Chicago eagle. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1889-19??, 1893-05-13
THE TOUCH IN THE HEART.

Old Abel Dunklee was delighted, and
80 was old Abel's wife, when little Abel
rame. For this coming they had waited
many years. God had prospered them
slsewise; this one supreme blessing only
had been withheld. Yet Abe had never
aespaired. y shall some time have
SON. said he. 81 shall call him Abel.
He shall be rich; he shall succeed to my
business, my house, my factory, my
lands. nv fortune-all shall be his
Abel Dunklee felt this to be certainty,
and with this prospect constantly in
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, misery and hard. II
he had not been actually bad, he had
never been what the world calls 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 his word,
but his sense of duty seemed to stop
there. Abel's idea of goodness was to
owe no man any money. de never gave
penny to charities, and he never spent
any time sympathizing with the misfor-
fortunes or distresses of other people.
He was narrow, close, selfish and hard,
20 his neighbors and the community at
large said, and | 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 it welcome and to make its
rot 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 untagging toll.
But DIR. Hardy-he who had otficiated
in an all important capacity upon that
momentous occasion in the Dunklee
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 OF
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 ever
to intimate that the babe was not thu
most vigorous as we'll as the most beauti
full creature upon the earth. The ole
man was simply assotted upon the chile
lin selfish way, undoubtedly, bu
even this selfish love of that puny it'll
child showed that the old man wa
capable of somewhat better than his pas
life had been. TO hear him talk YOU
might have fancied that Mrs. Dunkle
had no part or parcel or interest in thei
offspring. 1t was always 'my little boy
yes. old Abel Dunkee's money had
rival in the old mans heart at last, anC
that rival was helpless, shrunken, sick
ly little babe
Among his business associates Abe
Dunklee was Familiarity known as OIL,
Growlv, for the reason that his voice wa
harsh and discordant aud sounded 70
all the world like the hoarse growlin
of an ill.natured bear. Abel was not
particularly irritable person, but hi
slavish devotion to money getting, hi
indifference to the amenities Of life, hi
entire neglect Of the kinder practices
humanity. his rough unkempt personalit
and his deep, hoarse voice-these thing
combined to make that sobriquei
cold Growlyn an exceedingly appr'
priate one Aud presumably Abel ney'
thought of resentiug the sluF implle
therein: ne was too shrewd nos to 81
that, however disrpspectiul and eNiiu
teutioued the phrase might he, it 'ery,
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