Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1881-09-14

At last he cried, throwing up his arms.
Oh, don't stare so don't Harry for Gods
sake look away oh, just minute Just
minute |" and springing to his feet he
dashed away through the alternate lines Of
moonlight and shadow and was lost TO sight.
Slowly then the couded minds of the ter
ror.stricken jewellers began to act At Char
lies orders poor HIarry's body was raised
carefully and laid on his own bed, and one
after another the boys struggled off to tell
the dreadful news to the older people.
AT last Harry's mother had TO be told the
terrible truth, and the blow on the already
shaken constitution was too severe. A
deadly pallor grew slowly up from lip to
forehead, a strange ashen blue, the eyelids
quivered moment and were closed forever.
Harry and his mother were buried side by
side, and then for the first time the neigh
bors turned to the living. Clyde had not
been seen, could not be found though they
advertised in the nearest papers, telling him
TO come home, there was no arrest to be
made, he had not struck with any murder
Gus intentions, and only that Harrys head
had hit the sharp corner of the scraper by
the door mat, he would not have been hurt.
Yet no word or tidings came.
Aunt Kitty bewailed the luck that fol
lowed Sara and her children, and poor little
lilly, almost brokenhearted, crept out in the
shade of the summer trees, terrible weight
falling on her young heart, she drew away
from all oompanionship, and the little village
left her alone with her grief.
BY and by she took TO long rambles away
| by the river side, and off over the fields of
grain, hoping always, vainly, that under
some shrub or tree she should find her
brother. Thus she wandered on, always
picturing him as perhaps asleep in the shade
of this corn field, and then not finding him,
thinking he would surely be sitting under
that cottonwood, tired, and fororn, heart
broken by his terrible deed, dreading to be
alone, yet fearing the face of man. Though
she would rush up to him, throw her arms
about his neck, tell him how every one
pitied him, and no one really blamed, no
one wished TO deliver him into the hands
of the law, in fact the law had no hold on
him.
Over and over she pictured the meeting,
how she would lead him home, how she
would comfort and caress him, and in her
anxiety for her brother forgetting her own
misery. For in her girlish heart Harry had
been the one ideal hero, while Clyde had
filled the place of father and mother and
kindred he was all she had, her brave
brother.
One day when the westward sun threw
long slant shadows over the field, and the
trunks of trees stretched out gaunt black
ghosts of shadows toward the east, lilly
turned slowly homeward. A month had
now passed and not word had reached
them from the lost Clyde. Had the law
reached its searching fingers forth, no wood
would have been sufficiently dense, no ham
let far enough removed to have hid him.
But only the friendly interest of a little vii.
lage, and the agonized fear and love Of one
little sister searched after him, and no word
came, no trace was found.
Slowly, sadly she turned her steps home.
ward, scarcely needing the course she took,
when suddenly the sound of voice from
out of the very ground, smothered, indis
tinct, strange, yet familiar singing that old
song, cover the Sunset Hills" the very
words she and Clyde had sung so often
together, accompanying themselves on their
mothers old harmonic.
lilly clasped her hands and held hei
breath, looking eagerly on every side, think
ing she should see the handsome face, aud
springing form Of her brother come sud
denly in sight from-she hardly knew where
but he did not come. The voice died out
than began again.
The sun had gone down now, and coo
breeze shook the leaves on the oak, anc
rustled through the long lances of the corr
in the field beyond Perplexed aud fright
ened, fearing some hidden tramp yet helt
by something in the voice, she drew neare
and nearer the sound, then all was still, ant
she waited. A hermit thrush burst forth il
rapturous song, and a whip-poor-will called
weirdly close at hand. Hush, oh birds +
she cried, and the sound of her own voice il
the gathering shadows startled her.
Then the voice began again.
lover the purple hills, my darling,
| Over the sunset sea-"
A waver in the next line and then in full
clear tones
"Im coming, coming to thee"