The Portland daily press., 1896-06-13

wake up Do you s'pose can sleep
when such q blessin has fallen on m D?
I'll lay still, but if I forget it Or you
for one minute this night, I'll be sc
ashamed Of myself that IL wake me
right up
Then the doctor bound up his eyes
and the poor boy said "Thank God p
two or three times, and they could see
the tears runnin down his cheeks from
under the cloth. Lord! 1t was just as
pitiful as broken winged bird
How ABOUT the girl? Well, it was all
right for Ahe-and all wrong for Ephe
all wrong for Ephe But that's all
past and gone-past and gone. Folks
come for miles and miles to see cross
eyed Abe with his eyes as straight as a
looms leg. DIR. Brainard was great
man forever after in those parts. Every
where else, too, by what I heard
When the doctor and the squire come
to go, Abe spoke up, blindfolded as he
was, and says he:
Doc, how much do you charge fell
Ter for savin his life-makin man
out of a poor wreck-doin what he new
er thought could be done but by Syin
and goin to kingdom Gomez"
"Oh," says Doc Brainard, says he,
fthat amt what we look at as pay
practice. You didn't call me in; leone
of myself, as though it was what we
call clinic. IF all goes well, and if you
happen to have a barrel of apples to
spare, you just send them up to Squire
Cations house in Chicago, and TIL call
over and help eat 'em. :"
What did Abe say to that? Why, sir,
he never said word, but they do say
the tears started out again, out from
under the bandage and down his cheeks.
But then Abe he had a 5-year-old pet
mare he'd raised from a colt-pretty as
picture, kind as kitten and fast as
split hghtnin-and next time doc come
down Abe he just slipped out to the
barn and brought the mare round and
hitched her to the gate post, and when
doc come to be goin, says Abe:
Don t forget your nag, doctor; she's
hitched at the gate. T"
Well, sir, even then Abe had the hard
est kind of a time to get Doc Brainard
to take that mare, and when he did ride
off, leadin her, it wasn't half an hour
before back she came, lickety split. Doc
said she broke away from him and
put for home, but always suspected
he didn't have no use for boss he
couldn't sell nor hire out and couldn t
afford to keep in the village-that
was what Chicago was then. But
come along toward fall Abe he took
her right up to town, and then the doc
tors practice had growed SO much that
he was pretty glad to have her, and Abe
was glad to have him have her, seein
all that had come to him through havin
eyes like other folks-that's the school
ma am, mean
How did the schoolma am take it?
Well, it was this way: After the cuttin
Abe didn't show up for a few days, till
the inflammation got down and he'd
had some practice handlin his eyes, SO
to speak. He just Kept himself to him
self, enjoyin himself. He'd go around
dom the chores, singin SO you could
hear him mile. He was always great
on singin, Abe was, though ashamed to
go to singin school with the rest. Then
when the poor boy began to feel like
other folks, he went right over to where
schoolma am happened to be boardin
round, and walked right up to her and
took her by both hands, and looked her
straight in the face, and said:
''Do you know me?"
Well, she kind of smiled and blushed,
and then the corners of her mouth pulled
down and she pulled one hand away,
and-if you believe me-that was the
third time that girl cried that season,
to my certain knowledge-and all for
nothin either time.
What did she say? Why, she just said
she'd have to begin all over again to get
acquainted with Abe. But Ephe's nose
was out OF joint, and Ephe knowed it
as well as anybody, Ephe did. 1t was
Abe's eyes to Ephe's nose
Married? Oh, yes, of course, and lived
on the farm as long as the old folks
lived, and afterward, too, Ephe stayin
right along, like the fool be always had
been. That teller never did have as
mnch sense as last years birds nest.
Alive yet? Abe? Well, no. Might
have been if it hadn't been for Shiloh.
When the war broke out Abe thought