Little Falls transcript. [volume] (Little Falls, Morrison County, Minn.) 1876-1894, 1883-09-14
CONRAD'S LOVES.

oVAS1tA4O ~ AV
a great, strapping, muscular, fellow
was Conrad Midburger, and he was adj
mitted to be the best dancer and
swordsman in the village. His conf
plexion was darker than that of most OF
his neighbors, for there was tradition
Of Magyar blood in the family, and his
face was by no means lacking an intelli-
gence of a merry and peaceful sort.
The village itself had look of having
been finished long ago; but a ''reade,
pf men" might have looked at Conrad,
If he saw him there, and said.
"But that fellows only half done yet.
He doesn't half understand himself.
Pity there's nothing in this sleepy val
Icy to wake him up"
Ii, however, the process Of waking up
was to imply any sort of shaking, there
had been little enough of that in che
life which Conrad had thus far led. The
greatest events of the outside world had
been only as storms on the ocean, send
ing hardly q ripple Of their uproar into
the little land locked cove OF the old,
dull village.
Gottlieb Miderburger, Conrad's father
with his old crony and partner, Franz
Hoferdahl, had made and mended
watches in the same dingy and time worn
shop where their fathers had filed and
hammered before them; and one life
was as like another, and about as un-
varying as the ticking of the fat-faced
timepieces 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. Ru-
mors there were, for instance, that the
king, God preserve hilnp was prepar-
ing to fight q war with somebody, and
that all young heroes like Conrad Mid
burger 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 steadfast
mind to join the great German tide that
sets perpetually toward the shores of
America. Already he had sold whatever
he had to sell, except his big pipe, his
flute and daughter Christine, for these
he intended taking with him to the wes-
tern Eden.
"Perhaps," thought the villagers, sit Is
not so strange for old franz as for some
of us. He's peen lonely since his wife
died, and then he wasa great traveller
III mis- younger days"
That was true enough, for Franz Hof-
erdahl had been even to Berlin and
America could not be so very much be-
You'd. "'''
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 Of ready cash be took with him
when he and bis weeping Christine set
out upon their long pilgrimage.
Christine wept, indeed, as if she
meant to ruin her pretty blue eyes en-
tirely; for the little old village had been
very dear to her, and her mothers
grave was there. If 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 question or so concern
ing them.
As for Conrad Midburger, he had said
goodbye, with all the rest, to his fathers
old friend, and to the fearful Christine;
and he had rubbed his great black eyes
afterward, in a way that looked as if the
whole thing was good deal of a 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 we'll 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 50 much as that, perhaps
at least, not yet; but pretty soon Con
RAIDS eyes took note of a growing differ.
ence in the ways and seeming of ole
Gottlieb Midburger himself Just what
it was would have been hard to say, but
by degrees, the old man came to neglect
his pipe, and then his glass of beer, and
then his work; and, finally, he took tc
his bed. and died; and the .neighbors
Eaid, almost with one accord, that
''Franz Holerdahl had broken his old
friends heart by going away" T.,
"Broken his hearth said Conrad to
himself. but he did not break mine
And have heart, tool can feel il
beat. And sIloved old Franz and I loved
my father, very much; and feel as if
could cry all day II were not so very
big q man." Il + I'D IL T. Es..z,;l..:.ss.#
The strongest evidence that Conrad
had heart, however, was yet to come
As the days went by, after his fathers
death, the shop, and every thing in il
ank about it, became utterly distastefu
to him. Day after day he sat down b.
the bench and tried to work; but th.
very ticking Of the watches was insufer
ably oppressive, while again and agail
he started up and dropped his file or hi
hammer in renewed establishment at TIL
continued absence Of those two old men
eff only Christine would GOMEZ h,
b said to himself, sand call old Franz hom
to dinnerp' M
But she did not come and the silence
and loneliness grew more irksome; AND
50 when, by and by, good customel
B opportunely made his appearance, Con
y rad Mid burger almost gladly closed will
B his offer 20 purchase the shop and tn
& that his luther had left him, except the
old mans pine and sword. and tie med
IL his father before him had won il
q the Old wars with the French. Neithe,
& did Conrad, any more than Frank Ho
ferdahl. tell any sof his neighbors hov
& great OF how small was the golden stor.
I he found himself possessed Sof;; but thu
idburgers had been 8 careful, sayin,
and 81 close mout he'd race for geneI
4 atoms
And when the sales were AL com.
IpletedA snd the Tor duly made aat