Year: 1875

|
merry and peaceful sort.


The village had look of being finish
ed long ago, but a reader of men,"
might have looked at Conrad, if he saw
him there, and said


But that fellows only half done yet.
He doesn't half understand himself. Pity
there's nothing in the sleepy valley to
wake him up"


1t, however, the process Of waking up
was to imply any sort of shaking, there
had been little enough of that in the life
which Conrad had thus far led. The
greatest events of the outside world had
been only as storms on the ocean, send
ing hardly ripple of their uproar into
the little land-locked cove of the old,
dull village.


Gottlieb Midburger, Conrad's father,
with his old crony and partner, Franz
Hoferdahl, had made and mended watch
es in the same dingy and time-worn shop
where their fathers had filed and ham
mered before them, and one life was like
another, and about as unvarying, as the
ticking of the fat-faced time-p pieces be-
hind the cobwebs in the shop window.


Just now, however, as if the course Of
nature was being disturbed, various rip
pies were beginning to come. Rumors
there were, for instance, that the King,
d" God preserve him." was preparing to
fight u war with somebody, and that all
young heroes like Conrad Midburger,
would soon be needed for the army.


Stranger still, and utterly unaceounta-
BILE, considering his time of life, old
Franz Hoferdahl had caught the emigra-
ton fever, and made up his steadfast
mind to join the great German tide that
sets perpetually toward the shores of
America. Already he had sold whatever
he had to sell except his big pipe, his
flute and his daughter Christine, for these
he intended taking to the Western Eden.


" Perhaps" thought the villagers, "it's
not so strange for Franz as for some of
us. He's been lonely since his wife died,
and then he was great traveller in his
younger days"


That was true enough, for Franz Ho-
ferdahl had been to Berlin, aud America
could not be so very much beyond.


The old man had sold his share of the
shop to his friend Gottlieb, and had made
as good bargains as he could for the
house and movables but none of his
anxious nelghbors knew exactly how
much of ready cash he took with him
when he and the weeping Christine set
out upon their long pilgrimage.


Chistine wept, indeed, as if she meant
to ruin her blue eyes entirely for the
little village had been very dear to her,
and her mothers grave was there. If
there were other reasons for her sorrow,
Christine kept them to herself; albeit
she may have wondered why one person,
at least, had not asked her question or
two concerning them.


AS for Conrad Midburger, he had said
good-by with all the rest, to his fathers
old friend, and to the fearful Christine /;
and he rubbed his great black eyes after
ward, in a way that looked as il the
whole thing was dream to him. If it
was there was no help for it, since Chris
tine and her father were far enough away
before he woke up.


Nevertheless, when Conrad missed,
day after day, the accustomed form of
old Franz in the shop, as well as the
CHEEKY voice of Christine Hoferdahl call
ing her father to dinner, the expression Of
his face would change, at times, and one
would have almost said he was begin
ming to think.


Not quite as much as that, perhaps, at
least not yet but pretty soon Conrad's
eyes took note of "a growing difference in
the ways and seeming Of old Gottlieb
Midburger himself. Just what it was
would have been hard to say but, by
degrees the old man came to neglect his
pipe, then his glass Of beer, and then his
work, and, finally, he took to his bed and
died and the neighbors said, almost
with one accord that Franz Hoferdahl
broken his old friends heart by going
away.


Broken his heart" said Conrad TO
himself. "But he did not break mine I
And | have a heart, tool can feel it
beat. And / loved old Franz, and |
loved my father very much and feel
as if | could cry all day if were not SO
very big a man."


The strongest evidence that Conrad had |
a heart, however, was yet to come. AS
the days went by, after his fathers death,
the shop and everything in it and about
1t became utterly distasteful to him. Day
after day he sat down by the bench and
tried to work but the very ticking of
The watches was insufferably oppressive,
while again and again he started up and
lropped his file or hammer in renewed |
at the continued absence Of |
he two old men.


" If only Christine would come," he
aid, to himself, "and call old Franz
nome to dinner"


But she did not come, and the silence
md loneliness grew more and more irk-
'ome, and SO, by and by, when a good
customer opportunely made his appear
.nce, Conrad Midburger almost gladly
,losed with his offer to purchase the shop
md the house. lie sold, too, everything
,lse that his father had left him, except
he old mans pipe aud sword. and the