Image provided by: Silverton Country Historical Society; Silverton, OR
About Torch of reason. (Silverton, Oregon) 1896-1903 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 3, 1898)
THE TORCH OF I EAfeON, SILVERTON, OREGON, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 1S9S. Peter T arbox’s “ Tlouth fu r P ie.” cannot set BY CORA BROWN. “ T here’s a charm ing little widow, Who keeps a candy shop, W here all th e children buy th eir chew ing gum . She sells tally for a penny, H er nam e is on th e door— O h, th e re ’s music in th e face of Widow D u n n !” ?. 1 ND so there was music in her very laugh,and it was all true about the chewing gum arid it rig h t.” And ¡»he never out of her mind; and now it watched his professional hack all was a month before thanksgiving the wav * down the street with ach- (lav. J ing eyes. ‘‘W hat a than k fu l woman I She never told Ted, who hated should he if I only had th at blessed the “ ugly man for h ittin g his poor m oney!” thought the widow M unn, hack so, hut day and night the She was clipping white chrvsan- words burned in her brain. them um s for the breakfast table She wrote and m ade all inquir- while the rolls baked, an d the fra* ies. Yes, that was the price to be g ran t odor of fresh boiling coflee paid, ar.d it might as well have came out in the little garden, been a thousand. “ Do you calk ’late on th a t punk- 1 he little shop w a s the front en of yourn fur thanksgiven pies?” room of the very oldest house in all called a voice over the fence. , .. r , ,, . ,,, ,, „ the town. Years before G randfather “ Well, I hope so, Peter,” answer- Munn had built it, filled it with ed the widow, looking up pleas- b()oks and calJe(] it hjg ,i t t k |ib |a _ a n t,y tapping it knowingly. “ I tell you you tell me what to git, jist gimme a pie when u n i git done, and take the rest fur your trouble. W hat do you say?” “ I b at those rolls are burning, sure as life! Come round to the kitchen,” and away she flew. “Stay and have a cup of coflee with Ted and me,’ draw ing the pan of puffy rolls from the oven, while he stood w atching her from the doorway. “ H ave you got your wagon with vou?” peeping out through the hol lyhocks to where a gray horse and a covered wagon, filled with bright tinw are, stood in the shade. “ You go tie him and come back, PR call Ted, and we’ll talk things over,” breaking the steam ing rolls apart, setting the flowers by Ted’s plate as she did so. “ Com pany to breakfast, son,” she called softly as th e sound of his wheels came from the next room, and P eter’s foot sounded on the gravel. “ Hope you’ll like them as well as you did the pie,” she said gaily. In the rhym e the name is Dunn, but Munn does just as well, and the ry. It looked very much like a Peter was long arid lank and children sang the words at h e r till round collar box, or a slice of jelly freckled, but his mild blue eyes bad she was tired of hearing them. cake, with windows on two sides, a kindly expression. But she never said so. “ Dear ; and a door back aljd fr(n)L Well, I can tell you you need- little things,” she would say, ‘‘they But grandfather was dead now, n ’t,” he said do think it such a joke!” ami would the old farm was sold, and nothing “ W ell, if it doesn’t tu rn out well, nod or laugh out of her pretty was left but a tiny strip of ground no pum pkin pits then,” laughing as brown eyes at them , when they about this round bouse, and here she stood facing him . passed the shop, singing. Ted and his m other kept shop. “ No, you don’t mean th a t,” in a But, alas! life wasn’t all a joke W hen father died Ted was only sym pathetic tone. W ell, now, for the little woman. five years old, and m other looked ru th er—” Then he stopped short There w asn’t much of a fortune like a girl. Since then, after Ted in em barrassm ent. “ T hey’ll have “ A nything you set out to do in chewing gum, and though she fell out of th at apple tree and hu rt a-plenty of ’em down to the store,” ca n ’t be beat, Mis’ M unn,” answ er worked hard to keep the sm all shop his back, and m other and be had hesitatingly going there was al the housework. , moved ¡nto tbe round house, moth- “ No doubt of it,” said the widow ed Peter, g allan tly , and Ted beam ed approvingly. and then the garden in the sum er had some gray hairs, and her brightly; “ but, as 1 say, if th a t Such a gay little breakfast as it mer, and always Ted. face wasn’t so rosy; hut she was pum pkin refuses to ripen, no pum p was! It was all settled about the “ Yes, thank goodness, always “ the most beautiful m other in the kin pies.” pies before Peter left, and somehow Ted!” she would say, as she patted world” , as Ted always said. “ Look er here, Mis’ M unn, I ’ve bis kind, homely face, and the look the smooth black head and the lit The house was divided into three got a plan. I f you’ll agree, done it in his eyes when Ted wheeled him tle crooked back. parts. “ Cut it ju st like a pie,” mo is,” bringing his brown fist down self out in the garden, m ade the Of course Ted could tend shop; it ther had told the carpenter. “ The with a thum p. “ You ’member th at little widow take him into her con was such a tiny place, he could front half for th e shop, the other day you bought the skillet off er fidence. reach almost everything from his part into two quarters, one for the me, a n ’ I come into the kitchen fur 1 he pathetic little story of the chair; but it tired him so, poor lit kitchen and the other for the bed the change? Well, you wus a-bak- coveted hundred dollars was told, tle chap! room .” in ’ pies, a n ’ you offered m e a slice and when she broke down in it his “ Oh, m other, w hat good am I? ” And here where grandfather had of punken, which same I tuk, a n ’ earnest grasp of her hand com fort he would say, dism ally, when she stored his dusty old hooks, were I a in ’t never forgot it.” ed her beyond telling. would insist on his going to bed, displayed jars of pepperm int, boxes “ I ’m glad you liked it, P eter,” Sho, how!” he said, kindly. pale and shaking, after holding out of lozenges, chewing gum and a few said the widow, her eyes dancing “ Don’t cry—you’ll git it. W hy, I ’ll too long. toys. with fun. help you. No, no, not th a t w ay!” “ For m other to love,” she a l A little window cut in by the “ I ’ve told more people about th a t as she drew back. “ I ’ll do better. ways answered, and th a t comforted front door, was gay with kites, pans pie! Nowhere I go can I get a taste J is t leave it to me, and if next tim e him. of taffy a r d bright pin-wheel pa like it. ‘Mis’,’ says I, ‘ ’ta in ’t the I come I ain t thought out a plan to “ And my poor hoy must be a pers. sam e— too much er too little of git th a t hundred dollars, you can cripple all his life because I am A few useful things, such as fish som ethin’;’ta in ’t like the widow’s’.” go back on m aken th a t pie.” poor,” she would think, bitterly, ing lines and pins, filled the case on “ W hy, Peter, I feel aw fully flat And they parted, the best of though she never spoke of it to any the short counter: a little bell tin k tered. You deserve the prettiest friends, the widow im m ensely one else, not even Ted. She was led when you pushed open the door; chrysanthem um in the bunch,” cheered by his com forting words; too proud. and a sign swung over it, “ A. handing one over the fence, which and the tin peddler clim bed into “ One hundred dollars!” She said M unn, Confectioner,” painted in he took with awkw ard pleasure. his wagon with a serious look on these words so often, they were a l blue letters. “ Well, as I was sayeu,” fastening his face. ways on her mind, and once when “ And with tbe g; rden where we the flower in his threadbare coat, “ Go on, Bess,” he called softly to Jo h n n y Sm ith asked her the price can raise vegetables and lots of “ I ’m a lonely critter — don’t have the gray m are. “ \Y e’ve got a tough of the big blue kite, she answered flowers,” mother bad said, “ we no home comforts. Now, if I was knot to think out today, old lady; calm ly, “ One hundred dollars,” shall do very well.” to get the punken and fixen, could but we’ll do it, or my nam e a in ’t and he alm ost fell over backward. The first money went for the pad n ’t you make up a batch of them Peter T arbox.” \\ by, it was a fortune. Never ded chair on wheels. pies and let me have a couple of And dow’n tlie long road they did did she expect to have that “ And now I can help!” cried Ted em ?” gazing at her shrewdly. went in the shade of the trees, the much money at one tim e; yet th at after the first proud journey “ W hy, with all my heart!” cried • tins jin g lin g pleasantly, catching was the sum th at would take Ted through the three rooms.' “ l e a n the widow; “only I don’t w ant you the little sunbeam s th a t shot down into the great hospital where he tend shop, and with a long handled to provide anything.” through the branches, while Peter m ight be made as straight and as shovel I really think I could dig “ Calk lating to make ’em out of whistled absently and forgot to call strong as other hoys. the garden!” And he looked so hap- th at punken?” pointing a lean lin his wares. The great physician I)r. King w i P5 that m other smiled b rig h tly ger at the green giobe. h.m self had said so. He had been but after she h „d > It was a week before he returned. “ \\ ell, it does look a little doubt I he little shop had been closed for ' a "8 n 86 a " d Sa"' d0Wn <"*' she buried ful, doesn’t it? ” an anxious frown fishing-line. *" '° h'” 4 !’** faCe ‘D *‘er “Pron Bud »»hhedas on her forehead as she stooped to the night, but a cheerful light shone through the back window’. “Send him up to Boston,tuadam ,” lf ThreeCllrt " ' h 1 | )r<?Sk u • th,lm P IL “ You certainly do look com forta said he, after having examined h” m ,h en t “' T , 8wir'*in* hi’ ble in here,” said Peter, after he through professional curiosity ! k ^ u p a 'd ° Ver the fel,ce’ and 8tooPin? had shaken hands and asked after “Nothing so serious here th at we I clo n,fonable. down k '"iJe 'h e astonished little led. “ Yes, I ’ll sit down, fur I ’ve ,b u t th a t one hundred dollars was, woman, “ ’ta in ’t notheu but p u n k ,’, got lots to tell you. 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