The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1905-11-05

in childish wonder to the strange
things his silent, murose, and gloomy
father found in the well-worn volumes,
until his tired eyelids would fall at last
over his pale, bullying eyes.
AS he grew up his eyes bulged more
and more: his head seemed too large
for his rickety body. He pored over
the marvellous volumes until he knew
long passages by heart and understood
less Of them than his father-which was
unnecessary. He looked a little like his
mother, but while she in her youth had
something Of the faint and Pickering
beauty Of the Boreal Lights, poor Ger
shom never could have suggested any.
thing more heavenly than a foggy
moonlight. When he was Is he went
to the neighboring town of Warsaw to
school. He had rather heavy weather
among well knit, grubby knuckled
urchins of the town, and would have
been thoroly disheartened but for one
happy chance. At the house where he
boarded an amusement called the
"sperrit Rappin IS" was much in
vogue. A group; Of young folks, sur
charged with all sorts Of animal mag
netism, with some capacity for belief
and much more for fun, used to gather
about light pine table every evening,
and put it thru "a complicated course
of mystical gymnastics. It was very
good-tempered table: it would dance,
hop, or slam at the word of command,
or, if the exercises took a more intel
lectual turn, it would answer any uues-
lions addressed to it in a manner not
much below the average capacity Of its
tormentors. ~:"*
Gershom CLANCY: took all this in
solemn earnest. = He was from the first
moment deeply impressed. He lay
awake whole nights, with his eyes fast
closed, in the widest dreams. His
school hours were passed in trancelike
contemplation. He cared no more for
punishment that the fakir for his self
inflicted tortures.s He longed for the
coming Of the day when he could com.
mune in solitude with the unfeshed and
immortal. This was the full Towering
of those seeds of fantasy that had
fallen into his infant mind as he lay
baking his brains by the wide fire in
the old stone house at the head of the
hollow, while his father read haltingly
: of the wonders Of the invisible world
:: But, to his great modification, he saw
nothing, heard, nothing, experienced
nothing but in the company Of others
He must brave the ridicule of the pro
fame to taste the raptures which hi
soul loved. His simple, trusting fait
made him inevitably the butt Of. tn
mischievous circle, They were not slo1
in discovering his extreme sensibilit
: to external Influences. One musculal
! black-haird, heavy-browed youth too
especial delight il practicing upon hin
The table, under Gershom 3 tremulou
hands, would, skip like, lamb at til
:. command of this Thomas Fay. .,g~.
!, :, ,-.-~.s ,.ot.s-,s r., f. -. u.
: One evening Tom Fay had gres
. triumph. They had been trying to g
:. the medium '--for Gershom ha
/ reached that dignity-to answer scale
r questions, and had met with indiffere1
: success. Fay suddenly approached tt
S table, scrubbed a phrase, folded It, an
e tossed it, doubled up, before Gershon
e then leaned over the table, staring {
Z his pale, unwholesome face with all tt
d might of his black eyes. -s<,.<
= CLANCY seized the pencil convu
d sively and wrote, 90 Balaam! - 1ss