Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1893-12-30

! The work was very slow work. Aug
ust was nearly over, and she had not
completed the third part of her list.
The curriers' shops were scattered
/ 1t was rarely that she could do more
! than two In day-one in the morning,
when the men went 10 their work;
one in the evening, when they left
work. She was getting to be curious
! ly familiar with the curriers' of Paris,
their ways and their manners. the
restaurants where they dined or supped
late in the evening, at long narrow
tables in low dingy rooms, by the light
of allow-candles, and amid overpow-
ering odors Of cognac and cheese soup;
the wine shops where they swilled gal
Ions of little blue" or stupehed them
selves with cheap cognac
She learned a great deal; but in all
this time there had been no sign Of
/ Serizier, no clue to the whereabouts Of
that one workman
Now and then she ventured TO ac-
cost one of these blue blouses, who
answered civilly or brutally. as Fate
NiAitNs ApNAf ANA tAN iubNt litli l. NANN
were civil, in their rough way. She
told her little pathetic story of a
brother, a currier by trade, of whom
she had lost all trace since the Com
mune. His chief friend was n man
also currier-called SerIzier, and she
thought it likely that wherever Seri.
zier were working her brother would
be working too
Did monsieur happen by chance
to know anything about currier
called Serizier? No, nobody knew Of
such man Some to whom she spoke
remembered the name and the man in
the day of his splcndor with a cooked
hat, and red scarf round his waist
There had been passion for red
scarfs among the Communards. Per
haps it was the color that charmed
them. the hue of that blood which was
to them as an atmosphere
Those who knew all about Serizicrs
past career could give her no enlight-
eminent about his present whereabouts,
and she always made her inquiries
hidIciously, indirectly, putting forward
that mythical brother as the motive
of her questionings. She did not want
TO be known as woman who had in
lquired for Serizicr lest the hunted
should get wind of the hunter And
SO she came TO September, and in all
the blue blouses, the heavy figures,
and STOPPING shoulders, the toil-stained
hands, the close-cropped bulletheads,
l..l,. 4 - stFrsF
should she know him when she saw
him?
Easily enough. First, she had his
photograph, which she had discovered
after a diligcnt search, in shop on
the Boulevard St Michel. among other
heroes Of the Commune Secondly,
she had seen him once in the feob,
and his face had impressed itself upon
her memory in a HASH as Il it had
been photographed upon her brain.
1t was not common face; it was ORR
ginal in its sinister ugiiuess ana she
could recall every line In that bulldog
visagc.
She had seer him soon after the
sllirmish.at Issy, when his iauro6s were
vet green, aud the street-arabs cheered
him as he passed at the head of his
regiment, in gaudy uniform, red scarf,
waving plumes, clanking sword, on a
horse which he could not ride, boast
full triumphant 1t was in the spring
l,eyening, the clear cool light of declin.
ing day, when she stood on the quay,
hanging on her husbands arm, and
watching the soldiers 90 by.
| Castor told her all about Serizier.
A brute but a brave brute, he said,
and good ut training his s1ldiers-a
man who was likely TO t0mC well to
die fore If the Commune could hold
dts own.
And so with the evening sunlight
ION his face, SeriEier rode slowly by,
she watching him, open-eyed with won
der that such a brute face as this
should belong to one Of the people
The face was as wildly before her
eyes today as il dad been that April
evening. She looked at the photograph
every night before she went TO rest.
Let him disguise himself az he might,
let him dye his skin like a blacka-
m0or's. or hide cheeks and mouth
and chin behind a forest Of beard
anu whisker, he could never hide him
self from her. His face was never
absent rom her mind.
TO be Continued