Milford chronicle., 1925-02-20

his latter years to find that he had be-
come Destiny; q brOWbeaten and
managed Destiny, perhaps, but it was
behind his swollen knees and NANCY
tail that a stern-faced woman with her
two dishevelled brats drove slowly
across the iron bridge.
Admah Holtz sat on top of the family
treasures, objects anomalous as the
faithful John himself. Against an arm
of the green plush rocker he braced an
elbow; he remembered his father,
seated in that chair, jug on the floor
beside him, one Of Robert G. Ingersolls s
forbidden volumes perched slantingly
under square-paned spectacles, also
aslant. Those were the weeks when Pa
Holtz forsook his work at the quarry,
complaining thai the stone dust cut his
lungs. Ma nagged and quoted Scrip
lures; Pa drank and quoted Ingersol.
Admah, from the days when he was
evil liver.
Secretly he was on Pas side. The
free-thinking stone-cutter, much older
than his wife, rheumatic and prema-
turely gray from dissipation, was a man
of the world and as such knew his
strength. He had drifted South from
somewhere in Pennsylvania. In his
early youth he had been one of those
old-time printers who read and digested
the galleys they set. In the quarries
he dressed stone with the air of phi
losopher, the monotonous thump of his
mallet giving cadence to his thoughts.
Besides being an infldel he was some-
thing Of a socialist-but the latter
tendency was only imperfectly ex-
pressed, never practiced. He despised
ignorance; this aversion was the basis
upon which Ma and Pa qUarrelled
oftenest. She resented his superiority
when he undertook to correct Admah's
verbs or to teach him the rudiments Of
geography.
At the age of eight Admah Holtz en-
ployed an English far more urban than
that of his mother or 10, who was
an@mic, pimply and unambitiOus. ADJ
nah was no purist, but his conversation
was remarkably free from the rustic
drawl of rural people who have met
and interbred on the neutral border Of
two uncOngenial States.
So on the morning when they crossed
the Bridge, drawn by old John, who
limped and groaned with every pull Of
the traces, Admah occupied the very
pinnacle Of the family furniture. By
bracing his feet against the melodion-
this instrument had lost its voice some
time before the boys memory began
he could sit astride an arm of the velvet
chair and gaze, Provisioning up and
down the yellow River. Mrs. Holtz
was smoking her corncob pipe. Now
and then she would turn and scold in
her affec+ionate worried tone. "Gosh
almighty, nave got to be jawin' all day
long2 Git down, will ye? Want to
break yer fool neck?"
Admah would get down, wait till his
mother was settled again at the reins,
then crawl back again. The height and
the danger excited his adventurous
mind. There was something symbolic
about Admah Holtz, enthroned on the
crazy items of his family furniture, his
large, rather melancholy eyes fixed on
the new world ahead. That too was a
pile, solid, well ordered and high as the
stars. Who sat there, arms folded.
eyes brooding upon the destinies Of
lesser men? -.
"AdmahP' The wagon came so
suddenly to stop that the sly dreamer
fell to his rightful place, level with the
Font seat.
"Yes, Ma"
''Is the gravestone ridin' good?"
He peered over an edge Of the pile TO
lee six inches Of handsome marble slab
beyond the tailboard. This
nortuary relic, which once had marked
he grave of a fallen pioneer, had
erved its time as a doorstone on the
Ioltz farm. Later Pa Holtz, employ
ng the tools of his trade, smoothed
way every trace Of its old Inscription,
polished it and handed it over to Ma
IS a convenient slab upon whose hard,
old surface doughnuts could be rolled
nd home made peppermints cooled to
he proper consistency. Like John the
orse, this unmarked headstone had its
hare in the game which Ma Holtz was
laying with Fate.
"It looks all right to me-" decided
Ldmah, after a moments inspection.
"Gee ap." This from Ma Holtz, to-
ether with a whack from willow
witch across old Johns shabby flank.
To BE CONTINUED