The Forest Republican. [volume] (Tionesta, Pa.) 1869-1952, 1886-12-01
qIOTESTA, PA, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER |, 1886


Tell your father welcome homo for me,
and I'll be over tomorrow night.
Thanksgiving Night" murmurs the
girl, as she lays a timid finger in the
white hand of her lover.
The storm did gather, and by the next
morning it broke in awful splsndor up
and down the coast.
The cove crept up and licked all the
green out of the marsh meadows. and
sent the cattle shivering inland; and the
waves crashed over the boulders, cracked
and smote the reefs, turned the pier into
a whirlpool, and moaned the requiem of
all its wrecks.
The dahlias and asters in the garden
were all broken necked, and the long
grass was beaten fiat and the birds nests
tumbled out of the shaken trees, and
swirl of rcd and brown leaves blew and
beat all day long against the window
panes where Dorothy worked away, sing5
ing, in the kitchen.
! What if it did storm7 The Susan Jane
was safe in Gloucester harbor, and her
father and Jack and Joe were all at home,
and it was Thanksgiving Day-to night
wonld be Thanksgiving Night; and
/ Dorothy had in a certain vague fashion,
promised herself that Thanksgiving
| Night must bring her affairs TO crisis
that there and then she must decide finally
to allow Fred Redlon to tell her father
of all that there was between them.
The three men stood warming their
chilled fingers at the kitchen stove, when
Dorothy, with the basting-spoon in her
hand, ran over to the east window to take
peep at the storm.
cit be terrible nightr' the girl says,
holding her hands up to see the better.
''Guess it be; and twill be worse"
Dave Chenoweth has scarcely time to
answer, when Dorothy cries out
''Father fatherl there's boat out
yon9-a small boat Look lookI'
She pushes up the sash and leans out
into the night, the men crowding around
her.
''It's bottom upI'' cries Dorothy;
land there's something-some one atop
Of it,"
sGit my glass, sisl'
Dorothy handed it him, and Dave
Chenoweth's rough face pales as he.
looks.
''Who is it, fathera Can you make
outG"
sIt's Fred Redlon, Sis. Now I re-
member, when I met him, this morning,
he said as how he'd be down tonight,
and as he was a-coming in boat. Of
course laughed-thought he was a
jokin' Freds alters fondlof his joke. !"
Dorothy put her hand to her head, she
turns, sickened, away; her eyes met
Jacks eyes fastened upon her face. He
touches her little roughly on the shoul-
der.
Dorothy he says, hoarsely, ''there
ain much time to lose Shall try to
save him-for you2"
"Save him-save himp answers she,
wildly. "Yes, yes; it's my fault, his be-
ing out yon at all-my fault Hurry,
hurry, Jacki Come, Joe-fatherl Jacks
going to save himl ]"
Jack doesn't finch nor hesitate sec
ond he pays slight heed to Joe's re-
monstrances, or to Dave Chenoweth's
oaths. In five minutes he has boat out
on the shrieking waves of the inlet, and
with one catch at Dorothy's hand with
his as she helps her father and brother
push off the craft, Jack Kendall is pulling
for his life and the others with despera-
ton known only to such heroic natures
as his.
They watch-the three-from the
shore. Now they can see the frail shell 4;
now they cannot This moment living
speck upon the top of the waters, Ieaping
TO meet and reach that other speck a
mile and more away from it; the next,
both lost to sight in the great gray gulf
1t did not take long-not so long as it
takes me to tell it-before Jack Kendall,
making one last long lunge with his
boat, holding his right oar with his
strong white teeth, caught the living,
breathing body of Redlon in his arm
and lifted it in beside him.
Dorothy fell on her knees on the sand,
clutching with tense fingers at the spray
dashed rocks by which she crouched.
Looking up, she saw the Cape Ann
Lights, and then, with a great awful
sob and rush of long pent-up tears, she
remembered Jack Kendall. Through all
the next fateful moments she thought
only of him saw only, in her mind, his
blue eyes, his sunny head, as the speck
upon the waste of waters dashed nearer,
nearer-nay, now Joe and his father,
reaching strong arms, caught at the
boats edge and hauled it, Dorothy help
ing, up the sands.
The three men-they were not wordy
people carried Redlon quickly into the
farmhouse kitchen and laid him on the
old hair-cloth sofa. They gave him stim-
ulants, put dry clothes on him, and
finally whispered that hewas ''all right, F"
and sat down to eat At last Dave Che
noweth and his son sat down.
Jack Kendall stood by the window; he
had refused TO take anything, or to dry
his clothes or change them; and Doro-
thy sat on stool by the sofa, gazing at
the sleeping mans pallid face.
Jack turned away from the window.
The two men were talking over their
neal. Dorothy was well in the shadow,
sway from the flare of the candles, and
Kendall went up to her and knelt down
beside her.
Dorothy, he says, brokenly, 81 be-
. lieve as how I've done about all l could