The Saint Paul globe., 1902-06-03
Tell. Junior.
BY ELIZABETH PHIPPs TRAIN.

Copyright 1902, by Daily Story Pub Co.
He was, afteS all. but little fellow,
only ten. albeit well grown and some
what mature for his years, and the fire
arm was a big, clumsy, numbering fowl
piece belonging to his father. Eden was
moment or two in recovering from the
physical as well as the mental shock of
the unanticipated concussion. Then he
betoUght him that Freddy the little
brother of six, had been posing with an
apple on his head as the son of William
Tell. Instead of continuing to stand
proudly erect in evidence of the patriots
skillful aim, young Tell had simultane-
ously with the report tumbled inconti-
nently to the ground. The rosy apple had
rolled off the small head and fallen close
to the youngsters breast as Eden per-
ceiNed. But, in the midst of his disap-
pointment at the ineffectiveness of the
tableau, his heart swelled with pride in
his aim, for, peering forward, through
the rising smoke with his blinking, near
sighted eyes, he discovered that the ap-
pie had lost its natural shape and was
no longer a sphere, but a shapeless blotch
of crimson against Freddys gray home
spun jacket
A vision Of a repetition of the perform
ance, with Freddy more carefully coached
in his part, was filling his imagination,
and he was about to call out to the pros
trate youngster to rise, when a piercing
cry from the woodshed and the
swift speeding Of woman's fig
urc toward the spot where Fred
dy lay, seized upon his atten-
ton and laid clutching fingers of form
less but horrible apprehension upon his
heart. Instinctively, his short-sighted
eyes followed the direction of his mothers
glance which never wavered from the
spot it had fastened upon. And then,
for the first time, an awful, an impossible
idea occurred to him.
Freddy had never moved, even ever so
slightly since he fell-and that brilliant
crimson patch which he had taken to be
the mashed skin of the rosy apple!-he
leaned forward with his lips sprung apart
and his young body shivering as if an
ague had possession of it, staring with
eyes which horror commanded to perfect
vision, at the carmine splash. Apple
juice could not spread and soak like that
and it could not stain! 1t could not
staini
He stood there straining upon the pros
pect until group had gathered about
it The distraught cries and actions of
his mother affected him only as they
confirmed his awful conclusion. They
touched him not at all as regarded her
own bereavement, but turned him cold
with realizing sense of the loss he had
inflicted upon himself. They shrilled in
his poor little ears over and over again
the fact that the one creature that seem
ed to love him in the word was no longer
Of it, and because he had himself kill
&c him. He turned away and sought
a corner in the kitchen to which he was
much addicted. Then the gloom of a
complete loneliness settled upon him, sui
lcnly. When few moments later two
or three Of the more curious of the viii
lage gossips sought him out to probe
him and his intentions with questions
harbed with the sting of foregone con-
clusion, he showed at first still, and
then stubborn and even a sulky front.
So, the monstrous rumor, started by
the mother and eagerly caught up by the
sensation-mongers that the fatality was
intentional, became accredited, spread and
grew.
1t was easy to believe it of him, for
he was bad boy, this Eden Wilde. In
deed, his mother herself openly bewailed
| the fact.
| Late into that night he. lay upon his
| little bed in the loft, that he had shared
| with Freddy, resurrecting and reviewing
| his loss. That sullenness of soul had
| wholly disappeared giving place to
childs natural sorrow for a beloved play
| mate, intensified by remorse over a fatal
| act of misconduct. In the darkness he
sobbed aloud, burying his head in the
| be audible to others, and, whispering to
| the sheets, childishly, assurances that
he would not have harmed the little boy
for the world. 1t seemed to him such
| an unheard-of thing that any living
creature could have conceived the
thought that he had intended this act
that he had committed The tragedy
that had taken place. the murder-his
young body oozed drops of cold sweat as
he gave his deed the name his mother in
her agony had applied to it-could not
fall so heavily upon anyone in the world
as upon himself. Even his mother her
self could not suffer from it as he should
for she had her other children and
many friends while he-he-(the reflection
came with a gulp) had had only Freddy.
The somewhat lumpish lad unprepos-
sessing to the outward view and APP
parently Indifferent to affection and to
the consideration of those about him,
had been an outcaSt from society ever
since he had scared old widow Harwood
to death at the untimely age Of ninety
one by ringing her door bell one dark
night and exhibiting upon the threshold
the articulated skeleton which he had
surreptitiously borrowed from Dr. JEFF
ferson'S surgery. He had been a dweIIer
upon the outskirts Of his own fanliIy's
affection ever since his relatives had
awakened to the perception that his con
nection with them was detrimental to
their financial advancement in the COM
munity
But Freddy had been no censor of
morals. And Freddy had loved him with
the love of the younger for the elder
brother-with that love which, because
it looks up to and aspires, so insiduously
hatters self-esteen. And poor Eden's
self-esteem would have gone starved but
for the nourishment with which the
younger child supplied it.
Somewhere near II o'clock that night,
when even the grieving mother had
fallen asleep, a sturdy little figure In a
cotton night shirt opened the door of
the upper chamber, and felt its way
cautiously down the stairs.
AS he became more accustomed to the
darkness Of the parlor, vague outlines
began to suggest familiar objects to him,
so that he could distinguish the location
of things and thus escape further ac-
cfdent. He was seeking the sofa, for 1t
was upon this that his Imagination had
pictured his little brother to be lying,
and standing still near the center Of the
room, peering strenuously through the
| obscurity. he presently believed that he
had discovered 1t quite at hand. What
else could that long, nl-defned object be,
which, covered with drapery, lOomed SO