The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1891-04-16

slouching lazily off toward the bush
Efie laughed as she saw him-his grea
head bent forward, and his thin, narrow
shoulders bowed. She laughed to thinl
of his laziness, and that he should lool
so tired after such q very little Woo
chopping.
7 She was still laughing at King Billy
as she opened the old workbox to take
another peep at the yellow treasure, ant
to make quite sure that the heat hadn'
melted it away. And it was quite slow
ly that the laugh died from the pretty
eyes and mouth-quite slowly, because
Of the moments it took to realize and ac
ept misfortune so terrible-when she
lifted the coarse socks and looked and
s;lw no little gold nugget-saw nothing.
T hen horror and great fear grew in the
, blue eyes, and pale agony crept over the
| childish face and made it old, and the
poor little heart seemed to stop beating.
Fife said nothing and made no cry
but she closed her eyes tightly for a
moment, and looked in the box again.
| No, it was no illusion; the little nugget
| avas not there-the first gold her father
he r care, which was to have been taken
to her mother-it was gone She put
down the box quite quietly and walked
out into the day, but the sun was shin
ing very strangely and mistily now, and
the l)lue sky had grown black, and the
trees seemed to move weirdly, and the
| locus is had ceased hurnming from fear,
but the strange bird was somewhere
near shrieking brokenly: "What will
father say3 What will father say?"
But as the child stood there, despair
ing, her sight grew clearer, and she saw
a black figure among the trees and she
was conscious of a pair Of dusky eyes
watching her through the leaves. Then
only she remembered, and she knew who
had done TINS cruel thing. King Billy!
And she had been kind to him. Effie
suddenly burst into passionate sobbing.
The black figure still lowered among
the trees, often changing its position,
and tti1e dusky eyes still peered through
the leaves, and the laughing jackasses
flew down to the old tree again, and
laughed more nladly than before
laughed vt EHe's trust-at Billy's graft
tudei
1t was 10 O'Clock, and darkness and
quiet reigned. in John Archer's hut.
Over among Il te tents behind the waffle
gums few gal uDlers and heavy drink
ers were still wake, and their voices,
raised in anger or ribald merriment,
might Occasional W have been family
heard from the ct. But Archer, who
had sown his " uld oats, was true
worker; and he ha his little daughter,
for whose sake he h sd built the hut away
from the noisy camlh
Archer had come b pme late and weary,
as usual, had eaten lis supper and gone
to rest without, to E. fees intense relief,
speaking of the little gold nugget The
child was afraid to speak Of the loss, and
she was not without vague hopes that
beneficent providence would restore the
nugget during the dar@ness4and save her
from this great trou be.
For this she prayed very earnestly be-
fore she lay down to sleep. Or did she
sleep at all that night She never quite
knew. But she thin ks that it was then
that she first experien ced that terrible,
purgatoriA condition which is neither
Wakefulness nor sleep, when the body
and mind are weary enough to bring
the profound sheep viii rh they require,
but which the brain is too overladen
and too cruelty active to allow; when
dreams seem realities and realities
dreams 1t must have been a dream
when she saw something small and yell
low float through the tiny window on
the ghostly silver moo1beams. And
yet, when, having closed her eyes, she
opened them again. 1t was still there
lowering about in the darkness-less
bright now, and with a pale yellow ha,o.
But it faded quite away: it was cruel,
hooking dream.
Then was it a dream when the old cur
tain which divided her corner of the hut
from her fathers moved near the ground
-bulged slightly toward her? 1t would
be curious to see, and she lay still.
From under the curtain Sc emed to come
thin arm, and slowly, eau tiously, after
the arm, a head with a q eat shock of
hair. And the moonbeamS ust touched
face. l think they kissed it, though it
was black, for they found in a black
hand the little yellow object which had
floated in the first dream.
1t was all so real, so beautiful, that
the child lay still, scarce daring to
breathe lest the vision should melt away,
and when in her dream came the voice
of her father, with the words. Speak
or I'll fire." her lips refused to open.
But it was no dream when the shot
came, and the Black King rolled over on
the earth, dead, with the little gold mug
get he had come to restore pressed m the
death agony against his heart, where,
too, was little gold.
And the laughing birds in the old tree,
startled from their sleep by the shot,
laughed once more, wildly and madly,
at Billy's honesty; but there was bitter
ness in their merriment, for thear mas
ter, the devil, had been cheated of the
soul of Black King.-C. Had6on Cham
bers in Oak Bough and Waffle Blossom.
Queer Superstiticn-