The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-07-19

spe you n,san-this ysrs's for msf" Old Tom he often sed he knew that some day he'd go and git just blind, stavin' drunk enough to try an swim the upper rapids, and two weeks ago he dene so."
 And the-rest of the words were quite casual
 sT kinda reckon he'd hev made it at that" he offered his opinion, '.f they'd hev been . trif1e moro water. But the rocks was too close to the surface fer comfortable swfmmfn' The Jenkinses found him down in the slack water Sunday noon or thereabcuts, and they sed he'd never be no deader, not even If he'd ardisd in . reghr bed, with doctor helIn' him along"
 Caleb threw his sister one lugubri- ouS1y helpless glance. Sarah had chok- cd apparently upon q crumb of bread and was coughing stranglingly.
 This time when Caleb lifted hfs eyes he met a startted gleam behind Earah's half dropped lashes. She was peering steadily into the boys lean, untroubled face. Caleb voiced the query which he knew must be behind her quiet intent ness.
 You said your name was o'Mara, I believe. I suppose that was Old Toms last name tooY'
 Steve laughed. He laughed frankly for the first time since he had halted hours before outside in the dusty road.
 Why, Old Tom had dozen different names in the last few years,", he re- piled. ~He had new one every time he went outen the woods fer a trip. But he always sed he mostly favored Brown or Jones Or Smith, they bein' quiet and common and not too hard to remember. He just changed names whenever he got tired of his old one Old Tom did. But he always did say too, that if he'd he'd as good a one as O'Mara he'd ,a-kept it-and kept il l proud"
 At the conclusion of that statement 1t was Miss Earah's gaze which went searching across the table for her brothers eyes. But the boy just ras on and on, totally oblivious to theil | glances.
 He told them of his lonely days if the woods shack. when Old Tom went down river and was three or foul weeks in returning; he dwelt upor blissful days in the spring when h, had been allowed to play mans par in the small drives which he and old Tom and the Jenl1inses began and which Old Tom and the Jenkinse alone saw through to market fin Morri son. He touched lightly and incense quentially upon certain days when Ol, Tom would hang for hours over an ol, tin box filled with soiled and inl smeared memoranda, periods whicl were always followed by days o moody silence and week or more 0 lessons" in a tatfered and thumbe' reader which the woodsman ha brought up r1ver-lessors as painful and laborious to Old Tom as they wer delightful to the starved mentality o the pupil. And Old Tom, the boy ez plained, was pretty likely to be 'licl cred up fer quite a spelr' after such
 session. which invariably began wit an exploration of the battered til box.
 The boy told Caleb of days an nights on the trail-boasted uncor scously of Old Toms supercunpin 1 with trap and deadfall and even poi,
 oned bait. And that brought him | the beautifully oiled bear trap whic
 he had left outside the door.
 q brung Samanthy along with me,
 he stated q brung her just becaus somehow I kinda thought mebby Ol
 Tom'd be glad if did. Next to me h
 always sed he set heap o' store 0
 thet ole critter. He sad Samanth ] was as near to hevin' woman aFOun the house as anything hs knev on she he'd a voios hizo . stesl trap. an 5