The Emmett index. [volume] (Emmett, Idaho) 1893-1925, 1914-05-07

reached OdmOTy OOuTI- OQe udU q
vision of him wandering, candle In
hand, through the empty echoing
rooms, looking at the voiceless por.
traits on the walls, thinking perhaps
OF his father, of the fatal duel of which
he had never known. She liked the
way he had spoken Of his fatherl
AS she leaned, out Of the stiffness
there came to her ear mellow sound.
1t was the bell of the courthouse in
the village. She counted the strokes
falling clearly OF family as the slug
gish breeze ebbed or sweiled. 1t was
eleven.
She drew back, dropped the curtain
to shut out the wan glimmer, and in
the darkness crept into the soft bed
as if into a hiding-place.
A warm sun and an air mildly mel
low. A faint gold-shadowed mist over
the valley and soft lilac haze blend
ing the rounded outlines of the hills.
Through the shrubbery at Damory
Court a cardinal darted like a Grim
son shuttle, to rock impudently from
a feering limb, and here and there
on the bluish-ivory sky, motionless as
a pasted wafer. hung hawk; from
time to time one of these wavered and
slanted swiftly down, to climb once
more in huge spiral to it's high tower
of sky.
Perhaps it wondered, as its tele-
hod
been its choicest covert, that dishev-
eIed tangle where the birds held per-
petuaI carnival, the weasel lurked in
the underbrush and the rabbit lined
his wihdfall Now the wildness was
gone. A pergola, glistening white, now
upheld the runaway vines, making a
sickle-hke path from the upper ter
race to the lake. In the barn loft the
pigeons still quarrelled over their new
cotes of fresh pine, and under clump
of locust trees at a little distance from
the house, a half-dozen dolls cabins
on stills stood waiting the honey-stor-
age of the black and gold bees.
There were new denizens, also.
These had arrived in a dozen zinc
tanks and willow hampers, to the
amaze of a sleepy express clerk at the
railroad station: two swans now sailed
majestically over the hly-ponds of the
lake, along its gravel rim and pair
of bronze-colored ducks waddled and
preened, and its placid surface rippled
and broke to the sluggish backs of
goldfish and the flirting fms of red
Japanese carp.
The house itself wore another air.
It's look of unkemptness had largely
vanished. The soft gray tone of age
remained, but the bleakness and for
lornness were gone; there was about
all now a warmth and genial bearing
that limited at mellowed beauty, fire
light and cheerful voices within.
Valiant heaved long sigh OF salts
faction as he stood in the sunlight gaz-
ing at the results of his labors. He
was not now the flippant boulevardier
to whom money was the sine qua non
of existence. He had learned a sover-
eign lesson-one gained not through
the push and fight of crowds, but ins
vexed by the clamor of gold and thf
complex problems of competitive e.
istence-that he had inherited nee,
of activity, of achievement that he ha
been born to do
''Chum," he said, to the dog rollin
on his back in the grass, what d
YOU think of it all, anyway" HI
reached down, seized hind leg an
whirling him around like teetotun
sent him flying into the bushe,
whence Chum launched again upo
him. like a catapult. He caught tn,
white shoulders and held him vise-like
Just about right, Ell? But wait til
we get those ramblersl"
And to think" he continued, whimI
sically releasing him, that l might,
have gone on, one of the little-neck-'
clam crowd I've always trained with. |
at the same old pace, till the Yer
m-Beach career got
a double Nelson on me and the umpire
counted me out At this moment 1
wouldn't swap this old house and land,
and the sunshine and that 'gyarden'
and Unc' Jefferson and Aunt Daph
and the chickens and the birds and
all the rest of it, for mile of Mil \
lionaires' Row."
He went into the house and to the
library. The breeze through the wide
flung bow-window was futtering the
papers on the desk and the map on
the wall was Tapping sidewise He
went to straighten it, and then saw
what he had not noticed before-that
It covered something that had been let !
into the plaster. He swung it aside |
and made an exclamation.
He was looking at square, uncom-
wall-safe, with a round fig I
lred disk of white metal on its face. /
He knelt before it and tried its knob. !
After a moment 1t turned easily. But |
he resolute steel door would not open,
.hough he tried every combination
hat came into his mind. NO use"
ne said disgustedly. "One must have
he right numbers"
Then he lifted his fretted frame and
'mote his grimy hands together. Con
ound it," he said with short laugh.
Here am. bankrupt, with all this
,utfit-rlear IN tho verv fnper-hOwls-