Meade County news. [volume] (Meade, Kan.) 1900-1918, 1902-09-11
On the Turnpike.
BY H. B. MARINER.


Copyright, 1902, by Daily Story Pub. Coz
Tinsley. the tollgate keeper, leaned
his long frame heavily upon the top
rail of the worm fence and watched
the. efforts of young man in the bot
tom pasture across the road to cap
ture large sorrel colt which did not
court capture.
The young man, Tinsley noted with
an inward chuckle, had about reached
that stage of desperation wherein man
meditates the capture of horse with
some convenient brick.
Tinsley did not like the young man
who desired the horse. On general
principles he disliked every young
man who owned horse, and it might
be further stated that his dislike ex-
tended to every young man in the
vicinity of the tollgate, whether he
possessed horse or not, though from
the nature of his profession Tinsley
was more familiar with the former
class.
1t wasn't Nettie Tinsley's fault ex-
actly, this attitude of her parents, al
though ever since his advent into Ken
lucky, Tinsley had watched with grow
ing concern and perplexity the devel-
opment of his eldest daughter from a
red-headed, sun-tanned East Tennes-
see child into a young woman of I'M
deniable beauty, who sat on the porch
Of the dollhouse in the evenings and
played softly upon an old guitar left
in the stable by some unknown pos
SCISSOR.
The number of saddle horses at his
hitching rack had grown steadily
through the summer, and Tinsley was
more than ever involved in the diff
ficult solution of the problem. He
wished even more fervently than he
had ever wished that his wife had
lived to see her eldest daughter grow
into a woman.
Incivility to the visitors was, of
course, in Tennesseean, absolutely
out Of the question.
Argument with Nettie, Tinsley felt,
with a world of bitter experience to
back his view, would be worse than
useless, and might, probably would,
precipitate what he feared most
Altogether Tinsley was in what he
termed a Fix"
The row of horses which ordinarily
fought and paved about the old hitch
ing rack had gradually grown less in
number as the year progressed, and
with the first frosts which sweetened
the wild grapes and crowded the bit
terness from the soft pink-brown per-
simmons there was but one horse
which spent much of it's time at the
rack-a big sorrel colt, which Tinsley
had begun to look upon with hatred.
This change did not, however, i'm
press Tinsley with especial joy. He
did not look upon it as indicative of
growing unpopularity of his daughter
He wished it was.
Tinsley greeted Will Dexter on the
road much as he might anyone else.
He staid away from home as much as
possible and despised himself for it.
When Judge Dexter passed in his bug
gy driving the long-legged and much
coveted Criterion mare, which was his
especial favorite, Tinsley would reflect
bitterly upon social conditions, and
would momentarily resolve to break
up the dangerous friendship between
his daughter and the son of the
Judge, even If he had to kill somebody.
The weeks and months drifted on,
until one eventful day in September,
and when Tinsley, sore in body and
wearied in mind, numbered into the
stable yard on his rafting pole wag-
on, there was no one on duty at the
gate.
The three children were playing
store" in the kitchen, and his eldest
daughter was nowhere to be seen.
Where's your sister," he demanded
Of the busy children, great fear tug
ging at his heart.
"The's done dwivin' wifi Mithter
Dexter. papa" replied the largest in
FAINT. "The told me to tell you the'd
done to town an to tell you dood-bye