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Show PToi- N By James Whitconrb Riley 1 1 . . , if j (Continued from last week.) i Two weeks later Tod was discovered I fcy hip distracted father and an officer, ;: cowering; behind" a roll of canvas' whereon a fat man sat declaring- with i a breezy nonchalance that no .'boy ot ; Tod's description was "along o' this ere party:" Ad the defiant Tod, when I brought to light,, emphatically asserted 7 that the fat man was in no wise Wam- ,1 able; that he hd run away on his own I hook, and would' -do it again if he ; wanted to. But he broke there with a IS luavy sob; and the fat- man ; said: Jf -There! there: Coutsey, . go Ioni? with ft the old 'un, and here's a dollar for y you." And Tod cried aloud. The Rood minister had brought a B letter for him, too, and as the boy read I ' it throueh his tears he turned home- i.r ward almost eagerly, r "Dear Tod," it ran: "I have been ! I quite pick since you left me. You M must come back, for I miss you, and I I can never pet well again without j 1 you. I've got a new kink on a pair of ' stilts I've made vou. but I can't tell I how lonp to make them till you come back. Fannv comes over every day, I and talks about you so much I half J believe sometimes she likes you bet- 1 ter than she does her old sick uncle; I but I can stand that, because you de- s perve it, and I'm too old for -little girls io like very much. It'll soon be the 1 Fourth, you know, and we. must be jetting readv for a hie time. Come 1 home at once, for I am waiting. "To Stoddard Anderson, from his xld ff friend and teacher." I Tnrt went tinmfi T4 i-,.,ctj it.. t-acher's darkened room. The dear oSi h fa.-e had grown pale so ' very pale! The kindly hand reached out to grasp the boy's was thin and wasted, and the gentle voice that he had learned Arf to love was faint, and low so very ' " low. it sounded like a nrayer. The good jninister turned silently and left ihe two bid friends together; and there were tear drops in his eyes. And so the little, staggering life went on alone. " Some old woman gossip, peering through the eye of a needle on !! the institution known as the "Ladies' Benevolent Sewing society," said that "it 'peared to her like that boy of the preacher's jest kep' a-pinin' and a-pinin' awav like, ever sence they fetched him back from his runaway scrape. She'd seen him time and time? i again sence then, and although the lit- t tie snipe was innocent-like to all ap- t pearances, she'd be Bound that he was j in devilment enough!" Reckoned he ij was too proud to march in the school j p'cession at the techj?r's funerT; and .--! hp didn't go to the meetin. house at i p.li, but putt off to the graveyard by ) hisse'f: and when they got there wita the corpse, Tod was a-settin' with his legs a-hangin in the grave, ' and a- f pitchin' clods in. and a-smilin'. And ;j oi l. Jest the other evening," she coa- i tir ied, "as I was comin' paFt thew ' kindo' in the dusk-like, that boy was ' a-settin a-straddle o' the grave, and Jest a-cryin'l And I thought it kindo ( 9 strange-like, and stopped and hollered: ' 'What's the matter of ye.- Tod?" and he ups and.Lollers back: 'Stumpt my toe, durn ye and thinks . I, 'My youngster, they'll be a" day o reckon-in' reckon-in' fer you!' " The old world worried on, till July , came at last, and with it that most glorious day that wrapped the banr i nation In its swaddling clothes o? stripes and stars and laid it in the lap I of Liberty. And what a day that was' I and how the "birds did sin thai Tno"ri- - ' ing from the green tops of the tree when the glad sunlight came slancins through the jeweled leaves and woke them! And not more joyous were the birds, or more riotous their little 5 throbbing hearts to "pipe the trail and cheep and twitter twenty million - loves," than the merry children ififtt t came fluttering to the grove to join !, their reelrv. O brighter than a dream toward the ! ' boy that swung his hat from the tree- II top near the brook swept the procession , I of children from the town. And ho i f flushed with some strange ecstacy as II lie saw a little girl in white, with a wreath of evergreen, wave her crimson J sash in answer to-him, white the col li umn slowly filed across the open bridge, j where yet again he saw her reappear j in the reflection-of the stream belo-v. I Then, after the dull opening of prayer, nnd the more tedious exercises following, follow-ing, how the woods did ring with laughter; how the boss vied with one another in their labors of' arranging .swings and clearing underbrush away preparatory to a day of uncenfined enjoyment; en-joyment; and how the girls shrieked to "see the black man coming," and how coquettishly they struggled when captured cap-tured and carried off by that dread being, and yet what eagerness they displayed in his behalf! And "Ring" men and women even joining in the frame, and kissing one another's wives and husbands like mad. .Why, even the ugly old gentleman, with - a carbuncle car-buncle on the back of his neck, grew riotous with mirth, and when tripped full length upon the sward by the little i. v.i low. in half mourning, bustled nim- ' ''ly to his feet and kissed her, with f-r'mo wicked pun about "grass" widows j; that made him laugh till his face grew I iis red as his carbuncle. That bashful I young man who had straggled off alone, sitting so uncomfortably upon a log, if inning uugs ana spiaers, an ugij j giant with a monster club-how he ij must have envied the airy freedom of. j ihoHe "old boys and girls"! - ' ' j j Then there was a group of older men . i! talking so long and earnestly about : 'fie weather and the crops that they ij iiad not discovered that the shade of jj 'hr-. old beech they sat beneath had if stolen silently away and left them sit- Iting in the sun, and Was even then i't-rforming its refreshing office for a !'ig, sore-eyed dog,-who, with panting jaws and lolling tongue, was winking , y4 away the lives of a swarm of gnats with the most stoical indifference. Ancl time wore along till dinner came, f f.nrj women, with bis open baskets, bent e above the pnowv cloths spread out upon 'ho grass, arranging "the substantials" i nwi hf dainties of a feast too varied and L 'oj toothsome for anything but equicu- itan memories to describe. And then the abandon of the voracious guests! No o&intv affections no formality no eti-v eti-v .-tie no anvthing but the full sway of healthful appetites incited by the ex-bilarant ex-bilarant exercises of the day into keen-';t keen-';t rapacitv ani relish. . "Don't vou think it's going' to rain, ask.-fi some one, suddenly. A little rosy-Killc.j rosy-Killc.j gcntloman, with the aid. of chicken 1 for a lever, raised his fat face sky-w:,rd. sky-w:,rd. and after a riovis contemplation or the clouds wouldn't say for ,rtaI wliether it would rain or not. but in-i in-i fcrmr-d the unfortunate Querist, alter polling his head into its. usual l't'sition laving down the lever to make : room for a bite or bread, that -Ifj :fldntr,n th. re'd be a long dry spell: and then he Knot ted a mimic snowstorm of bn ad numbs on bis vis-a-vis, who 0ea wronirwl. and said he 'S another piece of that-air pie ft it was looking very much like rain o find my pUkle , ft the pwinps. Already the gtris '"" Anvn and were which were being ; taken flon. na 1 tyinS,hanke.aWni contemplation of 1 .Handing in -svf n nR 1 game one ' the ruin of their .r5:he ladies not called from the d sWasn't going to to be at all "1 a particle of dan-fnd dan-fnd ut'hwea clip f thunder v.r of ; but tneie .wiing men- interrupted. ,ftt-iM, with hair a ingTy. while a j Fhouders, and i.lown wildly over her bare . nt before with a fnce. b't n a f now slowed Wte her trim-on -Kitr than her snowv i , "1 i h? 2d feU fllnz to the ground. Is there a doctor on the grounds?" called JtM, V?lce in Ule disri- and., without waiting, for a response "For God s sake come here quick; a boy has fallen from the swing, and maybe killed himself!" . And then the crowd gathered round him there, men with white faces, and fright en? women and little, shivering children - hose boy is it?" "Hush; here comes his father." And I the good minister, with stark features and clinched hands, passed through the surging, surg-ing, throng that Closed behind him even an the waves on Pharaoh. 4 Did I say all were excited? Not all-for all-for there was one calm face, though verv pale paler yet for being pillowed on the green grass and the ferns. - "Yo" musn,'t nl0v? P"?."' the boy said when he couW epeak; "tell 'em to come hens" He smiled and tried to lift and fold his arms about his father's neck "Poor father! Poor father!" as though speaking to himself, "1 always loved you father, only you'd never believe it never believe it. Now you will. Vll see mother now mother. Don't cry Ll m hurt, and I don t cry. And i ll see the teacher, too. He said 1 .would. He said we would always al-ways be together there. Where's KannV Tell her tell her" But that strange unending un-ending silence fell upon his lips, and as the dying eyes looked up and out beyond be-yond the sighing tree lops, he smiled to caUh a gleam of sunshine through the foolish cloud that tried so hard to weep. |
