News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1901-06-19
,oe Anderson Norris.

the SldulI' Anu ludL ISL udll.
Throughout the length of Main street
there are newfangled shops, some of
them quite as fine as these Partisan
shops, though not SO large, of course,
with here and there a space, like a hol-
low tooth, left by a recent fire. But the
broad white pixies are the same, only,
after a lengthy struggle, the tollgates
have been done away with. 1t seems
strange enough, too. not to have to pay
toll after all these toll paying years.
There is the COrnishville pike leading
to the knobs, the Lexington pike and
the Danville pike, where Tom Latham
has built his handsome new home
He turned with jerk and stared.
"Tom latham he repeated.
looked at him wonderingly.
SIS he alive?" he painted.
Just as much alive as you or l." l
assured him. why"
He did not reply. l remembered.
You must have been away from
home a long time" | said, mot to have
known that he came back. He spent a
week with a friend in Danville. That
was all"
And they said he was dead" he
Ihurmured hoarsely-"that he had been
murdered, done away with. They sus-
,ected''-
Yes" as he hesitated, they suspect
ed VIII Thompson. The two had been
friends, the best of friends, until they
fell in love with the same girl Then
they grew to be deadly enemies. The
thing always happens. And you know
what a deadly enemy means in Ken
lucky. Shotguns. four inch bullets, "a
zors, sharp knives and outstanding
feuds lasting generations and genera
tons and generations"
Il understand" he interrupted impa-
tiently. Go on"
81 was only a slip of a child when it
happened. | scarcely remember it.
They quarreled. these two, and the
next morning Tom Latham was miss
ing. Naturally they suspected his bit
terest enemy of making away with
him."
He gave short laugh, ending in a
sound strongly resembling a groan.
why 'naturallyY" he asked. "There
never was the slightest evidence"
only circumstantial evidence" | ac-
knowledged, land that a mere thread
They were seen together in the asylum
grounds late one night quarreling, and
the next morning Latham was nowhere
to be found, as | said. 1t was a little
natural, wasn't it, to suppose that his
bitterest enemy had thrust him into
the pond or stabbed him and covered
him with some of that old moss lying
thick under the sobbing pines? Though
they looked and looked, they couldn't
find him. They dragged the pond, and
he wasn't there" | shivered reminis-
Gently. "Those grounds are weird with
horrors" added. mo money could
pay me to go through them after dark.
And | am not the only one. A few
hundred negroes in Darkytown across
the creek have fear as great as mine,
if not greater"
The Kentuckian was mechanically
watching the boy as, moving softly
over the carpet, he snapped on the
electrics above the bowed heads of the
writer's. He raised his eyes from them
to me. They burned with a sudden
blaze of Indignation.
Seen quarreling" he repeated.
"Was that any reason to suppose one a
murderer? Was evidence so trifling
sufficient ground to send him out a
wanderer OH che face of the earth for
the balance Of his life? Was it?"
He cut of my reply with a bitter
laugh.
And the girl?" said he. "What be-
came of her?"
at was not long before Latham
came back" l began but by that
time Thompson was gone. He couldn't
clear himself, So
How was it possible for him to clear
himself" he demanded savagely, "in
the face Of public opinion, encompassed
by the babble of lying tongues? The
only thing left was to go. But the girl?
The grip
"lf he had staid the week out" l de-
INJURED, "all would have been well.
Happiness awaited him."
His eyes shone, his fine, large, dark
southern eyes.
Why" he asked eagerly. Howl"
"She loved him."
Loved him. He fingered over the
words. lnvountarily he laid his hand
on mine, unconsciously pressing my fin
gers so tightly that the rings hurt
How do you know" he whispered
breathlessly.
Everybody knew. She waited and
waited. She pinned for him and got
thin. | saw her once on the street. Her
face was white as white. When he
didn't come, when there was no news
of him, why, she married Latham. But
they said her heart was not in the mar.
riage. 1t was with him"
He released her hand and lapsed into
a silence weighty with memories.
He shrank back into the corner of the
divan, whence his moody eyes looked
fercely out like the eyes of some
wounded animal dumb from pain.
sat still and listened TO the pat OF
the raindrops. They tapped against the
pane like fingers.
! Cts grOanpd SLIGHTLY