Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1914-08-20

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see, and when a young man is found
hoofing 1t along and gawping at red
barns and spotted cows as If they
were relics of the cave jewellers we
suspect him of either being fool or
| q horse thief!"
! Young Barton had been on the
hike about twenty days when one
afternoon he climbed hill by the
roadside to get view of the country
From his eyrie he could look down
upon the front yard Of house on the
opposite side OF the road, and he also
had part Of an apple orchard under
his survey. Suspended between two
of the trees was hammock, and in
that hammock was a girl.
Was 1t the family cook or the wife
of the owner Of the premises? Was it
his daughter or an old maid sister?
How long had she been asleep? When
would she wake up?
This musing and specializing lasted
a good half hour, and then some Of
the questions were solved. The ham.
mockess yawned, threw up her hands
and woke. up and sat up.
She was a young girl!
Could a tramp slide down hill and
climb the stone wall and stand be-
fore that girl and say: "Prithe, fair
maid, my cognomen Is Fitz Barton,
my age Is two-and-twenty; my
mother Is widow and has the long
green; my sister Nellie is good when
she is good; l shall graduate next
year as civil engineer and my sky
is without cloud. All I desire on
this earth now is something to love
and marry"
Could Fitz Barton do that? Weren't
there thousand chances to one that
he would hardly land on the other
side Of the wall before she weuld
whistle for the family bulldog and
encourage the canine to 60 in and do
his best? And then the gardner
would come and wallop the remains,
and the stable man would gather
them up in an old potato sack and
wild crabapple tree.
No, sir; that was too nervy a thing
even for college student to tackle,
and the young mans heart was slowly
sinking when Dame Fortune came to
his aid.
Poised above the girls bare head
and growing on one of the highest
limbs, was fall pippin. 1t hadn't
matured yet, and never would. as a
worm had bored into it and Sc: up
housekeeping. He had weakened the
stem, and that apple fell just The very
second that Fate had ordained it
should fall. 1t also hit where Fate
had given it instructions family on
the head of the girl sitting In the
hammock.
A long-drawn shrek - cry fer
Sarah--and then the victim fell for
ward with her nose in the grass
Sarah, who was the cook, came. SO
did Fitz Barton. Unfortunately for
the latter, he arrived first and was
lifting the unconscious girl up when
the husky cook leaped on mis- back
and bore him to the ground and
scratched and clawed and cried ont
for the gardner, who was deaf and far
away.
BY the time the rescuer anil the
cook had untangled themselves the
victim had recovered her senses and
was demanding to know whole lot
Of things. Sire had to be supported
to the house, and the young man did
most of the work. The country doctor
had to be asked by telephone if such
cases were necessarily fatal, and
when told that it was fall pippin
that did the business, he said there
was hope that the victim would pull
through If she did not talk too much.
Had it been pile driver that hit
her, and had it fallen distance Of
sixty feet, the case must have ter
minated fatally.
Mr.. and Mrs. Benson were out in
their auto. When they returned the
tramp was sitting on the veranda and
the cook shouting at him to go on.
Mr.. Benson ran up the steps and had
Just got good neck-hold when his
daughter came out and broke up the
fun.
There was a mix-up of hammock,
Ethel, pippin, tramp and young Bar
ton, and 1t took good hour to Sher,
lock Holmes it to solution. Then
there was a general handshaking, and
the young man was tramp no more.
Those two young people fell IN love,
while the poor pippin went to the
dogs, and the cook insisted that the
rescuer was a pirate in disguise.
v/-@DTYr/ TNYNT