Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1883-12-22
CoNRAD'S LOVES.

be the best dancer and swordsman in the
village. His complexion was darker than
most of his neighbors, for there was ira
dition of Magyar blood in the family, and
his face was by no means lacking In intel
ligence of merry and peaceful sort.
The village itself had look of having
been finished long ago but "a reader OF
men" might have looked at Conrad, if he
saw him there, and said:
But that fellows only half done yet.
He don't mere than half understand him
self. Pity there is nothing in this sleepy
valley to wake him up"
II, however, the process of waking up
was to imply any kind of shaking. there
had been little enough of that in the life
which Conrad had thus far led. The
greatest events of the outside world had
been only as storms on the ocean, sending
hardly a ripple of their uproar into the
little land locked cove of the old dull vii
lage.
Gottlieb Midburger, Coprads father,
with his old crony and partner, Franz Ho-
ferdahl, had made and mended watches IN
the same dingy and time-worn shop where
their fathers had filed and hammered be-
fore them and one life was as like an
other, and about az unvarying, as the tick
ing of the fat.facs1 time piece behind the
cobwebs in the shop window.
Just now, however, as if the course of
nature were being disturbed, various rip
pes were beginning to come. Rumors
were there for instance, that the King,
God preserve him." was preparing to
fight a war with somebody and that all
young heroes like Conrad Midburger would
soon be needed for the army.
Stranger still and utterly unaccountable,
considering his time of life, old Franz Hof-
erdahl 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 Am erica. Already he
had sold whatever he bad to sell, except his
big pipe, his flute and his daughter Chris
tine, for those he intended taking with him
TO the western Eden.
perhaps, thought the villagers, g it's
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
young days"
Tnat was true enough, for Franz Hotter.
dahl had been even to Berlin, and America
could not be SO very much beyond.
The old man had sold his share in the
shop to his friend Gottleib, and had made
asgood bargains As he could for his house and
movables but none of his anxious neigh
bors knew exactly how much of ready cash
he took with him when he and his weep
ing Christine set out upon their long pill
grimage.
Christine wept, indeed, as if she meant
TO ruin her pretty blue eyes entirely, for
the little old village had been very dear to
her, and her mothers grave was there. II
there were other reasons for her sorrow,
Christine kept them to herself albeit she
may have wondered why one person, at
least, had not asked her a question or so
concerning them.
As for Conrad AIidburger, he had said
good-by, with all the rest, to his fathers
old friend, and to the fearful Christine
and be had rubbed his great black eyes
afterward in a way that looked as if the
whole thing was good deal of dream to
him. If it was, there was no help for it,
since Christine and her father were far
enough away before he woke up.
Nevertheless, when Conrad missed, day
after day, the accustomed form OF old
Franz in the shop as well as the CHEEKY
voice of Christine Hoferdahl calling her
father home to dinner, the expression Of
his face would change at times and one
would almost have said he was beginning
to think.
Not quite so much as that, perhaps-at
least not yet. but pretty soon Conrad's eyes
took note Of growing difference in the
ways and seeming of old GOttlieb Midbur-
ger himself. just what it was would have
been hard to say but by degrees the old
man began to neglect his pipe and then his
glass of beer, and his work and finally,
10 ~, no av1 Iiad and tho ,oigb.
bors said, with almost one accord, Franz
Hoferdahl has broken his old friends heart
by going away"
50 Bgoken his heart !" said Conrad to
himself. " But lac did not break mine
And I have a heart tool can feel it beat.
And I have loved old Franz and loved my
father very much and l feel as if l could
cry all day if I were not so very big a
man
The strongest evidence that Conrad had
a heart, however, was yet to come. As
the DAYS went by, after his fathers death,
the shop aud everything in it and about it
became utterly distasteful to him. Day
after day he sat down by the bench and
tried to work; but the very ticking Of the
watches was insuiferably oppressive, while
again and again he started up and dropped
his file and his hammer in renewed aston.
ishnent at the continued absence OF those
two Old men.
al only Christine would come, he said
to himself " and call old Franz home to
dinner"
But she did not come and the silence and
loneliness grew more and more irksome /;
aud so when, by and by, a good customer
opportunity made his appearance, Conrad
Midburger almost gladly closed with his
offer to purchase the shop and the house.
lie sold, too. everything else that his
father had left him. except the old mans
pipe and sword, and the medal his father
before him had won in the old wars with
she French. Neither did Conrad, any
more than Franz Hoferdahl. tell any OF his
ueighbors how great or how small was the
golden store he found himself possessed OF !;
but the Ndhur1ers mad been a careful,
saving and close-mouthed race for genera
tions
And when the sales were all completed,
and the transfers duly made, and Conrad
stood in the moonlight, one fine spring
evening and gaz.d at the nome that WAS
no longer his, be said TO himself:
think l could almost break my heart
aow, after all, FOR I did love that house,
and / did love the shop but I could not
stay there with the empty places. There
were too many voices there that did not
speak. That was 1t. But what shall do
uowg'
Caurad's question was answered for him
by the great French Emperor and by his
King for Napoleon had determined that he
must Eight the Germans, and so a great
many quiet people had to march away from
their homes to he shot at, without the
wisest man in the village being able to give
them good reason.
Il was a SD thing to many, but Conrad
Mjdburger felt a. if he was almost glad to
20, He was sure he loved his ader.
land, IN every bone in his body and if
the king called for him, he was ready.