The Forest Republican. [volume] (Tionesta, Pa.) 1869-1952, 1896-06-03


was a great success and their father
praised it.
The Throop girls did their faithful
best to make cheerful home for their
father, who worked hard, and did for
them all his scant means allowed, And
tonight they bravely buried Miss
Chapman and her peck measure
fathoms deep beneath their happy talk
and laughter.
There came q knock at the door
when their father had gone downtown
after supper. The visitor was Ozro
Martin, from the poorhouse two miles
away, half-witted fellow, long and
loose-jointed with an unkempt mop of
red hair and q ludicrously twisted
face. He came to the village frequent
ly, begging his meals from house to
house. He had applied to the Throop
girls before successfully, and he bore
them in mind, for he had some small
shrewdness in his witless noddle.
Phoebe let him have chair by the
stove and the remaider of the birds
nest pudding.
"Shtopped in to Mish Chipman's,
neksht housh," said Ozro, in his own
peculiar speech, "'n she wouldn't give
pore fellar nuthin'l She'sh dreful
mean, she ish." " He looked spiteful.
"We know that" said Daisy. warm
ly, ''She's fearfully stingy."
''Shtingy that'sh it," Ozro agreed.
"She'd ought TO be arreshted n put
in the Jail |" Malice cleaned from his
dull eyes.
pheasant evening, isn't itP" said
Phoebe, considering that enough had
been said about Miss Chapman.
But Daisy could not forget her.
When Ozro had gobbled the pudding
and departed, and they had spread
their books and states on the table and
plunged into their "home work, +"
Daisy gave signs of wandering mind.
Now and again she Uttered spasmodi-
cally, and at last she jumped up and
bolted off with a gleeful and mysteri-
Gus ''Wait minute!"
She came dancing back after q little.
Giggling triumphantly, she set down
before Phoebe q small plate.
On it was half an apple, impaled
upon which, by means of a match, was
a slip of paper, and on the paper was
written:
"Dear Miss Chipman-We are
afraid that you gave us half an apple
too much, and wo beg to return it.
'PHoEBB and DAISY THRooP."
'I'm going over and leave it ct her
| door," Daisy declared.
"Daisy Throopp Phoebe gasped,
in shocked remonstranoe. But she hid
her laughing face.
'I am" said Daisy, "and you're'go-
ing with me. She'll find it in the
morning. Come oni"
1--WE mustn't" Phoebe protested.
'Yes, we must. She was mean, you
know she was She deserves it. It'll
do her good"
She pulled Phoebe to the door by
main force. They ran out, bare head
ed, and climbed the fence in the dark
ness and made their way through Miss
Chipman's lawn and their suppressed
giggles trailed behind them.
Gwen leave it right here at the kit
chen door," Daisy whispered. "She'll
find it in the morning."
She crept to the door aud set the
plate down softly.
She felt her sisters hand clutching
hers. "Look !" Phoebe cried.
The woodshed adjoined the kitchen
at the rear. Its door stood open, and
within they saw strange, bright
glare.
They rushed to the spot. Something
loomed up blackly before them-a tall
figure standing on barrel. A fright
ened yell burst from the apparition.
"Who'sA that, 1 shayP" familiar
voice quivered in shrill terror. The
fiery light shone on the red hair and
the pale, skewed face of Ozro Martin.
He stared at them; then, with q
choked and stammering word, he
clasped his queer face in his lean
hands, jumped of the barrel and
loped off into the darkness.
A smell of kerosene filled the shed,
and the rafters had caught the blaze
of burning mass of something which
Ozro Martin had been stufling in
among them. "Run get some water"
Phoebe cried, and while Daisy ran she
mounted the barrel and tore at the
burning mass. 1t was bundle of rags
soaked with kerosene.
A few minutes later Miss Chipman,
hearing peculiar noises at the back of
the house, dropped the paper she was
reading by her sitting room fire, took
the lamp and her pistol out of the
bureau drawer in her bedroom, and
marched ont to the woodshed. If it
was burglars Miss Chapman felt equal
to them.
She threw open the shed door.
"For the-land's-sake |" she ut.
tered.
The Throop girls stood there to-
gether. Their hands and their faces
were strangely blackened, water
dripIed from their hair and from
their clothes. All around them lay a
litter of charred fragments. The air
reeked with the odor of kerosene.
at was Ozro Martin. He was try
ing to set your house afire. We came
over for-for something, and we
caught him doing it," said Phoebe,
facing Miss Chapman with tremulous
smile; she was holding one hand in a
pail of water.
"He'd got those old rags and dipped
them in your oil can and crammed
them up there among the beams and
set them afre, said Daisy.
'It's all out" said Phoebe, reassur-
inply. for Miss ChiDmau had crown