The Republican journal., 1909-09-09
..Hls BROTHERS KEEPER {

On Little Spruce island on the Maine
coast / found three old men, brothers
William, Daniel and Nehemiah Shanks.
They have lived there all their lives in a
tumble-down little shelter. They are
melancholy old men. They are content
ed, but the sea has brought to them a
strange, brooding, wistful solemnity.
William and Daniel never married. Ne
hemiah has had 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, forgiv-
ing him. Nehemiah has spent his life
Cooking out for the boys" who are now
infirm old men. cit is my duty in return
for my fathers pardon of my wrong
doing, - he told me, land l have tried to
do my best. am the youngest, and am
best able to work"
For more than twenty years William
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 compost
ton of poetry.
While William idles, Nehemiah tills the
little'garden, catches the fish, digs clans
and cooks. He is cheerfully 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 patriarchal; he
gave into Nehemiah's hands the staff on
which he had leaned for many years, say
ing that it should be the badge of Nehe-
miah's authority. Nehemiah 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 flood
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 lady in Boston, as part of an
extensive holding of islands. The Shanks
brothers have been permitted to remain
as squatters on condition that they do
not disturb the standing timber. Nehe-
miah gave this promise to the manager
of the estate.
Daniel, though threescore and ten, took
the family axe, handsaw and hammer and
proceeded to his labors on his ark Nehe-
miah stood in front of the lordly spruce
that Daniel was about to attack with the
axe, and in the name of the Shanks fami-
ly forbade him to chop. Daniel had the
zeal of monomania and insisted Then
Nehemiah brandished the family staff
and threatened to chastise the disobedi-
ent 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 section of woodland
before Nehemiah got word to the agent.
Then in high dudgeon Daniel built shack
Of his own. He lives in it and refuses to
speak to his brothers.
81 still hope to be able to meet father
at the door of heaven and tell him that
| kept the Shanks family together and
kept it decent, as he would have liked to
have me keep it" said Nehemiah, sadly.
Daniel was always hard to manage;
father found him so. But l think he
will come back to his home, for l am
the only one in the family who can cook
things as mother used to cook them. -
Holman Day, in Harper's Magazine for
September.