Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1914-12-30

the course OF business"
He picked up the newspaper clips
ping. 1t was worn and broken in the
folds as If it had been carried for
months in pocketbook
1T will interest readers of this Sec
ton of Virginia (the paragraph be-
gam to learn, from recent transfer
received for record at the County
Clerks office, that Damory Court has
passed to Mr.. John Valiant, minor
He turned the paper over and found
date; it had been printed in the year
of the transfer to himself, when he
was six years old-the year his father
had died.
John Valiant, minor, the son OF
the former owner.
There are few indeed who do not
recall the tragedy with which in the
public mind the estate is connected.
The fact, moreover, that this old home
stead has been left in it's present state
(for, as is well known, the house has
remained with all its contents and fur.
nishings untouched) to rest during so
long term of years unoccupied, could
on, and this circumstance alone has
perhaps tended to keep alive a melano
choly story which may well be for.
gotten"
He read the elaborate, rather stilted
phraseology in the twenty-year-Old pa
per with wondering interest. IAN
old house," he unused, with a bad
name. Probably he couldn't sell it,
and maybe nobody would ever live in
it. That would explain why it re-
NAMED so long unoccupied-why there
are no records of rentals. Probably
the land was starved and run down.
tits an offset to the hall-bedroom.
idea, at any rate" he said to himself
humorously. 1T holds out an escape
from the noble army of rent-payers,
When my twenty-eight hundred is
gone, could live down there landed
proprietor, and by the same mark an
honorary colonel, and raise the cab
bages was talking about-eh, Chum?
while you stalk rabbits. How does
that strike you?"
He laughed whimsically. He, John
Valiant, of New York, first-nighter az
it's theaters, hail-fellow-well-m in it's
club corridors and welcome diner at
any one of hundred brilliant glass.
misunderstanding supper tables, enc
tombed on the wreck of a Virginia
plantation, a would-be country gentle
man, on an automobile and next to
nothing year!
He bethought himself of the fallen
letter and possessed himself Of 1t
quickly. 1t lay with the superscrip-
ton side down. On it was written, in
the same hand which had addressed
the other envelope:
For my son, John Valiant,
When he reaches the age of twenty.
five.
That, then, had been written by his
father-and he had died nearly twenty
years ago! He broke the seal with b
strange feeling as if, walking in some
familiar thoroughfare, he had stum~
bled on a lichened and sunken tomb
stone.
When you read this, my son, you
will have come to man s estate. 1t is
ink may be faded to gray and this
white, white paper yellowed, Just from
lying waiting so long. But strangeSt
of all is to think that you yourself
whose brown head hardly tops this
desk, will be as tall q hope) as Il
How l wonder what you VIII lCoA like
them And shall the real, real l, I
mean-be peering over your strong
broad shoulder as you read? Who
knows? Wise men have dreamed such
a thing possible-and l am not bit
wise.
John, you will not have forgotten
that you are Valiant. But you are
also a Virginian Will you have dis
covered this for yourself? Here is the
deed to the land where l and my
father, and his father, and many, many
more Valiants before them were born.
Sometime, perhaps, you will know why
you are John Valiant of New York in
stead of John Valiant of Damory
Court. l can not tell you myself, be.
cause it is too true a story, and have
forgotten how to tell any but fairy
tales, where everything happens right,
where the Prince marries the beautiful
Princess and they live happily to-
gether ever after.
You may never care to live at
Damory Court Maybe the life you
will know so well by the time you
read this will have welded you to it.
self. If so, well and good. Then leave
the old place to your son. But there Is
such a thing as racial habit, and the
call of blood. And / know there is
such a thing, too, as fate. Every
man carries his fate on a RI
band about his neck so the
Moslem put it. 1t was my fate to
go away, and know now-since dis
lance is not made by miles alone
that myself shall never see Damory
Court again. But life is a strange