Waterbury evening Democrat., 1891-04-22
IN THE MIDDLE WEST.
A Story of Life in the Great
Mississippi Valley.


in double high-chair beside it, and he
looked across the snowy board and saw
Ether's bright cross-eyes and curly
head against a background of green
tree-tops, glinting mill pond, white
town-hOuses, and the blue and billowy
reaches of the far off prairies.
CHAPTER XII.
John Earring continued steadily at
his task; reading and studying at
every opportunity, with a mind so
clear and retentive that what was once
gone over seemed never lost again:
Bower q Woodman thought very we'll
of him, indeed, but discreetly said
nothing. However, old Woodman
could not deny himself some little APP
probative pantomime, and often when
John Earling came swiftly into the
Office and sat down and plunged at
once into his work, the old lawyer
would rock his big head a little and
thrust his bony hand out before him
like claw, and bring it back with a
jerk and whisper: ''Hair!' John
EARRING was not aware of this, nor
would the thing which it evidently
implied, with his peculiar mixture of
pride, tenderness and decision, have
struck him as a compliment, perhaps.
That the old lawyer. however, with his
own intense alteration of fight, should
mistake John Earnings equally intense
earnestness for some belligerent tend
ency, was not perhaps unnatural,
since every man must, out of necessity,
make, in some sense, yardstick of
himself wherewith to measure others.
And the old attorney loved tempest
he seemed to feed upon resistance,
and though he ever grew more gnarled
and knotty and deformed, he also ever
grew more stubbornly vigorous. That
he would have suffered, and possibly
have pinned away into something effem-
mate and weak like a sick lover. had
the lines of his employment lain strict
ly within peaceful limits, seemed prob
able. That he had fattened financially
at least upon contention was certain,
for his house was of the most commo-
dious in Openstone and quite richly
equipped, though the old lawyer HIM
self was profoundly careless as to his
own apparel and not in any respect
particular as to where he spit. That
this dwclling-place had been born of
his eSthetic impulses, or even to COM
tort him in his declining years, seemed
doubtful; for any inclination he might
have had that savored of the former
lay indiscoverably deep, and as to the
latter he never seemed to think of it.
But q stronger, sweeter cause than
either of these lay at the bottom
of the matter; the strangely passionate
love that filled this old human-eagle
for his only child and daughter, Maun.
A girl like dark, hot sunshine, she was,
if such thing could be conceived, to
whom the gift Of all things beautiful
that ever were would not, in the eyes
of the fond old lawyer, have seemed
over-lavish. His life had been an an
CRY one; sixty years of strife, pain,
loss. luck, defeat. victory, and time
Gus matter. 1t had come out of pow
erty somewhere in the Mohawk valley,
with possibly a touch of the Red Man
in it, and had gone forward through
the Lake Superior region on into the
great grinding. roaring West. and
doubling back from California a half
score years before, had lodged in Open
stone. The little girl and pocket
full of gold was what he brought
with him, and erclong he
built the house in kind of
worship of the child, and
employed the most capable persons he
could find to care for and instruct her.
The mother had been of Spanish blood,
and rumor had it she was dead, at least
unto her husband, and the old mans
heart was wholly given to the child.
John Earring had sometimes seen her
going to and fro, but since his life
pressed so closely on him that he did
not much heed strange faces, and since
the old attorney would not permit his
L Al.
he had not known her. But that she
was comely, willful and prone to Curl
Gus bursts of love and hate. had often
fallen within the circle of his hearing
as he worked. For it was one of the
old lawyer habits, so full was he of
this growing girl, to lean back from
his writing by times and give his part
ner some scrap or other that had to do
with her. Now and then John Earl
ing felt an inclination cross him to
meet and know this daughter
of his curious old employer, but with
the moment it would pass away into
his work and be forgotten. He seldom
jested or considered any tlippant thing;
not that his blood was else than sweet
and wholesome, but for the reason that
he was earnestly intent upon his own
self-education and the earliest possible
completion of his task. Harry Whit
ney dropped in upon him often, and
occasionally left book with his old
time digestive joke. Joel greeted him
good-naturedly. but hardly with the
hale and hearty openness of the years
before. This upright, resolute young
fellow seemed to trouble him. He
often stared before him and murmured:
''Consarn the youagster! he will make
Loo ri -nk nfl inn
worse" But what John Earling had
done to him was not so clear. Certain
ly he had never whispered of him to any
one save in a grateful, generous way,
and that he should keep his agreement
with Joel seemed the most probable
thing in the world. But the heart of
the trouble that followed Joel was laid
open at the end of the year when John
Earring. came into his office and wished
to settle with him for the time which
had elapsed since his withdrawal from