Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1901-04-11

face In few minutes she returned,
drying her face in her apron and shak-
| ing her wet hair in the sun. No one
had come, but King Billy was now
awake and was slouching lazily off to-
ward the bush. Effie laughed as she
saw him, his great head bent forward
and his thin, narrow shoulders bowed.
She laughed to think of his laziness
and that he should lock so tired after
such a very little wood chopping.
| She was still laughing at King Billy
as she opened the old workbox to take
another peep at the yellow treasure
and to make quite sure that the heat
| hadn't melted it away. And it was
quite slowly that the laugh died from
her pretty eyes and mouth-quite slow
| ly because of the moments it took to
realize and accept a misfortune so ter
rible-when she lifted the coarse socks
and looked and saw no little gold mug
get, saw nothing. Then horror and
great fear grew in the blue eyes. and
pale agony crept over the childish face
and made it old. and the poor little
heart seemed to stop beating.
Effie said nothing and made 20 cry,
but she closed her eyes tightly for a
moment and looked in the box again
No, it was no illusion. The little mug
get was not there. The first gold her
father had found, which had been in
trusted to her care, which was to have
been taken to her mother-it was gone.
10 hn
and walked out into the day. But the
sun was shining very strangely and
mistily now, and the blue sky had
grown black, and the trees seemed TO
move weirdly, and the locusts had
ceased humming from fear, but the
strange bird was somewhere near,
shrieking brokenly: what will father
say? What will father say?
But as the child stood there despair
ing her sight grew clearer, and she
saw a black figure among the trees,
and she was conscious of a pair of
dusky eyes watching her through the
leaves. Then only she remembered,
and she knew who had done this cruel
thing. King Billy. And she had been
passionate sobbing. The black figure
still hoyered among the trees. often
changing it's position. and the dusky
eyes still peered through the leaves.
And the laughing jackasses flew down
to the old tree again and laughed more
madly than before-laughed at Effie's
trust. at Billy's grattude!.
r
1t was 10 o'clock, and darkness and
quiet reigned in John Archer's hut.
Over among the tents behind the wat
tie gums d few gamblers and heavy
drinkers were still awake, and their
voices, raised in anger or ribald mer
riment, might occasionally have been
family heard from the hut. But Arch
er who had sown his wild oats, was
true worker. and he had his little
daughter, for whose sake he had built
the hut away from the noisy camp.
Archer had come home late and
weary, as usual, had eaten his supper
and gone to rest without, to Effie's in
tense relief. speaking Of the little gold
nugget. The child was afraid to speak
of the loss, and she was not without
vague hopes that a benefeent Proyi-I
dence would restore the nugget during
the darkness and save her from this
great trouble.
For this she prayed very earnestly
before she lay down to sleep. Or did
she sleep at all that night? She never
quite knew. But she thinks that it
was then that she first experienced
that terrible purgatorial condition
which Is neither wakefulness nor
sleep when the body and mind are
weary enough to bring the profound
sleep which they require, but which
the brain is too overladen and too
cruelty active to allow, when dreams
seem realities and realities dreams.
1t must have been a dream when she
saw something small and yellow float
| through the tiny window on the ghost
| ly silver moonbeams. And yet when,
having closed her eyes, she opened
them again 1t was still there, lowering
about in the darkness, less bright now
and with a pale yellow halo. But it
faded quite away. 1t was cruel,
mocking dream.
Then was it dream when the old
curtain which divided her corner of
the hut from her fathers moved near
the ground, bulged slightly toward
her? 1t would be curious TO see. and
she lay still. From under the curtain
seemed to come a thin arm and slow
| ly, cautiously, after the arm a head
with great shock of hair And the
moonbeams just touched face.
think they kissed 1t, though it was
black, for they found in black hand
the little yellow object which had
floated in the first dream.
1t was all so real, SO beautiful, that
the child lay still, scarce daring to
breathe lest the vision should melt
away, and when in her dream came
the voice of her father with the words,
Speak, or I'll firep her lips refused to
open.
But it was no dream when the shot
came and the black king rolled over
on the earth dead, with the little gold
| nugget he had come to restore pressed
in the death agony against his heart,
where, too, was little gold
And the laughing birds in the old
tree, startled from their sleep by the
| shot, laughed once Esore, wildly and
madly, at Billy's honesty.-Exchange
Animal PecuIiarities.
| If female fox Syixen) gets caught
in steel trap and is discovered by