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. Read th at,
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