The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1909-10-20
ellis Brothers Keeper"
By HOLMAN DAY.

On Little spruce lSlanQ Oh tue
Maine coast l found three old men.
brothers-William, Daniel and Nehe
miah Shanks. They have lived there
all their lives in a tumble-down little
shelter. They are melancholy old
men. They are co%ntented, but the
sea has brought to them a strange,
%brooding, wistful solemnity. William
and Daniel never married. Nehemiah
has had a poor little romance that
broke his heart. He went home with
his confession of wrong-doing.
Then you must look out for the
boys after I'm dead" said his father,
forgiving him. Nehemiah has spent
his life Cooking out for the boys"
who are now infrm old men. 1T Is
my duty in return for my fathers
pardon of my wrong-doing," he told
me, land I have tried to do my best.
l am the youngest, and I am best able
to work"
For-more than twenty years Will
lam has never come out of the hut
into the sunshine. He told me that
he feared the sun might heat his
brains and interfere with his life
work, which is the composition OF
poetry.
While William idles, Nehemiah
tills the little garden, catches fish,
digs clans and cooks. He is cheer
fully the burden-bearer, and with
some pride says that he is the head
Of the family; for when his father
imposed the trust on him he did so
with a ceremony truly p~atriarchal;
he gave into Nehemiah's hands the
staff on which he had leaned for many
years, saying that it should be the
badge of Nehemiah's authority. Nehe-
miah described the scene to me, tears
trickling down his wrinkled cheeks.
Memory was only a partial spur to
this grief.
Daniel, after more than sixty years
of obedience, had become a most
amazing rebel. He had declared that
another food had been prophesied to
him in a vision, and that he had been
ordered to build an ark on Little
Spruce. Little Spruce is owned by a
lady in Boston, as part Of an exten.
sive holding Of islands. The Shanks
brothers have been permitted to re-
main as squatters on condition that
they do not disturb the standing tim
Der. Nehemiah gave this promise to
the manager of the estate.
Daniel, though threescore and ten,
took the family axe, hand-saw, and
hammer and proceeded to his labors
on his ark. Nehemiah stood in front
Of the lordly spruce that Daniel was
about to attack with the axe, and in
the name of the Shanks family for
babe him to chop. Daniel had the
zeal of monomania and insisted. Then
Nehemiah brandished the family staff
and threatened to chastise the disobe-
dent son of their: father. Daniel, in
a frenzy, made at his brother with
the axe, routed him, captured the
staff, chopped it up, and then began
On the tree. He laid waste quite a
section Of woodland before Nehemiah
got word to the agent. Then in high
dudgeon Daniel built a shack of his
own. He lives in it and refuses to
speak to his brothers.
II still hope to be able to meet ia
Their at the door of heaven and tell
aim that I kept the Shanks family
together and kept 1t decent, as he
would have liked to have me keep it,"
said Nehemiah, sadly. Daniel was
always hard to manage; father found
him 30. But / think he will come
back to his home, for I am the only
one in the family who cal cook things
Is mother used to cook them. '-Har-
per's Magazine.