Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1915-03-10

carefully, first right, then left: II
28-94-0. The heavy door opened.
Il was right" he exulted. It's the
plate" He drew it cut, piece by piece.
Each was bagged in dark-red Canton
flannel He broke the tape of one bag
and exposed a great silver pitcher,
furnished purple-blue like ravens
wing-then a tea-service. Each piece,
large and small, was marked with the
greyhound rampant and the motto.
And to think" he said, that my
great reat-grandfather buried you
with his own hands under the stables
when Tarleton's raiders swept the val
ley before the surrender at Yorktown!
Only wait till Aunt Daphne gets you
polished up, and on the sideboard!
You're the one thing the place has
needed"
With the dog for comrade he ira
versed the garden and plunged across
the valley below, humming as he went.
The place was painless and over
grown with paw-paw bushes and sassa-
fras. Great trees stood so thickly
in places as to make twilight and the
SUMMER spots were masses of pink
laurel, poison-ivy, flaming purple rho
dodendron and wine-red tendrils of in
terbraided briers. This was the for
est land of whose possibilities he had
thought. In the heart Of the woods he
came upon a great limb that had been
wrenched off by storm. The broken
wood was of deep rich brown, shading
to black. He broke off his song, snap
ped a twig and smelled it. It's sharp
acrid odor was unmistakable. He sud-
denly remembered the walnut tree at
Rosewood and what Shirley had said:
II know q girl who had two in her
yard, and she went to Europe on
them"
He looked about him; as far as he
could see the trees reared, hardy and
perfect, untouched for a generation.
He selected one of medium size and
pulling a creeper, measured its cir
conference and gaging this measure
with his eye, made penciled calcula-
ton on the back Of an envelope.
Great Scott!'' he said jubilantly to
the dog: chat would cut enough to
wainscot the Damory Court library
and build twenty sideboards!"
He sat down on messed boulder,
breathless, his eyes sparkling. He had
thought himself almost a beggar, and
here in his hand was a small fortune!
Talk about engagement rings!" he
muttered why, a dozen of these
ought to buy whole tiara!"
At length he rose and climbed on,
presently turning at a right-angle to
bisect the strip to it's boundary before
ne paused to rest. I'm no timber
cruiser he said to himself as he
wiped his brow, but calculate there
are all of three hundred trees big
enough to cut. Why, suppose they are
worth on an average only hundred
apiece. That would make-GoOd
lord!" he muttered, land I've been
incoming about poverty"
The growth was smaller and sparser
| now and before long he came, on the
! hills very crest, to the edge of a
ragged clearing. 1t held a squalid set
| Element, perhaps a score of dirt-daubed
cabins little better than novels, some
| of them mere mud-walled lean-tos,
with sod roofs and window panes of
! fiour-sacking Fences and outhouses
| there was none. Uttered paths ram
bled aimlessly hither and thither from
| chip-streWn yards to starved patches
of corn, under-cultivated and blighted.
Over the whole place hung an indie
scribable atmosphere of disconsOlate
/ filth, of unredeemed squalOr and vile
ness
With one hand on the dogs collar,
hushing him to silence, Valiant, I'M
I seen, looked at the wretched place
with a shiver He had glimpsed many
| wretched purlieus in the slums OF
| great cities, but this, in the open sun
! light, with the clean woods about it
| and the sweet clear blue above, stood
out with an unrelieved boldness and
| contrast that was doubly sinister and
| forbidding. He knew instantly that
| the tawdry corner was the community
known as HelPs-Half-Acre, the place
| to which Shirley had made her night
ride to rescue Hickey Snyder.
A quick glad realization Of her cour-
| age rushed through him. On its heels
| came a feeling of shame that spot
| like this could exist, foul blot on
such landscape. 1t was on his own
| land! It's denizens held place by
sguatter sovereignty, but he was,
nevertheless, their landlord The
thought bred a new sense of response
bility. Something should be done for
/ them, too.
AS he gazed, an uproar in a cabin
| reached a climax. A red-bearded fig
! ure in nondescript garments shot from
| the door and collapsed in heap in
| the dirt. He got up with a dreadful
oath-a jug thrown at him grazing
his temple as he did so-and shaking
his fist behind hira, staggered into a
! nearby lean-tO.