Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1882-12-21
dreary back chamber and bags Of gold,

Edr0aFy baekHchamber and bags OF sgotd.s
These pictures set Old Snarley trem-
bling, and he shook as If he lad been
seized with convulsions. The parlor
doors opened. He heard music, and he
thought he saw something beautiful be-
fore him-an animated picture, glowing
faces, bright costumes and only hall
realizing his existence,e Old Snarley
wondered if things were as they seemed
to him ss..:i.i 7...,o asti. .:ses.us.ss =
Old Snarley looked again; but there
was a mist before him, and the figures
in the room were iwhiiiing. He sank.
back. into his chair and closed his eyes.
lest he should fall. But he couldn't,
close his ears, and he heard sounds that
Went further down into his heart, he
thought, than his own memory. It was
q simple minor melody, plaintive and
subdued at first, but growing stronger
and more impulsive as twas heightened
out, until it broke into Impatient bursts
of sound; and it seemed to Old Snarley
like the spirit Of the past within him
crying for release. He would have
screamed, but his suffering was too in
tense for utterance, and he sat there
with his hands cfenched till the tendons
of his arms ached and his feet were
frozen to the floor. The sound changed;
the movement modulated into soothing
tenderness, and then into q soft, deli
cious cadence-and Old Snarley breathed
again. .d'.m- FiuiG bnn VI
AS Miss Maria held the concluding
chords under her hands the door bell
rang, and without waiting for a re-
Spouse, a tall, brown-faced, big-whisk-
cred young fellow entered
Miss Maria cried out something, and
in an instant was hidden in the tall
young mans arms. Mr.. er Twinkle
pranced about the room regardless of
his rheumatism, and gave utterance to
calculations I have no reason to record
here. The children seized their hats
and bonnets and ran home to tell their
mothers that Miss fMaria's lover had
come; and Old Snarley staggered, I'M
noticed, into the halfway and into the
street.
It was dark when Old Snarley reached
his lodgings, for SO bewildered was he
that he lost himself in the throngs in the
street, and wandered, no. one knows
how far, before ne came to him
self again. He crept up to- his cold
chamber like a guilty thing. He poured
so much coal on, the fire that the CRATE
groaned, so unused was it to such prod
| igality; and he sank into his chair ex-
hausted. '3 e w. ST. "zL'lf@ Dis. i"f
cit is he," he murmured, sit is my
| son. They called him Charlev-that
was his name, and his mothers eyeswere
| looking at me rs passed him. 1 will
see him tomorrow. 1 will tell him that
[ loved his mother, and find her if /
have to 60 to the end of the world. She
may be dead, but he is my son, my
son." and his voice died in broken
gasps. s.i a.,7s f; ss.>s. -,fs -tesst
Old snarley paced the creaky floor of
| his chamber, muttering disconnected
sentences that even the spiders in the
corners could not hear; and then, taking
bunch of rusty keys from his pocket,
! he opened chest that had stood-his
landlady said "ages''-in the corner,
| and he took from it a woman's dresses,
| and bonnets, and ribbons, faded and
dusty and old, and children's garments,
musty and moth eaten. q Old, Snarley
| looked at the pile till his head SWAN,
| and he staggered to his chair. There
he sat, his head buried in his hands, till
the clock had struck nine-ten-eleven
l-twelve-one.
The Goals he had heaped on the CRATE
were pile of ashes; the room was as
cold as cellar again. Old Snarley
shivered, looked at his watch absently,
and, taking the garments that lay on
the floor, put them back carefully into the
chest, closed the lid and locked it. The
lines on his face had softened; the old,
hard look in his eyes was gone.
Two days passed by, and regularly
each morning Old Snarley was seen
gong into Mr.. Twinkle's door. The
| second day he came out in the after
noon, leaning on the tall young mans
arm; and the two went together down
the street.
Miss Maria looked as if she had bathed
in the waters of Lethe, and had washed
away the traces of a dozen years. Old
Mr.. Twinkle talked and smoked more
than ever. The postman passed the
house on Thursday without leaving a
letter.
On the morning of the third day this
advertisement appeared in the news
papers:
| BUSINESS NOTICE.--Au persons having
unsettled accounts with .. L. D. Snarley,
| fed to present them at the Office of Fixem y
Fry for adjustment, within thirty days.
The sign that had been on Mr.. Twin
kle's door so long was taken down by
the house-maid. In few days card,
''To Lett" was posted in its place, and
Old Snarley's landlady was advertising
for a lodger. Chicago Inter Ocean.
An Alaska Coal Mine.
T. aE.NZF$
Near Cape Lisburne, at the "Arctic
coal mine," twenty tons of coal were
dug and carried aboard in sacks in one
day. These mines are within the Arctic
circle, some distance on the American
side, and are plainly exposed from top
to bottom in the face of a perpendicular
bluff, about $50 feet in height. Their
widths are from three to twenty feet, and