Middletown transcript., 1883-11-16
cheap lodging in the prison, 50 that
they would not have far to walk to their
places of business.
THE THANKSGIVING STORY

William Henry, wants to sit in the
house and read "The Boy Navigator, y
and "Slab-sided Sam, the Savage
Scalper," but the cruel father is averse
to literature and believes it the duty of
every boy to work between meals. He
commands William Henry to go to the
ten-acre lot and exercise himself, though
it is Thanksgiving day, and a cold day
to pick stones, and William Henry feels
as if his back were broke in nine places
already from previous exercise in the
ten-acre lot. William Henry respect
fully and courteously, but firmly, de-
clines to go, and the cruel father strikes
him soulful blow with barrel stave
and hurts his feelings William Henry
goes up stairs and gets his Barlow
knife and the fifteen cents he has saved
from the sale of the bones of deceased
horse kisses his mother, hugs the dog,
and, with sigh that bursts all the
buttons but one off his jacket, he takes
last fond look at the old home
Then he goes away Out West and
grows up with the country.
After the elapse of fifteen years the
second chapter opens to slow music.
The cruel parent has had no letter from
William Henry. He has not had even
a postal card from him. The old house
looks about as it did fifteen years be-
fore, except that three or four more
bricks have fallen off the chimney.
The old front gate will not stay latched,
Just as it never would. The old ten
acre lot is about as stony as ever. But
the old cruel father wears general ex-
preston Of home made gloom. He feels
fifteen years older than he felt fifteen
years before, and there is a good deal of
rheumatism and one thing or another
fooling around in his system. 1t is
Thanksgiving day again and the per-
fume Of roasting turkey comes to him
as he sits on the porch alone with his
conscience and a chew of tobacco. He
smells the dinner, but without his pris-
tine enthusiasm. He has no appetite
worth speaking of. He is thinking of
the yellow-haired boy he caressed with
barrel stave fifteen years before, and
there are couple Of tears in his eyes.
There is a mortgage on the old farm.
A healthy, able-bodied mortgage draw
ing six per cent. interest with great
regularity. This year the old farmers
corn crop has failed and the interest is
over due. He knows he can't pay it
and he looks down the road expecting
to see the sheriff coming with writ OF
leUari facidS, or something else that
sounds equally as bad, and he feels that
he hasn't much to be thankful for. A
gentle voice calls him to dinner but he
still fingers out there in the mellow
| glow Of the 29th Of November. Sud-
denly he descrys solitary footman
approaching. A solitary footman, tall,
handsome, vigorous and bearded, and
dressed in store clothes. He carries a
valise and walks like stage prince on
a salary of seven dollars week. He
asks the old farmer if he may sit down
upon the porch and rest himself, and
the old farmer says he may. The old
farmers wife comes upon the scene
but does not recognize the young man
in store clothes as her long lost son.
She takes him for a book agent or a
tea peddler who will presently propose
TO sell her thirty-fve cents worth Of
bad tea for two dollars, and to send her
an S85 parlor suit of furniture next
week. While William Henry sits in
thoughtful mood the old watch dog
comes out from under the porch, smells
the strangers boots, jumps upon him
and barks for joy. The old dog is nine
teen years old and upwards, is blind in
one eye and a bit near sighted in the
other, and his sense of smell is not so
acute as it was when he was younger,
but he recognizes the long lost boy, the
weak, frail boy that he loved so well.
The old dog gives the returned son
from the setting sun dead away, and
there is family embrace AL around.
The Thanksgiving dinner IS eaten
amid great joy and during a
William Henry breaks the ne
to the congregation that he oNAs .....
counties in Southern Dakota, a couple
Of silver mines in Colorado, several
eligible town sites scattered about pro-
miscuously, and few hundred shares
of national bank stock. Well, it is a
powerful happy day to all concerned,
and in the end the mortgage is paid off,
William Henry forgivps the once-cruel
parent for caressing him with a barrel
stave, and the curtain falls as the wan
derer from the setting sun calls for a
third piece of pumpkin pie, to lively
music. In about a month William
Henry leads to the hymeneal altar the
little girl he had played with in child
hoods hour, and who had sympathized
with him when he had been appointed
to pick stones, and with whom he had
sympathized when her mud biscuits
wouldn't rise. This is the framework
of the Thanksgiving story the reader
can put in the filling to suit himself.