The Climax-Madisonian. (Richmond, Madison County, Ky.) 1914-1917, 1915-05-26


wise biamable: that he had run away
on his own hook, and would do it
again If he wanted to But he broke
there with heavy sob; and the fat
man said: '.Therel there. Cootsey, go
along with the old 'un, and here's a
dollar for YOU" And Tod cried aloud.
The good minister had brought a
letter for him, too, and as the boy
read it through his tears he turned
homeward almost eagerly.
Dear Tod Tit ran1, I have been quite sick
since you left me. You must come back.
for miss you, and can never get well
again without you I'VE got new kink
on pair of stills I've made you but
can't tell how long to make them till you
come back. Fanny comes over every day,
and talks about you so much 1 half be-
lieve sometimes she likes you better than
she does her old sick uncle but I can
stand that, because you deserve it, and
I'm too old for little girls to like very
much It'll soon be the Fourth you
know. and we must be getting ready for
big time. Come home at once, for
am waiting.
To stoddard Anderson, from his old
friend and teacher.
Tod went home. He fastened to
the teachers darkened room. The
dear old face had grown pale-so very
pale! The kindly hand that reached
out to grasp the boys was thin and
wasted, and the gentle voice that he
had learned to love was faint and
low-so very low, it sounded like a
prayer. The good minister turned 81
lently and left the two old friends to-
gether; and there were teardrops in
his eyes.
And so the little, staggering life
went on alone. Some old woman gos-
sip, peering through the eye of
needle on the institution known as
the Ladies' Benevolent Sewing So
ciety," said that it 'peared to her like
that boy of the preachers jes' KEEP a.
pinin' and a-pinin' away, ever sence
they fetched him back from his runa-
way scrape. She'd seen him time and
again sence then, and although the lit
tie snipe was innocentlike to all ap-
pearances, she'd be bound that he was
in devilment enough Reckoned he
was too proud to march in the school
p'cession at the teachers funer'l; and
he didn't go to the meetin' house at
all, but put of to the graveyard by
hisself; and when they got there with
the corpse, Tod was a-settin' with his
legs a-hangin' in the grave, and a.
pitchin clods in, and a-smilin' "And
only jes' the other evening"" she con-
tinued, "as ! was comm past there
kind o. in the dusklike, that boy was
a-settin' a-straddle O. the grave, and
jes' a-cryin'i And l thought it kind
o. strangelike, and stopped and hol-
Tered: What's the matter of We.
Tod?' and he ups and hollers back:
'Stumpt my toe, durn ye!' and thinks
l. My youngster, they'll be a day o.
reckonin' fer your"
The old world worried on, till July
came at last, and with it that most
glorious day that wrapped the baby
nation in it's swaddling clothes of
stripes and stars and laid it in the lap
of Liberty. And what day that was!
And how the birds did sing that morn
ing from the green tops of the trees
when the glad sunlight came glancing
through the jeweled leaves and woke
them! And not more joyous were the
birds. or more riotous their little
throbbing hearts to pipe the trail and
cheep and twitter twenty million
loves than the merry children that
came fiuttering to the grove to join
their revelry.
o brighter than a dream swept
the procession of children from the
town toward the boy that swung his
hat from the tree top near the brook.
And he flushed with some strange &C.
stasy as he saw little girl in white,
with a wreath of evergreen, wave her
crimson sash in answer to him, while
the column slowly filed across the
open bridge, where yet again he saw
her reappear in the reflection in the
stream below. Then, after the dull
opening of prayer. and the more tedi-
Gus exercises following. how the woods
did ring with laughter; how the boys
We'd with one another in their labors
of arranging swings and clearing un-
derbrush away preparatory to a day
OF unconfined enjoyment; and how the
girls shrieked to see the black man
coming" and how coquettishly they
struggled when captured and carried
on by that dread being, and yet what
eagerness they displayed in his be-
half! And +Ring"-men and women
even Joining in the game, and kissing
one another's wives and husbands
like mad. Why, even the ugly old
gentleman with carbuncle on the
back of his neck, grew riotous with
mirth. and when tripped full length
upon the sward by the little widow in
half-mourning, hustled nimbly to his
feet and kissed her, with some wicked
pun about grass" widows, that made
him laugh till his face grew as red
as his carbuncle. That bashful young
man who had struggled off alone, sit
ting SO uncomfortably upon a log. kill
ing bugs and spiders, like an ugly
giant with monster club-how he
those ''old boys and girls"
Then there was a group of older
men talking so long and earnestly
about the weather and the crops that
they had not discovered that the
shade of the old beech they sat be-
meath had stolen silently away and
left them sitting in the sun, and was
even then performing its refreshing
office for a big, sore-eyed dog. who.
with painting jaws and lolling tongue,
was winking away the lives of a
swarm of gnats with the most stoical
indifference
And SO time wore along till dinner
came. and women, with big open bas-
kets. bent above the snowy cloths
spread out upon the grass. arranging
@the substantiais" and the dainties
Of feast too varied and too tooth