The weekly Floridian. [volume] (Tallahassee, Fla.) 1867-19??, 1883-10-02
CONRAHD'S LOVES.

to be the best dancer and swor,lsmar in
the village. His complexion was darker
than that of most of his neiohbor@. for
there was a tradition of Magyar blood In
the family, and his face was bv no mt au~
lacking in intelligence Of a mcgrv ana
peaceful sort.
The village itself had a look Of having
been finished long age, bat "rcaicr ol'
men might have looked at Conrad, il Ar
saw him there, and said:
But that fellows only half done vet
He doesn't half understand himself. riY
there's nothing in this sleepy valley to
wake him up"
If, however, the process Of waking up
was TO imply any sort 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 ripple of their uproar into the
little land-locked cove Of the old, dull
village
Gottlicb Mlburger, Conral's father.
with ms old crony and partner, Franz lIo-
terdahl, had made and mendel watches
in the same dingy and time worn shop
where their fathers had fled and ham
mered before them: and one lie WAS rs
like another, and about as unyarvinr as
the ticking of the fat faced time pieces
behind the cobwebs in the shop window.
Just now, however, as if the course Of
nature were being disturbed, various
ripples were beginning to come. Rumors
there were, for instance, that the king.
"God preserve him. was preparing to
fight war with somebody, and that all
young heroes like Conrad Mdburacr
would soon be needed for the army.
Stranger still, and utterly unaccounta-
BILE, considering his time of life, old Franz
Hoferdahl had caught the emigration
fever, and made up his steadiast mind to
join the great German tide that sets per
petually toward the shores Of America.
Already he had sold whatever he had to
sell, except his big pipe, his flute and his
daughter Christine. tor these he intended
taking with him to the Western Eden.
Perhaps thought The Villagers, its
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 younger days
That was true enough, for Franz lIo-
ferdahl had been to Berlin, and America
could not be so very much beyond.
The old man had sold his share in the
shop to his friend Gottlieb, and had made
as good bargains as he could for his house
and movables; but none of his anxious
neighbors knew exactly how much ready
cash he took with him VIXEN he and his
weeping Christine set ont upon their
long pilgrimage.
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.
If there were other reasans for her sorrow,
Christine kept them to herself; albeit,
she may have wondered why one person,
at least, had not asked her question or
SO concerning them.
AS for Conrad Midburger, he had said
goodbye, with all the rest, to his faith
er's old friend, and to the fearful Chris
tine ; and he had rubbed his great black
eyes afterward in a way that looked as if
the whole thing was a good deal Of
dream to him. If it was there was no
help for it, since Christine and her father
were far enough way before he woke up.
Nevertheless, when Conrad missed,
day after day, the accustomed form OF old
Franz in the shop, as well as the checry
voice of Christine IIoferdahl 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 a note of a growing difference
in the ways and seeming of old Gottlieb
Midburger himself Just what it was
would have been hard to say but by de
gress the old man came to neglect his
pipe, and then his glass of beer,
and then his work and, finally, he
took to his bed and died. and the
neighbors said, almost with one accord,
"Frans Hoferdahl had broken his old
friends heart by going away
Broken his heart said Conrad to
himself. "But he did not break mine .
And | have a heart, tool can feel it
beat. And have loved old Franz and
love my father, very much and feel rs
if could cry all day if were not so
very big man."
The strongest evidence that Conrad
nau ncaIt, hO"cNcl, was JCt w Coillc.
AS the days went by, after his fathers
death, the shop, and 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 insutferably oppres-
sive, while again and again he started
up and dropped his file and his hammer
in renewed astonishment at the contin-
ued absence of those two old men.
elf 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 irk-
some, and so when, by and by, good
customer opportunely made his appear
ance, Conrad Midburger almost gladly
closed with his offer to purchase the shop
and the house. He sold, too, everything
else that his father had left him, except
the old mans pipe and sword aud the
medal his father before him had won in
the old wars with the French. Neither
did Conrad, any more than Franz Hotter
dahl, tell any Of his neighbors how great
,~,cI1 xuas Tho c,0lJo0 s4 o.a bo