The Grange advance. [volume] (Red Wing, Minn.) 1873-1877, 1876-06-21

ing to himself: ''What will the judg,
and the boys say to this!'' He wa
even glad in his heart that Timber
Tim stood with his back glued III
against the palings on the outside, ano
his hands reached back and wound il
and around the rails, so that he coul(
testify to the bOys-tell it, in fact, tc
the world-that he had entered in and
sat down in the widows cabin.
1t was not an easy work for Sandy
sitting there. He soon began to suffer
He hitched about and twisted around
on the broad wooden stool as if he had
sat down on very hot stove.
The widow sat a little way back
across the cabin. bit of. work in he1
lap, looking up at Sandy now, and now
dropping her half-sad blue eyes down
to her work, and all the time in low,
sweet way, doing every word of the
talking.
The widow rose up, laid her work
on the table, all the time smiling
sweetly, half sadly, and, going up to
the fireplace, took from the box in the
corner pine knot after pine-knot, and
laid them on the blazing fire.
''Come-the evening is chilly-will
you not come sit closer to the fire :"
Sandy sat still as the statue of
Moses in the Vatican but that abom-
Unable felon hanging by the neck at
his side kept twisting AROUND and
around, as If he never would die or be
still. The widow sat down with her
work, as before; and this time she
began to talk about the weather,
trusting that on this subject, at least,
her great good friend could open his
lips and speak.
GLOW very cold it is this evening.
The chill of the snow in the air. It
blows down from the banks of snow
on the mountains, and I fancy it may
be cold here in this rickety cabin the
summer through
Still the ugly convict that now began
to grow black in the face swung and
twisted at his side but he did not
speak.
':Do you not feel cold -
eyes, 'um."
The two words come: out like the
bark Of a bulldog, as if one of the
brutes he had drawn back under his
bench and stuck out his nose and
yelped in the face of the widow. fand
Sandy was frightened almost to death.
The perspiration dropped from his
brow to his hand, and he knew that
things could not last in this way much
longer. The bulldogs would be out.
and he knew it; the dead man that he
was sitting down upon would rise up
to Judgment and the felon at his side
was only swinging and turning and
twisting more than before.
"You will come again, will you
not You have been so very kind.
Please to call. Step in as you pass and
rest. It is so lonesome here, you
know; nobody that Anybody knows.
And then you are such good COM
pary."
A;ld then the pretty little widow,
with the sad. sweet face, laughed the
p.ettiest little laugh that was ever
laughed this side that other Eden
with it's one fair woman.
Timber Tim closed his mouth and un-
screwed himself from the palings of
the fence without as Sandy appeared,
and the two took their way to the cab
in.
Sandy backed and Numbered and
stumbled across the threshold. and
drew breath-such breath the
first he had drawn for half an hour
as he stood outside, with the widow s
little feet following to the threshold,
and her pretty miniature face looking
up to his, as it looking UP to the top
Of apine. ...
''And you are such good company. -
That was all Sandy could remember.
What could he have said? He tried
and tried to recall his observations,
whatever they may have been, on the
various topics Of the day, but in vain.
He could only remember the circum-
stance of driving two ugly bulldogs
back under his bench, of Staying and
hiding away his mortal enemy. and
then hanging felon for high treason;
and then, chiefest of all, 'sYou will
come again-it is lonesome here; you
are suchTgood company
''You are such good company" The
wind sang it through the trees as he
wendell his way home. The water
away down in the cannon below the
trail sang it soft and low and sweet,
sang it ever, and nothing more; and
the tea-kettle that night simmered and
sang, and sang this one sweet song for
Sandy ss4stn ':
He took the first opportunity after
supper to slip out and away from Linn
Der Tim; and there in the dark, with
his face to the great black forrest, he
stood saying over and over to himself,
in his great coarse voice, trying to
catch the soft tones of the widow,