Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1914-02-13
Continued from last week
CoF1nAAV n1 81 ooses-MsxsuL ca


at was my fathers! What could he
have wanted of an estate in Virginia?
It must have come into his hands in
the course of business"
He picked up the newspaper clip
ping. 1t was worn and broken in the
folds as il it had been carried for
months in a pocketbook.
1T will interest readers of this sec
ton of Virginia (the paragraph be-
gam to learn, from a ecent 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
a 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 its present state
flor, as is well known, the house has
remained with all It's contents and fur.
nishings untouched) to rest during SO
long a term of years unoccupied, could
not, Of course, fail to be commented
on. and this circumstance alone has
perhaps tended to keep alive a melan-
choly story which may well be for
gotten"
IL wAo1 Tho aIDkarofA x-athnr uf41+od
phraseology In the twenty-year-old pa
per with a wondering interest. An
old house," he unused, with a bad
name. Probably be couldn't sell it,
and maybe nobody would eve live in
it. That would explain why it re-
manned so long unoccupied-why there
are no records of rentals. Probably
the land was starved and run down.
Its 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, 1 could live down there a landed
proprietor, and by the same mark an
honorary colonel, and raise the cab
bages l was talking about-eh, Chum?
while you stalk rabbits. How does
that strike your"
He laughed whimsically. He, John
Valiant, of New York, fir%st-nighter at
its theaters, NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. in its
club corridors and welcome diner at
ANY one of a hundred brilliant glass
MISUNDERSTANDING supper tabless en-
tombed on the wreck of a Virginia
plantation, a would-be country gentle
man, on an automobile and next to
nothing a yearl
He bethought himself of the fallen
letter and possessed himself of it
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 agol He broke the seal with a
strange feeling as If, walking in some
familiar ~thoroughfare. he had STUN
bled on a lichened and sunken tomb
stone.
When you read this, my son, you
will have come to mans estate. 1t is
curious to think that this black, black
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 Il hopel as l!
How l wonder what you will look like
then! And shall 1.-The real, real l, l
mean-be peering over YOU strong
broad shoulder as o read? Who
knows? Wise men have dreamed such
a thing possible-and / am not a bit
wise.
John, you will not have forgotten
that you are a Valiant. But you are
also a Virginian. VIII 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 o myself, be-
cause it is too true a story, and l 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 viii 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 I know there is
such a thing, too. as fate. Every
man carries his fate on a RI
49, - A.