Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1897-04-19

a lunatic: but Jones, my dear Jones, what
ever | may be, am not that Believe me,
Your sincere friend, Joseph Stranger.
No address was given.
CHAPTER II.
Despite my burning curiosity, L could
not open the sealed packet that morning
or afternoon, as the work of the school
had to be attended to; but in the even
ing, when the work of the day was over,
[ locked myself up in my room and broke
the seal. Poor Stranger! He might we'll
fear that /, like all the others before me,
should consider him lunatic. Of all
the marvellous stories ever written or inn
agined, not excepting the wild impossible
tiles of the ARABIAN Nights, the story
of this strange science master was the
most marvellous. Yet there was a strange
consistency about it; it seemed based
upon such logical scientific principles that
/ sometimes felt half disposed to believe
it. But then my acquaintance with sci
ence is of the most elementary. How
ever, as more than five years have now
passed since [ received the sealed packet,
and | have heard nothing of or from Mr..
Stranger during that time, I consider my
self at liberty, by his own express per-
mission, to lay his story before the
world. | leave it to scientific experts to
decide whether it is a sober narration of
Iunatic. Here it is:
/ am about to relate a story which,
though a strict and truthful account OF
actual facts, will SO upset existing opin-
ions as to the limits of human pOssibili-
ty, that my educated contemporaries will,
probably to a man, receive It with laugh
ter and incredulity. Be it so. | will tell
my story nevertheless. The time may
comet may come soon, or may not
come for ages, but it will come-when the
truth of my story will be verified, when
it will be discovered I was no dreamer,
no lunatic.
am an only son. Ny mother died a
few days after my birth, and about a year
after her marriage, leaving my father a
young WidoWer with an infant son. He
had loved my mother with a passionate.
allabsorbing love, and the blow nearly
killed him. For a long time he was i'll,
physically and mentally; but he had a
good constitution, and after some months
he recovered his health. His mental con-
dition, however, was still so unsatisfac-
tory that the doctors were very anxious
about him. Nothing seemed to interest
him; he daily grew more and more
gloomy and taciturn, and appeared to be
fast sinking into confirmed state of
melancholy bordering upon insanity.
AT last one day a scientific friend
called upon him unexpectedly, and (fol-
lowing the instructions of my father
chief medical adviser) earnestly entreated
as great favor his aid in the solution of
certain knotty problem over which, he
said, he had been himself a long time
puzzling unsuccessfully. With some diff
ficulty he succeeded in rousing my ia
theirs interest in the question, which, as
his friend well knew belonged to branch
of science to which my father had in
former days given much attention. This,
fortunately, had the effect intended.
From that day my fathers mental con-
scientific Investigations was rekindled,
and soon developed into an ardent, enthu-
siastic passion.
Meanwhile, amidst these anxieties, I
was not neglected. A good healthy
nurse had been procured for me, and /
developed into fine, healthy boy. When
| had progressed so far as to be able to
totter up to my father, clasp him by the
knee, and call him papa" he began
to acquire dim sort of consciousness
that there was still another object left
him worth living for besides scientific re-
searches; my education and training for
the great struggle for life would also be-
solution. And they did. AS | grew,
his interest in me grew also. But he
was not in a hurry to begin my educa-
ton, in the restricted sense of book edu-
cation. | had attained the age of be-
fore [ opened a book, except to look for
! contain. When my sixth birthday, how
ever, had come and gone, then indeed did
my father apply himself to the business
of my education in real earnest. He took
the whole Of it into his own hands. He
taught me everything himself, from the
alphabet upwards. So matters went on
till | was ID. Then change took place.
My father got SO absorbed in a great
scientific discovery which he hoped to
make (the nature of which I shall state
afterwards that he could not give due
attention to my studies; SO he decided to
send me to a public school. For reasons
which | need not enter into, [ would
rather not give the name of that school,
so | will call it Classicton. Ny life at
Classicton was pretty much the same as
that of other public school boys, so I will
pass it over. When I had been there a
little over three years, the head master,
DR.. Matheson, sent for me one day, and
tone that | must return home at once,
as my father was ill-not dangerously,
he hoped-and wished me to stay with
him till he got better.
This news struck a cold chill into my
heart; | feared the worst, and alas! not
without cause. When [ reached home
my father was dead. He had died from
Inflammation of the lungs, brought on,
alas! as three previous attacks had been,
by his own neglect. The blow was in
deed terrible. | had not single relative
in the world that I knew of.
My father had left a will, a strange
one. He had left his two greatest
friends, the doctor and the scientific
friend already mentioned, his executors.
My education henceforward was to be on
other lines. Classics were to be com
pletely thrown aside, and / was to devote
myself wholly to science, and especially
to mathematics, astronomy, chemistry,
gineering-a sufficiently wide curriculum.