Morris tribune., 1903-01-03
TIE BOOMKOUSE
MANS STORY

interesting experience as writer
occurred winter or two ago in g
little lumber hamlet of the hill re,
zion of Kentucky. For a moment
at least it was quite thrilling -rath-
,r too thrilling indeed to be useful
IS material to me with my straight
and simple art standards. l have a
;roveling fondness for reproducing
only the usual features of life, and
his little episode, though it was
pitifuily commonplace in it's setting,
had about it something that was not
only unusual, but nearly sublime.
! had gone down to the village
in question with the ambitious de-
sign of seeing slide" in the river.
Tides are peculiar to wintry months.
They are useful to lumbermen and
incidentally to writer's, but they
have their unpleasant features. My
little hill hamlet, having DOTTED its
green livery, was cowled in dark
mud. Rain sheeted the air. The
inn seemed to be saturated, and the
roar of the river on the skirts of
the town corroborated the innkeep-
cr's assurance concerning the mag
nitude of the special ''tide" which
vas in progress.
''She's booming for all that's in
her," declared the innkeeper, an eld-
erIy man, who had enjoyed during
the previous summer the happy
l~ivi;ege of being useful to me in
llany ways. ''They look for the
loom to bust tonight. Thousands
of dollars afoat. You see that man
by tie stove? He's one of the big
1imter fellers up north. Just come
down. He'll lose heavy if she busts.
Say, miss, take look at that Teller.
You remember me telling you about
the boomhouse mans daughter?
Well, that feIler-he was the man
he was Idy's beau"
I remembered the story. On
certain day in the previous June I
was standing at the head of mill
shoot looking down at the sunken
river. Suddenly dugout shot round
the bend. The man in the rude
thing seemed only half human. He
was bent and shrunken, with clay
colored skin, matted red hair and
such woebegone vacuity of face as
startled one. The innkeeper had re-
lated that this poor creature lived
alone in the boomhouse, shed on
the river cliff, and that lis duty was
to cook for the loggers in time of
tides.
ssHe's seen trouble" said the inn
keeper. "Used to own nice little
farm up yonder and live we'll. He
had an only daughter. Pretty as a
peach, Idly was-slim wasted, with
kinky red hair and big eyes, He set
store by Idly. Nothing was too good
for her. And one summer son Of
one of the mill owners was down
here settling up the mill books, and
he took a fancy to Idly, and folks
said it'd be a match. The boom
house man was proud as a peafowl,
and after the young Teller went
north again, why, Idy's paw he mar
rated around that the wedding was
to come off on Christmas day and
how't Idly was going up north to
live in great style. But the young |
Teller never came back. He never
came back" repeated the innkeep-
er, with a graphic sort of pause.
"And Idy-welI, [ always said if |
she'd of had a mother things would |
have been different. | always said |
she took the best way out of it, for
bout the time tongues was begin
ming to wag Idly was missing one
day, and they found her tangled up
in the river drift yonder where the
sand bar reaches. across the shall
lows" .... ........
"And what did her father do?"
E'Do? Oh, he acted like he'd got
it between the eyes-kind of daft.
Amt been just right ever since"
This tragic narrative, which the
related with the equanim-
ity of an epic poet, required to me
wildly as l observed the man by
the stove.
He was middle aged. The story
lay fifteen years behind him, but he
had chin which made me believe
the innkeeper an honest chronicler.
He was stolid and well fed. APP
parently life had laid no heavy pen
atty upon him.
He seemed too vulgar and heavy
a type of humanity to invite excep-
tional treatment Of fate, yet l saw
him that night in rather a notable