The evening Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1918-1920, 1919-02-22
CHAPTER II.

CHAPTER II.
Continued from Yesterday.
In Which Silent Wheeler's Strange
Hallucination Takes a Peculiar
Form With Dire Results for
His Step Daughter
Mother and daughter, waiting in
the moonlit upper room, heard a
curse come up from the yard. They
heard a mans step on the rear porch
floor. His heavy boot came down up
on loosen board that settled back
into its place with a bump. Then
followed a fumbling at the string
mended screendoor and the slap Of
the finasy thing behind him. Next
he fell over chair in the kitchen.
The girl had heard repetition of
all on countless nights. Yet this
night she shivered with a nameless
dread.
eff he'll only drop asleep in one O
the chairs!" prayed the wife.
Long ominous silence in the lower
litcheni
II hope he isn't up to anything"
whispered the daughter.
The mother drew long breath for
poise and strength. She arose and
stood before the window, looking up
at the clear-cut high rising moon and
the myriad stars-up to the heavens
where God is supposed to dwell.
"Holy matrimony" she whispered.
"Holy matrimonyp' Then ashamed Of
her sarcasm: "Dear Cod" she pray
ed with sudden nobility, "-help me
give me the strength for the sake
of my girl give me the strength-to
go onward and do what / can and
save her from maxim her mothers
mistake"
The silence grew into minutes. The
two in the upper chamber decided the
man had fallen into a drunken slum-
Der. Then suddenly up from the bot
tom of the flight came the roar of
his voice.
"Sarah!" he beloved.
"Don't go down, mother" cried the
girl
81 got to go down, dearie If I
don't, it'll only make him worse.
And it amt myself,-it's you and
Artie l got to think Of" She
gathered the red-yarn shawl about
her narrow shoulders as though for
protection. She disappeared in the
shadows Of the narrow hallway.
Strengthening out on the bed, the girl
buried her face in the soft pillows.
Once she heard her mothers shrill
voice in protest followed by retort
in burly bass! Only once! The
speaking solitudes of the summer
night were resolving into whispers.
The moon was moving so far east
ward that the pl1osphorescent patch
upon the bedroom floor was a con-
torted fantasy in one corner. Even
the tramp cricket in the lilacs down
below had grown tired like the frogs.
A quarter hour the girl lay think
ing, straining her ears to hear evil
dences of trouble below. Suddenly
came a step upon the stairs.
She sat up in the bed, pulling the
clothes to her white throat. The rays
from lighted lantern weak, weird
-rays,-showed down the hallway
stairs. A second later a man enter
ed her room.
He was a heavy-set, big-boned man
in black striped shirt and overalls
that stunk of the cowbarns. He
wore long ragged moustaches and
had fiat jowls with a weeks growth
of characterless black beard His
features were coarse, with the eyes
deeply sunken. They were large,
round, ominous eyes. When the MAJ.
was under the influence of liquor they
smouldered with a fire of deadly
green.
SILENT" Wheeler was the nickname
by which the town knew him. II
was an appropriate nickname. Dur
ing the day, as he met and mingled
with his neighbors, he was laconic
taciturn, friendless. On summer
nights he was down to McDermott' s
where he spent the hours getting
morosely drunk. In the other three
seasons he sat at home before the
fire nursing the poker, raising one OF
the covers and splitting from time to
time with sharp hiss into the stove