Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1904-12-28
Copyright, 1905, by Lee and shepard.)
CHAPTER Xxx.

Meier was not bad boy at heart.
10 him Aunt Comfort was a rotund
embodiment Of all that was good and
motherly in womankind. For her
If within call-he would run his legs
off, and Angie was his idea of what
angels were. He hated his best clothes
and church-going equally, minded
Angie at school with Goglike humility,
learned his lessons with surprising
ease, and perpetrated the worst tricks
with an innocent manner that disarmed
punishment. He was the terror of
the village when fruits were ripe,
made the life of Hans a burden, and
when out Of Aunt Comforts sight, al
ways up to some new mischief aimed at
him. He had fed that phlegmatic i'm
migrant red pepper 6eftly hid in pie,
.coaxed him to take MONDAY nap pill
lowed on red ant-hill, and then when
he was asleep, stirred up those vicious
insects; he had caught an eel on a set
pole and lowered it writhing on the
hook down inside Hans shirt when
again mapping, and finally put an active
swapping turtle in his bed.
He did all these things out of pure
mischief, but against David Curtis he
bore a grudge. 1t dated from that~un-
happy epoch ending in a bread-and-
water diet, and Meier missed no chance
to get square with David In fact get
ting square with those who injured him
was a cardinal point in the boys ma
ture. Another thing, he was close
mouthed, and secretly not only plotted
and planned, but afterwards enjoyed
his revenges. How much fruit he
stole from David's orchard, how often
he let bars down and cows into corn
fields, how much garden sass" he ma
iiciously destroyed in midnight raids,
no one but himself knew, and he never
told. For years he waged a guerilla
warfare alone on David, and then one
day sharp and perhaps deserved pun
Ishment overlook him. There was a
secluded pool in the upper MiZzy
meadow owned by his enemy, and here
Meier and his mates were wont to come
many times each summer to enjoy a
swim. To reach it they had to cross
David's best meadow, trampling the
grass and quite destroying it about
the pool. 1t angered David, to whom
loss of even grass was misery. and
whenever he caught them there, retri-
button with an ox-goad followed They
came under cover of night, however,
and one boy would take turn as SEN
tinel and David still suffered He grew
desperate, finally, and as last resort,
drove stakes along each bank of the
pool and then strung a network OF
hQrho6 Wira onrncS IDSor 4
a merciless and altogether heartesS
trap, and fate decreed one evening, that
Meier should be the first and only one
to leap into it, How he suffered, pierced
in a dozen places and terribly
scratched how his agonized screams
were keen Joy to David, how Meier
dripping blood, ran after the rest OF
the boys and halted not until they
reached safety and chance to dress
outside David's possessions, need not
be enlarged upon.
Meier had mildly hated David be-
fore-now it was changed to murderous
intensity. and his only ambition was
to seek revenge. He took none of the
boys into his confidence. but true tC
the thief's caution, inherited from his
father, resolved to act alone
And now while David was in sore
distress over Martin Frisbie's probable
legal assault and growing dread Of
ghostly visitation, there occurred q
series of events well calculated to drive
a superstitious man insane. The frs
was to find that every tool in the saw.
mill had vanished, crowbars, can't
hooks, extra saws, hammers, chains
were all missing in the morning 4
new supply was obtained, and a few
days later David was awakened a
midnight to hear the mill going, ant
q shower of sparks flying from the saw
playing up and down against crow
bar wedged In the log cradle. Late
the grist-miIl--never locked-was Wis
fted by ghostly miller, and bags o
grain poured into the raceway, belt