Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1897-04-24
FIRED AT RANDOM.

Hardesty had been called down to the
town of his birth by the summons of
the real estate agent into whose hands
he had intrusted the care of the proper
ty he had received from his fathers es-
tate. Estate is a big and general word
and many people use it i'll Il grandilo-
quent manner i'll speaking of corner
lot in a marshy suburb. In Hardesty's 8
case it meant little better than that,
but it was no vast Anneke JAMS tract by
any means.
He had not been in that little town
for II years-indeed since the days Of
his school attendance. He recalled how
on one summer afternoon he had vault
ed out of window just ahead of the
schoolmaster's hickory, how when wal
loped for it at home he had left the
house in anger, and how that night he
had boarded freight train bound Gin
cinnatiward-and had never gone back.
Often he had thought of the old place
and when the days of his middle age
came they found him wondering and
NollttllhS uuI at O(lu UlultS
about Milt Woodard's cooper shop and
the other things-but he did not go
back.
After the death Of his father and
when he had come into the old family
residence he seemed to wonder and
dream all the more. Once he had met
the father Of Doras Alderman at a quad
i,1 ,f
ence and had talked to him of Doras,
who had been schoolmate, but in gen-
eral he had had little communication
other than that witnessed in the letters
which passed between himself and the
real estate agent. Now, on this even
ing, II years afterward, he trundled
into town i'll sleeper and thought
smilingly of the day when he had rolled
out on a box car. The agent had writ
ten him to the effect that somebody had
offered famous sum for the old Har-
desty homestead, purposing to cut it up
into an addition to the city. The agent,
a boyhood friend, had suggested that
Hardesty come down from Chicago to
give personal attention to the matter,
for by so doing he believed that a few
thousand dollars more could be realized.
Dreaming of the old days, Hardesty
left the train at the depot. 1t was a
stone and brick depot, he noticed, and
not the little frame structure in which
he and Tom Coyne had loafed in the
summer of old days. He remembered
Tom Coyne very readily, and thought
with especial amusement and interest
upon the episode of the bumblebees.
Before reaching the town he had decided
that the very first thing he would do
would be to go into the little old wood
en- station and examine the walls to see
if the initials I'D. H." for David
Hardesty, were still there where he had
cut them on the wainscoting, to the fury
of Johnny Clark, the station agent He
had counted a great deal on the pleasure
of this investigation, and it annoyed
him somewhat to step off the car and
into spick and trig depot of masonry
construction.
After the affront of this evidence of
progress and prosperity had somewhat
worn away he started to walk down
the road to the residence of the agent,
his old friend. He knew the location of
the house, for as a boy he had been able
to draw map Of the town, showing ev-
cry residence, clubhouse, chicken coop
and fence. Somehow, however, he found
the quest bit difficult New streets ap-
peared, inviting him to walk down into
what had been green fields, but which
We're now additions" and places" all
built up with trinity painted frame
houses.
He found the object of his search at
last and was admitted. His friend, the
agent, who had only partially expected
him, did not know him at first, and in
deed Hardesty would have passed the
other thousand times before recOgniz-
ing i'll his brown mustache and glossy
collar any semblance to the patched and
freckled boy who had helped him to rob
Frank Stones historic melon patch.
The agent introduced his wife and said
Hardesty would remember her, but
Hardesty would have done nothing Of
the sort, except for the fact that he had
learned from correspondence that his
friend had married little Eda Stone,
daughter of the sovereign of the melon
patch.
They talked, after dinner, about
business and about the improvement in
the city-it had been a village in the
old days-and about the advisability of
Hardesty selling his property.
Really" said Hardesty, 81 don t
know that I care to sell. You see, the
old homestead has been in the family
for generations, and it seems almost a
sacrilege to dispose of it. Why, was
born i'll that house. 1 used to look over
the fence there at the gooseberry bushes
i'll Gallagher's place and wond-by the
way, are the Gallaghers living there
YETI"
"Oh, no! They moved away long ago,
and fine, big, stone public school has
been built there
"A stone public school? Why, Henry,