Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1890-09-11
"HAVE YOU SEEN M0SES!7
BY EVELYN RAYMOND.

1t was the saddest sound ever heard.
The first day it set my mind continually
wandering from the work in hand; on
the second it eXasperated me; but on the
third | felt that | must answer the
mournful question in the affirmative orgo
mad.
'IIave yOU seen-Mose-sW
Over and over again, with its pathetic
iteration, its little catching of the breath
before the final word, and that emphasis
upon the second one which made it such
personal matter. l heard it from the
bar across the hall, from among the
group of loungers on the hotel stoop,
beside me at the post office window, all
up and down the struggling street
everywhere throughout the small mining
town in which the interests of my en-
ployers had stranded me-
To the credit of my kind | must say
that l rarely heard an impatient retort
given to the appealing inquiry. Rough
miners would break of in the middle of
an oath and answer with unlooked-for
gentleness; NO, Pop; l hain't seen
him."
pOlllC NpulNl lhCltlJ SlllllC anu olltlhG
their heads kindly, and one exceptional
brute would thrust his hand in his vest
pocket-the abomination of the chestnut
bell had Just grayitated to Boomville-
and ring his little admonition in the
others ear. He Lad done this for the
second time within my hearing and
within the space of an hour, when could
bear it no longer. l wheeled around
from the table, strewn with the com
pany's maps and charts, and demanded,
savagely: "Who is that man, and what
does he mean by that eternal question? ~
The landlady-she was landlord as
well, her husband being a poor thing
with good clothes on--stoppod dusting
and looked at me gratefully. She had
disturbed my solitude unceremoniously
enough, and I had at first resented it
till found out that the poor creature
had come ''from Cawncord way,n and
was suffering for news Of far-off New
Hampshire. After satisfying her to tho
best of my ability, and having regretfullS
assured her that ! did not know "thC
Dows from round Coontoocook, " she hud
still hovered near me. She felt, nc
doubt, that had almost the claim of re
lationship upon her hospitality because
had passed through Concord on my way
to the West, and had had the good for
tune to be born among the granite hills
of her native State.
She sat down near me. "The poor
fellow is-well, nobody knows, exactly
He came to Boomville some months ago
He had a son with him, and he told m,
hot Of IN hnNr'c II /,
He bought little tract of land out to
ward the gulch, aud put up Il shnnty. H.
didn't seem to care much whether h
made any money or not. If the boy fell
like work, work it was; if he didn't, i
was all one to his father. So it 'pcared
any way. He was the handsomest youn
chap that ever set foot in this city"-th
''city" boosted one street and fe,
houses-''but any one could see at
glance that he wasn't right in his head
"InsanityIn
"No; it didn't pear that way. kin,
of picked it out that the boy, Moses
had been at college and overworked.
What did you say the mans nam
wasl"
81 didn't say. don't know. That
old man-though | ought not to call hin
that, for he isn't more than fifty-uset
to say to the boy: AIose-s'-same s yol
hear him now-but the boy himself neve
was heard to say anything that folk
could understand .
Yet, when they bought their land
there must have been some name revealed
in the transacton.n
81 suppose there was. Only the com
pany he dealt with all went to smash q
few days alterwnrd, and theiragent van
ishcd. They didn't have any more right
to the land, anyhow, than you or | have,
and you know how much that is. No
body mplestcd the pair, and they would
have been there yet if it hadn't have been
for the cyclone"
Did it blow their wits away?" 1t
was such tedious work getting at the
few facts Of the old mans story, that
was fast iosir 9 my patience.
The lan,ilady looked at me in mild re-
proach, as if l had icsted with sacred
subject | found that had.
"That is exactly what it did do"
'What" | cried, in astonishment.
The woman seemed to expect me to be.
lieve her startling statement
"That is exactly what it did do" sh,
repeated with grave distinctness. 81
swept through the gulch, and ther
wasn't much dirt left when it got don
ITS work, now can tell you. After
ward, when the men from here went u
to the camp to see if ANYBODY was lef
alive, they found pop living in the bot
tom of the canon. They thought he wa
dead at first, and started to bring hin
into town just to bury him; but jim
Corson, the vcteri .ary, he said that h
reckoned there was some little life left i
the man, and after he had worked ovt
him spell he found that he was righ
We pieced it out that he had been blow
off the bluff where his cabin had stoo
and landed in the ravine; but whateve
became Of Moses, no one has hear
from that day to this. 'Pop'-he goe