Manchester Democrat. [volume] (Manchester, Iowa) 1875-1930, 1907-08-07


height lie estimated, nessawa found
ball firmly imbedded in the earth. 1t
was duly red, with its surface all
cracks and assures as the result of the
water poured onto 1t. Much larger
than a football. 1t seemsd to him at
first sight to be the angry eye of some
colossal demon glaring up at him from
n dark socket. But the boy was alb
solutely n stranger to fear. He pro-
cured the handle of Il mop and prcddcd
the meteor with 1t. The surface felt
hard and brittle. Large sections broke
away. though they did not crumble,
and he received sharp reminder of
low when the wood burst into sudden
fame.
This ended his investigations for the
night. He used the sacking to block
up the window, replenished the fire,
set his coat to dry and dragged his
mattress from the bedroom to the front
of the fire. The warmth within and
without the house had made him intol-
erably drowsy, and he fell asleep while
murmurins his prayers, a practice
abandoned since the hour Of his moth
er's death.
In reality Philip was undergoing
novel sort Of Turkish bath, and the
Precipitation induced thereby probably
saved him from dangerous cold. He
slept long and soundly. There was no
need to attend to the fire. Long ere
the coal in the crate was exhausted
the presence of the meteor had pene-
truted the surrounding earth, and the
house was far above Its normal tenn
perature when he awoke.
The sun had risen in cloudless sky.
A lovely spring morning had succeed
ed night Of gloom and disaster, and
the first sound that greeted his Won
dering ears was the twittering of the
busy sparrows on the housetops. or
course he owned neither clock nor
watch. These articles, with many 9th.
ers, We're represented by n bundle Of
pawn tickets stuffed into one of the
envelopes of his mothers packet Of
letters. But the experience Of even n
few weeks had taught him roughly
how to estimate time by the sun. and
ne guessed the hour to be o'clock or
whereabouts.
His first thought was Of the meteor.
His toilet was that of primeval man,
being mere matter of rising and
stretching his stiff limbs. While lac
ing his boots he noticed that the floor
was Uttered with tiny white specks,
the largest Of which was not bigger
than a grain of bird seed. These were
the particles which shot through the
broken window during the previous
night He picked up few and ex-
amined them. They We're hard, cold
to the touch and dull white color.
On entering the yard he saw hun
dreds of these queer little rough peb.
bles, many of them -, large as peas,
some the size Of marbles and n few
bigger ones. They had evidently
flown on all sides, but, encountering
lofty walls, save where they forced a
way through the thin glass of the
window, had fallen back to the ground.
Interspersed with them he found
pieces Of broken stone and Jagged
Jumps of material that looked and felt
like iron.
BY this time the meteor itself had
cooled sufficiently to reveal the nature
Of its outer crust. 1t appeared to be
an nmalgam of the dark ironlike min
eral and the white pebbles. Through
one deep tlssure he could still see the
fiery heart of the thing, and he I'M
agined that when the internal heat
had quite exhausted itself the great
ball would easily break into pieces,
for it was rent in all directions.
\ His first exclamation was one Of
thankfulness.
~ am. jolly glad that thing didn't fall
on my head,' he said aloud forgetting