Gallipolis journal. [volume] (Gallipolis, Ohio) 1837-1919, 1875-03-04
CONRAD'S LOVER.

A great, strapping, muscular fel
low was Conrad Midburger, and he
was admitted to be the best dancer
and swordsman in the village. His
complexion was darker than that OF
most of his neighbors, for there was
a tradition of Magyar blood in the
family, and his face was by no means
lacking in intelligence of 4 merry and
peaceful sort.
The village had a look of being
finished long ago; but a reader OF
men might have looked at Conrad, il
he saw him there, and said:
But that fellows only half done
vet. He doesn't half understand
himself. Pity there's nothing in the
sleepy valley to wake him up
If, however, the process of waking
up was to imply any sort of shaking,
there has been little enough Of that
in the life which Conrad had thus far
led. The greatest events of the out
side world had been only as storms on
the ocean, sending only ripple OF
their uproar into the little land locked
cove of the old, dull village.
Gottleib Midburger, Conrad's faith
er, with his old crony and partner,
Franz Hoferdahl, had made and
mended watches in the same dingy
and time-worn shop where their faith
o.o Lol E,o1 nDJ l,o,,,oaroI hofora
them; and one life was like another,
and about as unvarying as the ticking
of the fat-faced timepieces behind the
cobwebs in the shop window.
Just now, however, as if the course
of nature were being disturbed, va
rious ripples were beginning to come.
RumOrs there were, for instance that
the King (God preserves him!) was
preparing to fight war with some
body, and that all young heroes like
Conrad Midburger would soon be
needed for the army.
Stranger still, and utterly unac-
countable, considering his time OF
life, old Franz Hoferdahl had caught
the emigration fever, and made up
his steadfast mind to join the great
German tide that sets perpetually to
ward the shores of America. AL
ready he had sold whatever he had to
sell, except the big pipe, his daugh-
ter Christine, for these he intended
taking with him to the Western
Eden.
Perhaps" thought the villagers
sit is not so strange for old Franz as
for some of US. He's been lonely
since his wife died, and then he was
a great traveller in his younger
days."
That was true enough, for Franz
Hoferdahl 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 upor
their long pilgrimage.
Christine. wept, indeed, as if sh'
meant to ruin her pretty blue eyes en-
tirely; for the little old village ha(
been very dear to her, and her moth
er's grave was there. If there wer,
other reasons for her sorrow, Christine
kept them to herself; albeit she ma,
have wondered why one person, a
least, had not asked her question o
so concerning them.
As fer Conrad Midburger, he ha'
said good by, with all the rest, to hi
fathers old friend, and to the tearfu
Christine; and he had rubbed hi
great, black eyes, afterward, in a wa.
that looked as if the whole thing wa
a good deal of dream to him.
it was there was no help for it, sine
christine and her father were ia