The Billings gazette. [volume] (Billings, Mont.) 1896-1919, 1899-12-01
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HIS 1H|RT|ETH BIRTHDAY s
On That Day He Decided to Re-
nOunce Preferment For the
Girl He Loved.
) BY Lloyd Osborne.
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10 .'Sy0
NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS.
His thirtieth birthday! His first
youth was behind him, with all it's
heartburnings. it's failures, it's mani
fold humiliations. What had he done
these years past but drift, forlorn. pen
niless and unattached, over those shall
lows where others had stuck and pros
pered?
In the colonies he had toiled unre.
mittingly in half a hundred characters,
groom, cook. boundary rider. steamer
roustabout, always sinking, always
failing. Had life nothing more for
him than an endless succession Of not
empty days on the farthest beach OF
Upolu, with scarcely more to eat than
the commonest Kanaka and no other
outlet for his energies than the barter
ing Of salt beef for coprah and an oc-
casional nights fishing on the reef? !
The noise Of an incoming boat drew
him to the door, and he looked out to
see the pastors old whaler heading
through the pass. A half grown girl
leaped into the water and FASTENED up
to the store with something fastened
in a banana leaf. 1t was a letter.
which she shyly handed to the trader.
Walter Kinross looked at it with sur
prise, for it was the first he had re-
ceived for four years, and the sight of
it's English stamp and familiar hand
writing filled him with something like
ave.:
My Dear Nephew-I know you're pretty old to
come back and start life afresh here, but il you
haven't had the unmitigated folly to get married
out there and tied by the leg forever I'll help
you to make a new start, II you have the grit to
do it. q You shan't starve If $1,000 a year will
keep you, and II you will try and turn over a
new leaf and make q man Of yourself in good ear.
nest ! am prepared to mark you down substan-
TALLY In my will.
But, mind, no promises; payment strictly by
results. You're no longer a boy, and this Is prob
sbly the last chance you'll ever get Of entering
civilized life again and meeting respectable folk.
! inclose you a draft at sight on Sydney for 1880.
for you will doubtless need clothes, etc., as well
as your passage money, and II you decide not to
return you can accept 1t as a present from your
old uncle. Atfectionately yours,
ALFRED HAMMOCK.
The house could not contain him and
his eager thoughts; he must needs feel
the sky overhead and the trades
against his cheek, and take all nature
into his puny confidence. Besides,
Vaiala had now a new charm for him,
one he had never counted IN to find.
Hard and lonely though his life had
been, this Samoan bay was endeared to
him by a thousand pleasant memories
and even by the recollection Of his past
unhappiness. Here he had found peace
and love, freedom from taskmasters,
scenes more beautiful than any picture,
and, not least, a suficiency to eat.
A little money, and his life might
have been tolerable, eve happy;
enough money for a good sized boat, a
COW or two, and those six acres of the
Pascoe estate he had so often longed to
buy. How often had he talked Of it
with Leata, who had been no less eager
than himself to harness their quarter
acre to the six and make them all his
little paradise. Poor Leata, whom he
had taken 80 lightly from her fathers
house and paid for in gunpowder and
kegs Of beef; his smiling, soft eyed
Leata, who would have died for him!
What was to become of her in this new
arrangement Of things.
BY this time he had worked quite
round the bay, and almost without
knowing 1t he found himself in front Of
Paul Englebert's store. Englebert was
the other trader in Vaiala, a peppery,
middle aged Prussian, who had been q
good friend of his before those eve
breadfruit trees had come between
them.
He recalled Englebert's rough, jovial
kindness, remembered how Paul had
cared for him through the fever, and
helped him afterward with money and
trade. How could he have been so petty
as to make a quarrel Of these bread
fruit trees? Poor old Paul! 1t was q
shame they hadn't spoken these two
years.
On the veranda, barefoot and in
striped pyjamas, was Englebert, pre-
tending not to see him. To KinrOss, as
he walked up the path and mounted
the veranda stairs, the man looked old
and sick, and not q little changed.
"How do you do. EnglebertT" he said.
The German looked at him with
smoldering eyes, "Gant you see I'm
busy 7" he said.
"You might offer a man a chair"
said Kinross, seating himself on the
tool chest,
"Dere is no jare for dem dat isn't wei.
come," said the German.
~ used to be welcome here" said
Kinross. "There vas q time when you