St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1908-10-31

gave It up and acknowledged himself
beaten. The struggle had been con-
| tinuous and altogether one-sided, and
as he sat upon the stringpiece of an
East river pier, it was borne in upon
him that he had made as good fight
as he knew how. And lost!
And now, when Failure had com.
pletely enveloped him in her somber
cloak, he felt there was nothing else
to do but to return to the old town.
There, at least, he could live, and he
among those who knew him and would
sympathize with him. OF the two dol
lars which he possessed, one dollar
would pay his fare to Providence, and
1t would be small matter for him to
walk the intervening miles to his old
| home.
This plan he carried into effect, and
| the evening of an early October day
found him in Plymouth, which adjoined
his home town. He was tired, footsore
and discouraged. Plymouth always
held fascination for him, and he be-
took himself to the Burial hill and
| there, on a lonely bench, he looked
| down upon the lights of Market
square, to the riding-lights of a few
craft lying at anchor in the harbor,
and further, to that great light on
the Gurnet whose effulgent rays
guided and warned local and coast
wise mariners. Long he sat and
brooded. One by one the lights were
extinguished, and as the town went
to sleep he felt the necessity of doing
likewise. He stumbled down the mar
row path to Market square, across the
main street and as though drawn, by
some magnet, to the waters edge.
| There the gray canopy with it's iron
gate, which shields Plymouth Rock
| from the vandal and the relic hunter,
reared its head. Everything was IA
miliar to Henry, yet his eye dwelt
longingly on each object Here was a
short strip of pebbly beach, and drawn
| high up on it was a fisherman's dory.
The boat contained a pair of oars, a
| sprit-sail and mast, a coiled seine, and,
| in the stern, small breaker of fresh
water. Without hesitation he stepped
aboard, and, adjusting the thwarts and
| oars and arranging the sail SO that it
would act as a cover for him, he lay
down and in two minutes was sound
| asleep.
Henry Bradford was a sound sleep
er, very sound sleeper, else this
stroy might never have been written.
He knew naught of the stealthy rise of
the tide nor of the lift of the dory as
she became water borne, nor did he
know that in his earlier arrangements
he had loosened the noosed painter
from the bowlder over which it had
been slippedf. He did not feel the
impact of the gentle southwest wind
which waited the dory slowly but sure.
ly to the point of the beach.
The outgoing tide in Plymouth har.
| Dor is much like mill-race as it hur-
ries to the greater waters of Barn!
stable bay.
Henry Bradford slept the sleep of
utter WEAKNESS. The dory is, per.
haps, the best sea boat ever designed,
and will stand more wind and weather
| and sloppy seas than any other small
craft. If he was somewhat jostled
and shaken it only served to accentu-
ate a deeper sleep. But there are
some happenings of nature which no
man, sleeping or waking, may allow to
pass unnoticed. AS he slept, a giant
hand seemed to reach from infnity
and, grasping his frai1 boat, carry it
and him up, up, up till all the world
| became dark, and then, without warn.
ing, dropped him into an abyss so deep
and awful that it seemed as though a
cleft in solid earth had been opened
/ to engulf him forever.
Henry Bradford awoke, with chat,
tering teeth and staring eyes, to find
his boat being lifted again by the
mighty hand of his dream. His rudely
aroused senses appraised him of the
situation. He knew himself to be in
the dory, and he also realized that the
dory was afloat and contending with
a phase of ocean disturbance with
which he was not familiar. The next
uplift was of much less volume than
its predecessor, and after three OF
four minor fluctuations he felt that
his boat was rising and falling to the
normal Atlantic swell. The air was
| heavy, damp and clammy, and was
filled with many odors difficult of de
scription, but all of the briny sea. He
cautiously raised himself to a stand
ing position and surveyed the horizon
The arc of sea and sky before him
was utterly blank. AS he slowly swung
his body to complete his view of the
horizon, he saw on his starboard quar-
ter, and well astern of him, the well
known CLEAN Of Race point light. Al
the same moment there burst on his
ear q thunderous, reverberating roar
such a sound as might be caused
by mighty wind devastating a great
forest, or by the discharge of thou
sand field pieces in a mighty cavern.
Tense and strained, Henry senset
everything which came to ear, eye OF
nostril He realized that there haC
been mighty upheaval of the ocean
That thunderous sound was undoubt
edly the impact of tidal wave upor
a distant shore, that strange, clammJ
smell, the tang of which was still il
his nostri1s, was no doubt caused By
the depths of ocean being hurled tt
the surface by this marine cataclysm