Bismarck weekly tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1943, 1891-07-24
ROMANCE or PRODIGAL SONS.
Strange Fortunes that Befell Two Way
ward Boys in Their Wanderings.

Strange Fortunes that Befell Two Way
ward Boys in Their Wanderings.
MAJOR Steele, of Albany, Ca, recalls An
interesting incident of adventure. He tells
the story in his own words: Near my
fathers home, in Allegheny county, Vir-
giuia, lived a family by the name of Rey-
nolds, composed of a man and wife and
several sons.
"They were illiterate people, and were
regarded by their neighbors as a pretty
tough crowd. No master ever treated his
slaves with greater severity than did old
man Reynolds treat his sons, and under
such treatment they had but little respect
for their parents and no love for their
home.
"When / was nineteen years old two of
these boys went to school to me, and one
of them could never understand the prin-
ciple Of subtraction, though at his fathers
lumber yard he could count lumber in his
head faster and more accurately than I
could with a pencil.
Old man Reynolds also owned a grist
mill, and one morning about chestnut time
to get meal for breakfast.
after getting the meal they started on
their return home, but wandered out into
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sight of the flight of time, and forgot their
errand until the breakfast hour had long
since passed, and knowing that they would
get an unmerciful fogging for their tru-
ancy, they decided right then and there to
leave home. Their failure to return that
day aroused the fears of their parents, and
the country was secured for them for days
afterward without success and Their they
were given up as lost,
Twenty years or more after that a
stranger rode up to my fathers gate and
asked for lodging for the night. 1t was
cheerfully granted him, and that night, as
they were sitting around the fire, for it
was again chestnut time, the stranger be-
gan to make inquiries concerning the Rey.
holds family. The sheriff of the county
was also spending the night at my fathers,
and remembering the lost boys of old man
Reynolds, during the progress of the stran-
gers inquiries he turned in his chair and
asked him:
":Ain't you one of them sons of old man
Reynolds that ran away7'
"Yes, I LII one of them,' replied the
stranger. n then he went on to tell how
he and his brother made up their minds to
leave home, never stopping until they had
reached the Ohio river; how they had
drifted into Mississippi, grown up and be-
come lost to each other, and how, after
many years, an irresistible longing had
come over him to revisit the scenes of his
childhood, and how he had made the long
journey on horseback to satisfy that long
ing.
Finding that his parents were still alive,
and that the old mill was still running and
grinding meal for the community as of
yore, when he left for his old home the
next morning, he went by the mill, secured
a small sack Of meal and carried it to his
fathers house. where he received such a
welcome as he never before received.
81 spent several weeks with his parents
and then left for his home in Mississippi,
and that was the last ever heard of him or
his brother truant, who was thought to
have gone to California and become swal-
lowed up and lost in the rush to the gold
fields"
There was a far away look in the majors
eyes as he concluded, and the reporter
imagined that probably his old Virginia
home was again being looked at through
the strong lens of low and memory, and 80
he skipped out and left him lingering amid
the recollections of chestnut time.-Albany
News and Courier.