Year: 1876

| The blackest sand on these To .nal hills.


kINGSBORO'S PUZZLE.


NOBODY at Kingsboro knew what to
make of it, Deacon Turner, the oldest
inhabitant, said that during his earthly
pilgrimage he had sojourned at numerous
towns, but in no one of them had any
young man who dressed nicely and did
no work turned out well. Capt. Brown,
who worked hard but managed so badly
that he was never out of debt, glared saw
agely whenever he saw handsome Jo Nal
lison with his hands in the pockets Of his
neatly fitting coat, and took occasion to
remark to the first person he met that he
wished the old days, in which people who
had no visible means of support were
prosecuted, would return again. Squire
Beaten, who kept the postotli2e, admitted
to certain aStute questioners that 10 Nal
lison never received letters, so it was i'm
possible that any one was sending him
money with which to support himself in
idleness. Suspicion even ran so high that
Bill Briiger, who was the only apothe-
cary and candy-scller at Kingsboro, and
who had 10 Madison for quite steady
customer, made it rule to examine very
carefully every bank note that 10 offered
in payment, lest haply the handsome do
nothing might be circulating counterfeits
The married women at Kingsboro, who
had to work as hard as women almost
always do in new towns in young States,
carefully pointed out 10 to their sons as
an example to be summed except so far
us personal neatness was concerned.


But the Kingsboro girls differed from
the rest of the community in their cstima-
ton of 10. He might be indolent-in
fact they knew he was, for he might al
most always be seen on the main street of
the village, sauntering along while other
lnen were at workout he was handsome
and he dressed with real taste, and his
breath never smelt of liquor or tobacco,
and he was always polite, and he never
was awkward or i'll at case or presuming
when in the society Of ladies, and he
seemed to understand all his fair compan-
ions so well. In all these respects he was
quite different from most of the Kingsboro
boys, so that when good mothers warned
their daughters against young men who
could only give fine words in proof Of af
fection, the damscls experienced strong
misgivings as to what they would say if
10 Mallison were to propose.


But 10 saved them the necessity of de-
Gliding any such question. He proposed
to nobody; he made love to nobody; he
seemed to have no special favorites among
the girls of Kingsboro. lie never even
tlirted; he seemed to heartily enjoy him
self when with ladies, and to express his
gratitude so deity as to leave no one
word upon which to base suspicion of
any stronger sentiments. And he did not
stop with conquering the hearts of all the
Kingsboro girls. Without any seeming in
tention to do so, he won the hearts OF
few of the elderly women in the town.
They did not mean to give countenance
to a snowy idler, but somehow, when Jo
would coax some bad or fretful child to
take walk with him, and then send the
child home with a head full of Bible
stories ana a mouth full of pretty songs,
the mother of the child would reluctantly
admit that the handsome young do nothing
did have a real good heart.


But still 10 did no work, nor did he
try to do any. He boarded at the only
hotel in town, paid his bills, avoided the
bar-room, never played cards, always
went to church on Sundays, and ever
formed one of the scant score of faithful
souls who on Wednesday evenings used to
hold a prayer meeting in a corner of
Kingsboro Church.


There was not at Kingsboro any club,
that institution so industriously hated by
all good women, but there was gather
ing-place which fulfilled all the require
ments of a cluO, and that was the post
office. The mail stage was nominally due
at seven in the evening, so half the male
inhabitants congregated in Bill Burth's
saddle-shop, which formed the anteroom
of the postotfice, Immediately after sup
per, and they usually enjoyed a two-hour
season of conversation before the arrival
and distribution of the mail gave them
hint to go home. Subjects for conversa-
ton were not very numerous at Kings
boro, and as the few native characters
with any salient points had been very
hnr Inl,1 ,1,y coJ IL hn
sessions of the men who waited for the
mail, the arrival of 10 Madison was per-
feet godsend. 1t is hardly necessary to
say that 10 found but few companions
among the Kingsboro men. The young
men hated him for estranging their sweet
hearts, and each of the older men was
afraid that 10 might marry his daughter
and come under the parental roof for sup
port. Theories about 10 were plenty
among the men who talked about him,
but none of them were fattering to the
young mans character: counterfeiter,
burglars accomplice, confidence man,
horse thief, fugitive from justice-there
was some one to prove that. 10 deserved
each of these unpopular appellations,
while the only theory in the least degree
tolerable was that of a scatter Drained
youth who consumed quarts of hairoil
and read the New York Romancer-he
believed 10 was an exiled Prince in dis
guise; but even Princes were unpopular
among the hard working population Of
Kingsboro.


One cool night, several weeks after JOS
appearance at Kingsboro, the opposing
theorists as TO JOS character INDUCED in a
many-cornered and very lively duel. 1t
was during a season when sudden atmos'