River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1890-01-02

Emma tipped swiftly on. Win nei
fathers dinner in the basket on her
arm.
She knew where she would find him,
for under the shadow {, the spreading
oak, on natures platform. OF Security"
he loved to lie at length and take his
hour OF rest at noon.
She always heard him whistling as
she drew near, for Hogan had cheerful
heart when perhaps other men might
have been moody.
But now all was still.
Presently she almost stumbled over
something that made her blood run
cold.
At her feet was extended on the tram
pied grass a monster rattlesnake, some
six feet long. in girth the thickness of
mans arm, in color yellowish brown,
and marked throughout its hideous
length with transverse bands of deeper
brown, and longitudinal stripes of the
somber hue.
Although the head was crushed, there
was still a faint vibratory rattle of the
horny tail, for he could not die before
sunset.
"My father!" she cried, in a great
fright. No answer.
In another moment she bounded on
the rock, and there, under the um-
brageous shade OF the tree he had SC
holly claimed as his, he was stretched
forth, CHASTITY sight, his body yet
warm, but his heart had ceased to beat,
NH his III nd 49, o.xI
rigid limbs told the dreadful story. The
venomous serpent had bitten her father,
and he must have died almost in
simultaneously.
1t was, perhaps, month after this
catastrophe, when Mitzell went one day
to the widows cabin TO collect his rent.
Certainly il was hard hearted thing to
do, but greed knows no limit, and all
considerations are alike ignored by the
inhuman heart once dominated by this
passion.
From the marble palace to the log hut
this phase of enacted sin varies not.
Small store of boarded pennies had
the woman to offer in pay of rent. Could
not the landlord have foreseen that
payment?
mo money!" he said, harshly repeat
ing the pitifnl words. What then have
you got2n And as he asked the merci-
less question, he looked around and saw
the new boots.
There they stood in the same corner
where the desolute widow had placed
them on that fearful day when her hus-
band was carried home a corpse. Nit
zell, regarding them with avaricious
glance, said:
''I'll take them boots this time for
rent-that is, eff they'll fit a man."
And as he slowly drawled out this
mean suggestion, he thought, savagely:
I'D rather like to stand in that dead
mans shoes"
At this moment his son appeared at
the cabin door. He had noticed his
father going thither, and fearing that
he might in some rude way distress En-
ma and her mother, he had ventured to
follow. Then he could not resist the
hope of seeing the lass he loved.
1''What do You mean, boy, by coming
here?" growled Mitzell, in conscious
shame.
''Oh, father" pleaded Reynold, don't
take the boots!'
''Silencer' gruffiy replied the man.
'I'll see first eff they'll fit"
So saying, he took off his own shoes
and began to pull on the boots. He had
to draw hard, for they were a tight fit,
but having at last got them on, he
stamped out, without as much as good
morning.
The widow covered her face with her
apron and cried.
Mitzell marched along, his son at his
side. At first he plodded on with a
hard step, as il he were stamping down
John Hogan's grave; but after a few
minutes he turned to his son, saying:
The boots hurt, boy; i was fool to
take EN-" and he moved rather weari-
ly. Again he stopped: 'Confound the
boots" he cried in a rage, ave got
bad bargain" The pricking pain was
that of millions of needles, and he
limped forward painfully.
Presently he spoke again, but slowly,
and with thickening voice, and Rey-
mold saw with alarm that his fathers
face was livid.
Dang it," he suffered, "I-m-m
sick"
Reynold took his arm and led him
along as best he could. His fathers
legs grew stiff, and his hands were cold.
BY this time they were not far from the
rock, Security" which was on their
way home, and his son, thinking the
rock a comfortable place in the shade
of the tree, dragged him to its smooth,
wide surface.
'W-h-a-t-a-i-l-s-m-e?" were the last
words to which his black and swollen
tongue gave utterance, as with moan
ing, shuddering breath, and fainter and
fainter action of the paralyzed heart, he
ceased to breathe; laid out stark dead
on the bare, cold rock, Security" un-
der the shade of the same upas that
had sheltered John Hogan in his dying
throes-a dead man in q dead mans
shoes.
A horrid thought shot athwart the
half-crazed brain OF Reynold as he
hastily pulled the boots from off his
fathers swollen limbs, and quickly cut
ting them open, noticed at one side,
near the sole, the half-inch fangs of the
deadly serpent, the erotdtus hooridus,
most venomous of monsters, still partly
filled with the virus that had killed his
father.
At that dreadful moment, looking up,
he saw Emma, who had timidly fol-
lowed him at distance and now hurried
forward. Their glances met.
What a weird and strange coincidence
of place and circumstance between these
two deaths, for her!
Reynold, as he beheld the woman he
loved. held up to view the cut-open
boots, exclaiming:
Emma, my love, see the hand of God
in these fatal Observation-Disclosures Dahl.
gren, in n. Y. Ledger.
THE MORMON TEMPLE.