St. Landry democrat., 1893-06-24
THE TOUCH IN THE HEART.

l. LII ~ ~ VII 11N L ILL ADa ~
Old Abel Dunklee was delighted, ant
so was old Abel's wife, when little Abe
came. For this coming they had waitet
many years. God had prospered then
elsewise; this one supreme blessing onl,
had been withheld. Yet Abe had nevel
despaired. II shall some time have {
son, said he. VI shall call him Abel
He shall be rich; he shall succeed to MY
business, my house, my factory, my
lands, my fortune-all shall be his. !
Abel Dunklee felt this to be Certainty
and with this prospect constantly il
mind he shaved and pinched and bar,
gained. So when at last the little one
did come it was as heir to considerable
property.
The joy in the house of Dunklee was
not shared by the community at large,
Abel Dunklee was by no means popular
man. Folk had the we'll defined opinion
that he was selfish, miserly and hard. t,
he had not been actually bad, he had
never been what the world calls a good
man. His methods had been of the
grinding, sordid order. He had always
been scrupulously honest in the payment
of his debts, and in keeping hts word,
but his sense of duty seemed to stop
there. Abel's idea of goodness was to
owe no man any money. He never gave
penny to charities, and he never spsht
any time sympathizing with The misfor-
fortunes or asstresses ii other people.
He was narrow, close, selfish and hard,
SO his neighbors and the community OF
large said, and I shall not deny that the
verdict was just one.
When little one comes into this world
of ours it is the impulse Of the people
here to bid 1t welcome and to make Ito
lot pleasant. When little Abel was born
no such enthusiasm obtained outside the
austere Dunklee household. Popular
sentiment found vent in an expression of
the hope that the son and heir would
grow up to scatter the dollars which old
man Dunklee had accumulated by years
of relentless avarice and unflaggihe toll.
But DR.. Hardy--he who had oficiated
in an all important capacity Upon that
momentous occasion in the Dthklee
household-Dr. Hardy shook his head
wisely and perhaps sadly, as if he were
saying to himself: No. the child will
never do either what the old folk or
what the other folk would have him do /
he is not long for here"
Had you questioned him closely Dr..
Hardy would have told you that little
Abel was as frail babe as ever did bat
tie for life. DR.. Hardy would Surely
never have dared say that to old Dunk
lee, for in his rapture in the coming of
that little boy old Dunklee would have
smote the offender who presumed even
to intimate that the babe was not the
most vigorous as we'll as the most beauti-
full creature upon the earth. The old
man was simply assotted upon the child
in selfish way, undoubtedly, but
even this selfish love of that puny little
child showed that the cid man was
capable of somewhat better than his past
life had been. To hear him talk you
might have fancied that Mrs. Dunklee
had no part or parcel or interest in their
offspring. 1t was always 'my little boy"
yes, old Abel Dunklee's money had a
rival in the old mans heart at last, and
that rival was a helpless, shrunken, sick
ly little babe.
Among his business associates Abel
Ounklee was Familiarity known 81 Ola
5rowly, for the reason that his voice was
harsh and discordant and sounded for
Ill the world like the hoarse growing
If an ill-natured bear. Abel was not a
particularly irritable person, but his
lavish devotion to money getting, his
Indifference to the amenities of life. his
entire neglect Of the kinder practices of
humanity, his rough, unkempt personality
md his deep, hoarse voice-these things
combined to make that sobriauet of
old Growly" an exceedingly appro-
,r'ate one. And presumably Abel never
bought of resenting the slur implied
herein; he was too shrewd not to see
hat, however disrespectful and evil-in-
entioned the phrase might be, it served
nm to good purpose, for it conduced to
hat very general awe, not to say terror,
which kept people from bothering him
nth their charitable and sentimental
chemes.
Yes, l think we can accept it as fact
hat Abel liked that sobriquet; it meant
lore money in his pocket and fewer de-
lands upon his time and patience.
But Old Growly abroad and Old
roYly at home were two very different |
eople. Only the voice was the same, |
he homely, furrowed, wizened face |
GIFTED up, and the keen, restless ewes
'st their expression of shrewdness and |
le thin, bony hands that elsewhere
utched and clutched and pinched and
lnched for possession unlimbered them
Ives in the presence of little Abel and
ached out their long fingers yearningly
I'd caressingly toward the little child.
hen the hoarse voice would growl q
lutation that was full of tenderness
T it came straight from the old mans
sart; only, had you not known how
UGH he loved the child, You might
I've thought otherwise, for the Old
ans voice was always hoarse and dis
rdant, and that was why they called
m Old Growly. But what proved his
We for that puny babe was the fact that ,
cry afternoon when he came home
ON the factory Old Growlv hrourht -.