo State, and of all Western interests. Yet even he wrote: —

"After you get forty or fifty miles from the Mississippi, arid plains set in, and the country is uninhabitable except upon the borders of the rivers and creeks!"

Uninhabitable! We shall see. But first a glance at the geology and history of Missouri.

The ancient convulsions which moulded and modified our great valley are Nature's romance, - her very Arabian Nights' Entertainment. With unerring pen their history is written; but where the unerring linguist to read it? Who can surely decipher the testimony of the rocks, the hills, and the prairies?

Relatively, the Rocky Mountains and Sierra Nevadas are of recent origin. Ere yet they had risen from the deep, waves of the Pacific, rolling in from the far Orient, broke on the western foothills of the Alleghanies. How immeasurable the power which, upheaving the spinal column of the continent, drove back the great ocean for twenty-five hundred miles!