St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1884-07-10
THE LONG PACK.

High up among the hills, on the
wagon road that runs through the
Cascita pass, is a small tavern, much
fre iuenteI 10y commercial travellers
and which bears the odd title of The
Long Pack"
"Does that mean a long pack of
cards?' inquired traveller, glancing
at the swinging s s'gnboard, which also
repr, sented the weather-worn picture
of something family resembling sol
dier's overgrown knapsack.
"No," replied the gray-haired land
lord. ut means peddler's pack.
Nowadays they call them sample cases,
believe" pointing to the baggage of
several commercial drummers that
stood in corner. You see l have Il
good deal of that sort of custom. l try
to make the road boys as comfortable
as possible, for l was a little too hard
On their fraternity once"
How was that ~
"Well," said the mountain Boniface.
who had waited until his daughter, Il
buxom matron. had left the room, ait
amt a very pleasant story, but | like
TO tell it sometimes, just to remind my
self that the worst thing that a man
can have in this world is a hot, Obsti-
nate temper. You see. | came to this
coast soon after the gOlC fever broke
out. and settled down in the Santa
Barbara valley, below here, ranching.
l was widower even then, and had
brought with me from the states my
only child IA daughter, past seventeen.
She was a pretty girl, if ! do say it,
and being as good as pretty, You can
imagine l was quite wrapped up in her.
OF course. | was anxious to keep her
with me, and if not that, at least
looked for her to do something better
than to fall in love with peddler.'
"And did she?"
YES, you see, in those days, the
country was full of young fellows who
had struck out for themselves, and
were trying to get a start by carrying
knick-kna ks around from one mining
camp to another. Some of them were
lively chaps enough and well educated,
but was fresh from the states with
al the eastern prejudices, d 1t al
most Grove me wild when Ne. lie told
me she wanted to marry a youn fel-
low who brought his pack througL our
district a good deal oftener than The
trade seemed to require. l was a hot
tempered fool in those days, so | storm
ed, threatened, lCchc| Nellie up for a
week. and sent word to her lover that
1 had loaded my gun for wildcats and
peddlers."
What did Nellie do?'
"You might have guessed it. stran-
ger. One day when l came back from
cattle sale she was missing. chased
her couple of days, but they had taken
to the tall timber and it was no IL e.
After a while | got a letter from
Frisco. and l wrote back saying that
l disowned her, and that he had better
keep out of the range of my dear rife" ;"
What did you do then?"
suffered, mister-just suffered. |
knew l was wrong, but Id have died
rather than give in. For four years l
lived like IL toad in a rock hating the
whole world. All the pleasure l had
was III watching for peddlers. The
number l chased off the ranch during
that time would astonish you. One
evening, after IA terrible rainstorm, one
of the tribe came to my house and ask
ed for shelter for the night. He was a
thin. weak looking fellow. with his
face covered with huge ragged beard.
lie carried ON his back an enormously
lONS anu htdNH pdCh- anu SC'A4CH ~
exhausted with his tramp through the
mire that hadn't the heart to do more
than order him off the pla e."
That was pretty hard said the
| listener
Il suppose it was. The peddler
seemed all broke up when he found l
wouldn't give him even bunch of
straw in the stable. and no other house
within twelve miles Instead of COM
planning, however, he merely begged
that l would let him leave his pack,
which he said contained goods of value,
under shelter from the rain. l finally
consented to this. So, as 1 had sworn
one of his trade should never cross my
threshold, 1 carried his pack inside,
while its owner limped off to crawl
under some bush or other
Didn't You feel mean?'
"Yes, mean and bitter at the same
time. for something about the man re-