The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1888-11-25
60 r Il S S Y -
BY BRET HARTE.

When school WIS dismissed that after
noon ard the master had remained to show
Rupert FIgee bow to prepare Unce Ben's
tasks. and had given his final Instructions to
his youthful vicegerent, that irascble
Adonis lnhurthened himself qrerulously:
is CresSy McKinstry comm regular, Mr.
+ rd:"
''She is" said the master, drily.
After pause he asked:
why"
Ruuert's curls had descended on his eye
brows in heavy discomfort.
Its might rough, Jest ez a Teller reckons
he's got quit of her and her jackass boz, to
hev her prancin back inter school agin,
in q milliner's shop"
"You shouldn't allow your personal dis
likes, Rupert, to provoke you to speak of a
fellow scholar in that way-aud a Young
lady. too" corrected the master, drily.
The woods is full o. sich Teller scholars
and SIGH Young ladies, if yer keer to go
guunin' for 'em," said Rupert, with dark
and slangy significance. "Ef I'd known
She was comm back I'd" he stopped and
brought his sunburnt fist against the seam
of his trousers with a boyish gesture, "Id
hev jist-"
"Whatg" said the master, sharply.
"I'd hev played hockey till she left school
agin! 1t moutn't lev bin SO long, NEITHER
he added. with a mysterious chuckle.
THAT will do" said the master, peremp-
torily "For the present you'll attend TO
your duty and try to make Uncle Ben see
You're something more than a foolish,
canty, ''he and | may both repent our
agreement. Let me havs good account of
YOU both when | return"
lie took his hat from its peg on the wall
and in obedience to a suddenly formed
resolution left the school room to call upon
the parents of Cressy McKinstry. He was
not quite certain what he should say but,
after his habit, would trust to the il spira-
ton of the moment. At the worst he could
resign a situation that now appeared to re-
ouire more tact and delicacy than seemed
consistent with his position, and he was
obliged to confess to himself that he had
lately suspected that his present occupation
the temporary expedient of a poor but
clever young man of 20-was scarcely
bringing him nearer a realization of his
daily dreams. For Mr.. Jack Ford was
youthful pilgrim who had sought his fort
une in California SO lightly equipped that
even in the matter of kin and advisers he
was deficient. That prospective fortune
had already eluded him in San Francisc },
mento, and now seemed never to have been
at Indian Spring. Nevertheless, when he
was once out of sight of the school house he
lit a cigar, put his hands in his pockets
and strobe on with the cheerfulness of that
youth to which all things are possible.
The children had already dispersed as
mysteriously and completely as they had
arrived. Between him and the struggling
hamlet of Indian Spring the landscape
seemed to be without sound or motion. The
wooded upland or ridge on which the school
house stood, half a mile further on, began
TO slope gradually toward the river, on
whose banks seen from that distance, the
town appeared to have been scattered
irregularly or thrown together hastily, as
if cast ashore by some overfiow-the Cos
mopolitan hotel drifting into the Baptist
church and dragging in its tail of wreckage
two saloons and blacksmiths shop; while
the county court house was stranded in
solitary grandeur in waste of gravel half
a mile away. The intervening fiat was still
gashed and furrowed by the remorseless
engines of earlier gold seekers.
Mr.. Ford was in little sympathy
with this unsuccessful record of from
tier endeavor-the fortune he had
sought did not seem to lie in
that direction-and his eye glanced quickly
beyond it to the pine-creSted hills across the
river, whose primeval security was
y
back again to the trail he was pursuing
along the ridge. The latter prospect still
retained its semi-sayage character in spite
of the occasional suburban cottages of resi-
dents, and the few outlying farms or ranches
of the locality. The grounds of the cottages
were yet uncleared of underbrush; bear and
catamount still prowled around the rude
fences of the ranches; the late alleged expe-
rience of the infant Filgee was by no means
improbable or unprecedented.
light breeze was seeking the heated fiat
and river, and thrilling the leaves around
him with the strong vitality of the forest.
The vibrating cross-lights and tremulous
chequers of shade cast by the stirred foliage
seemed to weave a fantastic net around
him as he walked. The quaint odor of GER
tain woodland herbs known to his scholars,
and religiously kept in their desks, or left
like votive offerings on the threshold of the
school house. recalled all the primitive SIM
plicity and delicious wildness of the little
temple he had left. Even in the mischievous
glances of evasive squirrels and the moist
eyes of contemplative rabbits there were
faint suggestions of some of his own
truants. The woods were trembling with
gentle memories of the independence he had
always known hereof that sweet and
grave retreat-now 30 ridiculously in
vaded.
he began to hesitate, with one of those
AoNulSlOuS OF sentiment CHARACTERISTIC OF MS
nature: Why should he bother himself
about this girl after all? Why not make
up his mind to accept her as bis predecessor
had dones Why was it necessary for him
10 ind her inconsistent with his ideas of
duty to his little flock and his mission to
5nemF Was he not assuming a sense of
decorum that was open to misconception.
The absurdity of her school costume and
any responsibility it incurred, rested not
with him, but her parents. What right had
be to point it out to them. and, above all,
now was he to do ita He halted irresolutely
at what he believed was his sober second
thought, but which, like most reflections
That take that flattering title, was only a
reaction as impulsive and illogical as the
emotion that preceded it.
Mr. McKinstry's ''snake rail" fence was
already discernible in the lighter opening of
the woods, not far from where he had halted.
AS he stood there in hesitation the pretty
nlgure and bright gown of Cressy Nc
hlnstry suddenly emerged from a more
secluded trail that intersected his own at
an an acute angle few rods ahead of him
one was not alone. but was accompanied by
q male figure whose arm she had evidently
JUST dlslodged from her waist. He was still
trying to resume his lost vantage; she was
as resolutely evading him with a certain
ihymph-like agility, while the sound of her
Han-laughing, half-irate protest could be
iiaintly heard Without being able to iden-
tlly the face or figure Of her companion at
q l. 1 "a w..xAt