Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1896-05-04


New York. Many Operators" were
seeking cover. The dark day came.
Tho black devil. Panic, showed its
ugly face ono Fri lay. and the agony
that followed was awful. Some one
saw Thomas Anderson staggering up
the street, aud he fell and died at the
corner OF Wall street and Broadway
just as Trinity's clock struck three.
This was about twenty years ago
John, his only child, was left an or.
phan when he was ten years old. Johns
mother had died from an injury re-
ceivod three years previous in stepping
OF a horse car while in motion.
When his fathers affairs were set
tied up, us it is called. there was no
cream ON the milk for John to live on.
The Operator" in the storm that had
iashed the street that black day had
almost gone to pieces. Dealing in
margins Is as sure ruin in one way as
being struck by lightning is in an
other.
1t was found that John would bo left
q hundred or two in Government
bonds, hundred or two in cash, and
ten shares of the Pumpkin Vine Min
ing Co. stock, then quoted at four
cents, which his father had purchased
when tho Vine was basking in glori.
GUS sunlight anl could hardly be
bought Gt any price. Sixty dollars n
share was cheap for it then. But this
pleasant state of good fortune didn't
last long, for the Pumpkin Vine en-
tered Oh wiiEering process and be-
gan to sour on the whole community
that knew it and loved it and hugged
it to their breast pockets. All the
| juice Cozed out of it, and it became
like plant all stalk and no leaf.
This was its condition when John
got some of it--a hole in the ground
with dead, sullen look to the whole
thing. The Vino had gone into u
sleep that seemed for years, as if it
was its last. To be sure, it had once
half opened one eye, as it were, when
the stock had risen to ten bid and
twenty cents asked, and dividend,
the first of tho following month, had
been talked or. The Board of Direc-
tors had called an extra session, and
each one was on hand little ahead
of time, witha good round smile and q
watering of the mouth over the
promising prospect of some ripe fruit
of tho Vine to hand around.
But the half.open eye closed again.
There was no dividend the following
month, nor any month; and the price
of the Pumpkin Vine shares fell SO low
| thaf it required considerable patience
to Gnl it mentioned IN any of the
newspapers.
Pumpkin Vine Mine should have
done better. Alongside OF it was n
sister mine, tho Golden Rod, which
everyone was reaching for. One SO
golden, the other lustreless OF
course, like feminine nature, the
Golden Rod was coy; had shrinking
from familiarity, as the miners said
But the very shyness of the mine made
the interest in it more intense 1t was
like Irritation getting ore out of the
Golden Rod; to do so was highly ex-
hilerating, made all hands cheerful.
What pity tho Pumpkin Vine hadn't
been coquette. But it remained q
stalk. Yet it hadn't been blown away
when John Anderson became twenty
five years of age. The seven directors
of the Vine at that date were men OF
sterling quality AMI undoubted ability.
They fed on good things at other
times, but when they met now and
then over the grave of the Pumpkin
Vine they supped only on bitter weeds.
What are you going to do with q
dead mine? Bury it? Imagine being
a director of such depraved kind OF
Il thing as the Pumpkin Vine had be.
comel Imagine voting to give it
away and no one to take it Or vot.
ing to abandon it and being held up
to scorn by the stockholders for desert.
ing sinking ship.
At twenty-five John Anderson had
saved by his own earnest efforts
enough money to marry and start O
home. He had son twelve months
for whom he had great expectations in
the future.