Bridgeton pioneer., 1909-01-21
A Thread I'm
the WOOf.
BY WALLACE SNOW
Copyrighted. 1908, by Associated
Literary PnsS.


Pietro Vincenzo Riga was discour-
aged. 1t had been bad day. In fact,
it had been bad month. Generally
when he and Gambietta took to the
road and Travelled through this section
the nickels and dimes and quarters
fell into Pietros old felt hat in a most
alluring stream.
But this year the weather had been
for the most part rainy, and somehow
Gambietta seemingly had lost his
knack of coaxing coins from stubborn
pockets.
What few pleasant days there had
been had proved far from profitable,
for the dimes and nickels and quar-
ters were conspicuous by their alb
sence, and Pietro and Gambietta must
both eat, fair weather or dull.
In vain did they plod the dusty
highways; in vain whenever they
could find a possible audience did
Gambietta do his cumbersome tricks.
Waltz, turn somersaults, die. go
lame, wrestle with Pietro as he would,
but few scattered pennies had lodged
in the old felt hat. Bankruptcy, grim
and ghastly, stared them in the face.
Moreover, Gambietta was growing
painfully thin, even as If he had but
recently come from one of his long
maps of Information, and Pietro was
beginning to learn all too frequently
that a handful of berries gathered
from the roadside made a most unsat-
isfactory repast.
They plodded up the long hill SLOPE
the man shuff1ing along with his shoul-
ders stopped and his head bent and
the bear following along at the end of
his chain, his head rolling from, side
to side and his scuffling feet sending
up choking clouds of dust that set him
to wheeling and coughing in miserable
fashion.
They were nearing the top of the hill
when a wagon with portly, well fed
man on the seat drew up beside them.
The well fed man glared at them in
undisguised contempt.
"Hey, you dago," he called, "what
yer doin' with that bear here on the
highway? Don't you know there's a
regulation against it in this town?
Scares hosses, it does! Take him
through the woods or the fields, but
keep off the roads-you hear?"
Pietro pulled off the old felt hat and
bowed respectfully. Then as best he
could in broken English, plentifully
interspersed with Etruscan dialect, he
tried to make it plain that neither he
nor Gambietta would willingly or
knowingly transgress the law. But
the man in the wagon understood no
word of the servi1e harangue.
"None of your lip, now," he inter-
rupted irritably, at the same time
pulling open his coat to display tin
star. ''Im deputy sheriff, 1 am
You and that bear keep off the roads
or I'll run you both in. See!'
He waved his arm meaningly to-
ward a little wooded path that led
from the highway to the left and sat
In his wagon watching the sorry pair
until they had turned into it and were
lost to view in its shady depths.
Beneath giant oak tree that stood
beside the little path Pietro sat down
miserably, his head in his hands and
great despair In his tiyed eyes.
Gambietta collapsed beside him,
rolled about luxuriously for a mo-
ment, then turned on his side and
went calmly to sleep.
Pietro sat there for time, prey
to his bitter musfng. Then he, too.
stretched himself beside Gambietta's
rusty brown bunk and fell into trou-
bled slumber.
Now, it happened that the path-a
winding wood road-which the two
had chosen, or, rather, which the well
fed man had chosen for them, as re-
treat led to cascade, where a little
stream fell over series of granite
lodges.
1t was one of the beauty spots of
the vicinity, a place much frequented
by the summer people who came to
the little town.
Even as Pietro and Gambietta slept
In the shadows of the oak a smart
trap came slowly down the winding
road from the cascade.
In the trap were a stern faced young
man and an unsmiling young woman.
And it took no very great intellect to
see that everything was not entirely
pleasant between them
Indeed, they had fallen into silence
that bitter silence which is harder to
endure than threats or recriminations
or open censure. For some time they
drove along, the beauties of the
shaded wood read lost to their eyes.
The man finally broke the silence.
Perhaps it would be better If I got
out and walked" he suggested grimly.
Pernaps 1t would" said the girl,
ana, refining in the horse. she watched
him climb down from the trap, after
which she f1icked the cob with the
whip, and the trap sped down the road.
The man stuffed his hands into his