Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1874-12-04
CONRAD'S LOVES.

| NhieBe' MS uipleAlOu WAS uaTkeT tnhn
most of his neighbors, for there was ira
dition of Magyar blood in the family, and
his face was by no means lacking in intel
ligence of a merry and peaceful sort.
The village had look OF being finished
long ago but a reader Of men might have
looked at Conrad, If he saw him there, and
said:
"But that fellows only half done yet.
He doesn't hal: understand himself Pity
there's nothing in the leepy valley to wake
him up.
If, however, the process of waking up
was 10 imply any sort Of shaking, there
had been little enough Of that in the life
| which Conrad had thus far led. The great
est events of the outside world had been
! only as storms on the ocean, sending only
a ripple Of their uproar into the little land
locked cove Of the old, dull village
| Gottleb Midburger, Conrad's father,
with his old crony and partner, Franzo
Hoferdahl, had made and mended watches
| in the same dingy and time worn shop
where their fathers had fred and hammer
ed before them, and one life was like an
other, and about as unvarying as the tick
ing of the fat faced time-pieces behind the
cobwebs in the shop window.
Just now, however, as If the course OF
nature were being disturbed, various rip
Piles were beginning to come. Rumors
there were, for instance that the king God
preserve him y was preparing TO fight a
war with somebody, and that all young he
roes like Conrad Midburger would soon be
needed for the army.
Stranger still, and utterly unaccounta-
BILE, considering his time Of life, old Franz
Hoierdahl had caught the emigration fe-
yer, and made up his steadfast mind to
| join the great German tide that sets per-
petually towards the shores of A merca.
| Already he had sold whatever he had to
sell, except his big pipe, his daughter Chris
tine, for these he intended taking with him
to the western Eden.
perhaps" thought the villagers, ait is
not so strange for old Franz as for some of
US. He's been lonely since his wife died,
and then he was great traveller in his
younger days"
That was true enough, for Franz Hofer-
dahl had been TO Berlin, and America
could not be so very much beyond.
The old man had sold his share in the
shop to his friend Gottlieb, and had made
as good bargains as he could for his house
and movables; but none of his anxious
neighbors knew exactly how much of
ready cash he took with him when he and
his weeping Christine set out upon their
long pilgrimage.
Christine wept, indeed, as If she meant to
ruin her pretty blue eyes entirely for the
| little old village had been very dear to her,
and her mothers grave was there. If there
were other reasons for her sorrow, Chris
tine kept them to herself; albeit she may
have wondered why one person, at least,
had Lot asked her a question or so con-
cerning them.
As for Conrad Midburger, he had said
| good by, with all the rest, to his fathers
old friend, and to the fearful Christine ;
and he had rubbed his great, black eyes,
| ailerward, in a way that looked as II the
whole thing was a good deal of dream to
him. If il was, there was no help for 1t,
since Christine and her father were far
enough away before he woke up. Never
theless, when Conrad missed, day after
day, the accustomed form of old Franz In
the shop, as we'll as the CHEEKY voice Of
Christine Hoferdahl calling her father
home to dinner, the expression Of his face
would change at times, and one would al
most have said he was beginning to think.
Not quite so ma ach as that, perhaps at
least not yet; but pretty soon Conrad's
eyes took note OF a growing difference in
the ways and seeming Of old GOttlieb Mid
| burger himself. Just what it WAS would
have been hard to say; but by degrees the
old man came to neglect his pipe, then his
| glass of beer, and then he took to his work
and finally, he took to his bed and died !;
and the neighbors seid almost with accord,
| that "Franz Hoferdahl had broken his old
friends heart by going away"
"Broken his heart - said Conrad him
self. "But he did not break mine And l
| have a heart tool can feel 1t beat. loved
my father very much, and feel as II
should cry all day if l were not so very
big man."
The strongest evidence that Conrad had a
heart, however, was yet to come. As the
days went by, after his fathers death, the
shop and everything in it and about it be-
came utterly diStasteful to him. Day amer
day he sat down by the bench and tried to
work but the very ticking of the watches
was insufferably oppressive, while again
and again be started up and dropped his
| file or his hammer in renewed astonish-
ment at the continued absence of those two
old men. "If only Christine would come"
he said to himself land call old Franz
home to dinner"
| But she did not come, and the silence
and loneliness grew more and more irk-
some, and so by and by, when good GUS
toner made his appearance, Conrad Mid
burger almost gladly closed with his offer
to purchase the shop and the house. He
sold, too, everything else that his father
had left him, except the old mans pipe and
sword, and the medal his father before him
had won in the old wars with the French.
Neither did Conrad, any more than Franz
Hoferdahl, tell any of his neighbors how
great or how small was the golden store he
found himself possessed of; but the Mid
burgers had been a careful, saving and
close mouthed race for generations.
And when the sales were all completed,
and the transfers duly made, aud Conrad
stood in the moonlight one fine spring eve
ming, and gazed at the home that was nc
longer his, he said TO himselfi
81 think could almost break my heart
now amer all, for did love the house, and
/ loved the shop; but l could not stay
there with the empty place. There were
too many voices that did not speak. That
was II. But what shall do now5"
Conrad's question was answered for him