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About Lincoln County leader. (Toledo, Lincoln County, Or.) 1893-1987 | View Entire Issue (May 12, 1905)
f " IWiCSCLTSWOOl i By M. V. o CHATTER VIII. (Continued.) Hilly liilor looked very much relieved r something. Probably at the prospect of trouble. Or perhaps that there was no pnlilic charge that any of Squire Wie!;!y's money had cone into his pocket. At the same moment Lizzy Wiekly was snyi:ig: "I don't mind it, father. And you mustn't. We can't make it any better by worrying so over it. And so far as the land is concerned" hut she could iiot go on without a Rort of spasm of the throat that strangled her for ten sec onds "why, . it isn't such a beautiful tract as all that. Next time I'll buy a quarter section in the second bottom prairie. That will be a sensible pur t'linKe. won't it?" Mr. Wiekly looked at her with his brows knitted into the sort of lowering fiown that had until to-day been un known upon his kindly face. "You don't seem to understand," he paid, harshly and slowly, and "with that Ptraiige Hushing of tint, whole face that liad made Dr. May shake his head, when lie hail been called in to see the sick man that morning "thnt I already know that the mere hiss of those ugly wooded l.ills and hollows is nothing! But is it nothing that 1 must lose my fortune of m.rio than a million three hundred tuou H.'.nd, simply because I can have noth ing upon which to raise a few hundred dollars when it is needed to push my t.isc? I believe that you actually want imp to fail, or delay it until I die, so that you can have it. Yes, that's it. 'I hat's the plot that you are capable of concocting, and carrying forward! You and that scoundrel, Mason! He put you up to it! That's what you were in the Woods that day for!" He came toward her with his hands clenched and his lips drawn in a sort f horrible smile that changed and vi brated between the appearance of ghastly nirth and fierce anger. She had never dreamt of such a mood in him. For he had been the best and kindest of fath ers never very helpful at bread-winning, to be Riire! But so uniformly good and kind, and sensible! And now in this awful mood be surely meant to do her harm! At that instant Mrs. Wickly coming Ji, fortunately announced In her ordinary cheerful manner that "dinner was ready, ond go on iu John; don't keep me wait ing!" As if instinctively, or by force of long taint, John Wickly turned slowly away, nud with the menacing look fading into 41 sullen and brooding frown, he went slowly out of the room and into the kitchen, where they heard him moving a chair as he always did 'in sitting down to dinner. CHAPTER IX. "Xow, Lizzy, my child," said the moth er iu a hurried undertone, "put on your sunbonnet and run as quick as you can can to Dr. May's and tell him that 1 want him to come, and bring some help, if he thinks best. Run aow!" "But hadn't you better go with me? Is it safe for you alone?" The girl clasped her arms convulsive ly about her mother's neck. "It will be perfectly safe for me, Lizzy. Run, now." The girl started, and her mother ran after her to the door. "When you come back, don't come in horc he is, Lizzy. You know what strange antipathies are often shown by by by people under great mental excite ment." She had hesitated at the very word that was ringing louder and louder through all the resounding labyrinths of the brain. She had made a generaliza tion where the specific object was most glaringly before them, Lizzy thought, an she ran through the dry, light, yield ing sand of the street. If she had said plainly what she so plainly meant she would have said: "Don't venture near him! ne is furi ously insane, and is possessed of the hallucination that you and Mr. Mason arc plotting to injure and thwart and de stroy him. He may kill you in a sudden paroxysm of insane fury. Don't go near him! Don't go near him!" Unheeding the knots and larger bunches of men that now literally dot led all the conjoined thoroughfares of Sandtown, scarcely stepping a foot out of the way of the wagon loads of people that were still coming in from the south west by the River road and from the northeast by the Overcoat road, Lizzy ran on to the doctor's office, only to dis cover that he wns not there. "He's done gone down town some'rs, long go. Reckon you'll fine 'im mebby nome'rs whur they're agoun to hole the meetun on the bank hustun. I'll go down mi seef I kin ketch 'im fur ynh, ef you wawnt me to," said young Billy Dikes, who wns known to be "reading medicine and tendun to Doc's hosses fur Mm," as his father, little Bill Dikes, had tiaid jo cosely in explanation of the process by which young Billy had already achieved the title of "the young Doc" upon the spontaneous motion of the humorous lloosiers of bis acquaintance. The young Doc had clearly volunteered to "ketch Mm," as an afterthought found ed upon the signs of great anxiety and distress in the young woman's face signs of need of help that had appealed successfully to the chivalric hearts of these rough people of Sandtown ever, heretofore, and will continue so to appeal successfully, so long as one of their .characteristics shall remain nnplaned way by the smoothing and polishing pro cesses of advancing civilization. TAYLOR "You jist set right down right h-yur, in this h-yur chur," continued the kindly young Hoosier, exhibiting all the hos pitable instincts of all the hospitable Dikeses, as far back as anybody can re member. "Is your pap much worse, Lizzy?" All Hoosierdom has a fashion despis ed of the polished East as it is of call ing everybody by his or her christened name! A fashion .that it is to be hoped will not be planed away in the polishing processes of westward-advancing civiliza tion. "I'm afraid he's very much worse in deed," Lizzy said, taking the offered chair, and feeling that even this rude sympathy lightened the burden of her great grief. She had dreaded to reveal it to the world. But she found that the world of Sandtown knew it nlready, and took active and partisan interest iu do ing what it could to help her. "I h-yurn urn say at this h-yur feller. Mason is jist about the whole cause uv yur pap's uh uh sickness?" "the young Doc" said, as he put on his hat and lin gered a little. "I don't know. I can't think so. 1 don't know what Mr. Mason has really done In all this terrible business. Will yuti please hurry, Mr. Dikes? I left inoliiei uiuiiu wi.k ::il. AM i m nneHiy. so uneasy." She sat down ngain as the young Doc sprang out of the open oflico door and ran down t he-street throwing up little arcs of dry, sandy loam after each broad. scraping shoe-sole until he disappeared in the crowds that still closer and closer drew to each other and grew nnd blocked up all the thoroughfares of Sandtown till not even a re-enforcing team from the very uttermost end of the Overcont road dared attempt a passage, but stopped and bitched farther nnd farther out. She sat and listened to the low buzz of voices in the streets and in the court house, and heard here and there louder tones, and occasionally a wild, yell and then a shout of laughter that indicated some ludicrous accident to somebody by somebody else. Then all at once there was a complete diminuendo as if all the voices had sud denly and steadily slipped away to the westward, and out of hearing. And then she saw a two-liorse wagon drive away from her father's door, with a number of people in it. She had not seen the wagon drive up. She had not been look ing that way. But there was something ominous in the driving away of that par ticular wagon, that was now far out on the Overcoat road, toward the little rail road station. She watched it with parted lips and widening eyes until it had hid' den itself in the clouds of drifting, light, sandy loam that perpetually rose up and settled down upon the grayed surface of all the jitnson leaves and the oak and the maple and walnut foliage, that bore their burdens of earth in patient assur ance of the rain that must come and wash them clean and bright again. And then out of the hush, the finished diminuendo of this general assembly of the makers of public opinion for this sec tion of the Wabash country, there drove a strange and unknown two-horse car riage, with a driver, whose figure com ing within the field of her abstracted and unfixed vision instantly caught and con centra ted her gaze. Beyond a doubt it was Mr. Mason, this time in broad day light, driving toward her through the crowd, and going eastward as to the rail way station. He would stop when he should see her! And there were others iu the carriage one a fine, dignified look ing gentleman. Was he Mr. Huntley? She stood in the door nnd even stepped down into the sand outside in order to make sure that Mr. Mason would see her. He had doubtless repented of his determination to keep Prof. Huntley away from her; and now he would make all necessary and possible amends for all his ungraciousness. If so she could very, very freely, nay even joyously forgive him. And that much the more readily because of the fact that since, so many people, in fact practically the whole community, had joined as with one voice in denouncing and threatening Mr. Mason, she had turn ed about and engaged, passively at first, and then actively, in his defense. What had he done to any and all of the people of Sandtown that was half so unfair, unjust and cruel as what he had done to her? Compared with her wrongs, theirs were a matter of nothing! If she could afford-to become his com pnnion, could anybody, in all Redden township afford to say aught against him? As they drove rapidly nearer, she was conscious of something altered about his look, she could not tell precisely what But it-wns something thut gave him a totally different air, some way! Before, he had been thoughtful, respectful, al most subservient in all his actions in her presence. ' Always watchful, respectful, and con siderate, at all events, with a manifest anxiety to jilease her. An anxiety so manifest that perhaps it had tended to prevent her from being pleased witfc him at all. Now he had something of the cold, hard, haughty look of the man who is directing a great many men who are "under him In every sense of the word She saw this so plainly in that brief time in which the powerful horses were walking through the heavy-pulling dry sana oi tne uvereoat road, that she com pared this with his former bearing and felt that there was a loss almost an un comfortable loss. And all these Impressions and reflec tions wsrt redoubled and reduplicated, and Intensified, w"hen to her utter surprise and unending mortification the earring did not stop, and the driver, Mr. Mason, passed with only a cold and formal in clination of his head toward her! She fairly sunk down upon the office door sill with a feeling of shame, sur prise, almost angry resentment! She looked after the carriage as the new paint on is wheels glittered iu the sun. She saw them whirl the light snud up into little settling clouds, and she felt absolutely like screaming at the very top of her voice and starting in a wild chase after the rapidly disappearing vehicle. So engrossed was she with these feel ings and rellections mat sue was un aware ofhe approach of Dr. May along with "Coonrod" Redden, and a constant ly increasing posse of followers. "Lizzy, you un your mother better git into my cairge, uu Lum will drive you lown to my house. Hits no use uh mekun a furse 'bout things 'at caiu't be hept. Yur pap's jist plum, slap dab crazy, Un we've jist started Mm to the assle-um. That assle-um is jist the plast fur Mm. He'll git k'yored right away ef they's airy a k'yore fur Mm. They sont Billy Beaseley over to that assle-um bout thee-four weeks ago. wasn't it, Doc? I'n by gum; he's back at home now with more saince un e liaa neiore lie went. Yur pap nil git tuck k'yur uv, Lizzy. Me un Joe Ellet nn Bill Shipley ull go over to-niorry ur dny atter, un see to Mm. That was that ornerry hee-hawun un whim whnnimun feller, Mason, at druv a past jist now, boys! I h-yuru 'at he's h-yur to bid in all ar moggijis. 1 ve jist sont him partickler nodus at he'll be hosst up ef he puts his nose enside a this town the next thee-four weeks, by gum!" CHAPTER X. The rain had put off its coming until every broad black-green glossy jimson leaf, and nil the lieiicuuly palin.iU-d foli age of the wild hemp, nnd the maple, and the white oak had long lain under the common veil of sober gray, thrown everything over by the rolling w heels and tramping feet of the Overcout road in the light, sandy loam came down at last in a steady, growing patter thnt awoke Lizzy Wickly for the twentieth time throughout the hot, feverish, restless night. For the twentieth time she lay and listened to the southwest wind, sweeping in gusty circles that dashed the cool, hard rain against the window panes with a shot-like rattle ns if it were the dimin utive pebbles of that threatening, specter-trodden, ominous Overcoat road, ris ing up and flying at her in a conjoined onslaught of all possible evils. How she tried to recall the almost perfect happiness that had been hers only a few weeks ago! And how did she only succeed in fully understanding that she hnd then been really happy and had not known it. The angel of bliss had tar ried with her for nights and days, and she, too, culpably unaware! Her brain pictures came and went in one unvarying triangle of great troubles. Her father's dreadful mental disease, with all the divergent and dependent misery of this more than living death, blighting and destroying their happy lit tle home at one terrible blow. Her strong and growing passion for a man whom she had never seen face to face, and whom she only knew through the partial word pictures of his friend and assistant; together with the attitude of that frieud and assistant toward her. And finally, as the smallest angle of this triangle of constantly pressing griefs the loss of her property upon which she had built her hopes of future suc cesses to be achieved in the great city that was so fast spreading down and across the prairies, that its subtle at traction had long ago reached the wooded hills of the Wabash country, and wns drawing to itself all of the ambition, the daring, the discontent, the spirit of ad venture of these wide valleys and shaded hills, nnd wood-hedged prairies. Cutting into the second angle of this trinngle, nnd even into both the others was a perplexing mixture of regret and indignation centered upon Mr. Mason. Regret that she had been left, so far as he knew or could know, In the attitude of having treated him with inexcusable rudeness and lack of feeling. What did he think of her; what could he think of her iu the light of that last evening when he had appeared for a brief time endowed with god-like attributes that enabled him to defy the very demon of the hurricane? What a magnificent man must his prin cipal be, indeed, to have developed such heroic qualities iu this underling the man who labored with him for a stipu lated price, as he had confessed to her! How hnd he slipped away like a thief under cover of the night with all the gossips of Sandtown wagging their heads and smiling the knowing smile of absolute faith in the certain villainy of the flee ing man! Why had he not taken time to come to her openly and without fear, as he hnd done often and often before? And could it be true ns more than In timated by Conrad Redden, thnt he was now in the neighborhood for the base and heartless purpose of purchasing all the heavily mortgaged property of the Sandtown people for one-tenth of its real value, just nt the time when a series of unfortunate speculations had crushed the Sandtown Fanners' Bank, and thus put it out of the power of the people to bor row money with which to save their homes? (To be continued.) " ' Two of a Kind. The two sportsmen looked at each other In the parlor of the village Inn, and at last entered into coiiversatlou In regard to the exigences of the day. "And you say you have caught sixty trout In less than two hours," said one at last "Well, I'm glad to have met you; I'm a professional myself." "Fisherman ?" Inquired tho otner man. "No er narrator," was the reply Moblle Register. Apparatus for Removing; Wall Paper. At regular Intervals the wull paper In every house has to be removed nnd fresh paper put In Its place. As a rule, wall paper does not retalu Its newness for any great length of time, and to keep the home looking bright and cheerful the paper has to be re plenished. Removing the old paper always causes a lot of dirt, and unless everything In the room Is covered or else removed entirely the dirty water splashes over It and causes damage. An Improved apparatus for removing LOOSENS THE WALL PAPKR. wall paper Is shown here, the inven tion of an Iowa man. This apparatus is a receptacle having ua open face, with a flange or rim surrounding the outer edge, a scraper-blade being at tached to the front edge of the rlni A handle Is attached to each side of the apparatus for holding It over a covered surface. An Inlet Is provided In one end of the receptacle through which hot water or steam is Injected, with an outlet below for removing the water when cold. By applying the ap paratus to the wall the paper Is loos ened by the heat of the hot water or steam, there being no chance of any water being splashed around In this way. The scraper blade does the rest. The patentee Is Paul Wayts, of Ot tumwa, Iowa. Extensible Pew. Ordinarily the seating capacity of most churches Is sutliclent to accom modate those who regularly attend, and generally, when plans for new ouurenes are wing drawn up, pro vision Is made for seating the regular attendants and no more. If enough seats were provided for the Increased number of members who go to church on Easter Sunday and other special occasions, the church would look bare when the average number attend. The consequence Is that when a noted speaker or preacher is engaged to ad dress a certain congregation, a great many people are attracted thereby and the church Is invariably overcrowded QUICKLY PLACED IN POSITION. and ninny are compelled to stand. The only remedy for this Is to place chairs In the aisles, and It is often neces sary to do Oils while the service Is in progress, causing noise and Interrup tion. An extensible pew, designed to be used especially when the church is STEERS BY THE BOW. The Bout's Course Luld from the Front of the Craft. , ' An Indiana man promises to reverse the time-honored practice of steering boats from the stern by means of his patented steering bow. His ncheme Is tor build the hull proper In one piece, as at present, except that the for ward portion Is finished without the STEERING DONE BY THE HOW. usual bow shape. This section Is to be built separately and provided with a number of hearing recesses to re ceive pivot members in the hull plate, as well as overlapping plates to fur nish a practically continuous amooth wave surface, so as not to increase the vessel's water resistance. The steer ing nose, or bow, Is to be operated by overcrowded, is shown In the illustra tion. It can be used only In combina tion with a bench or pew having a box seat, the extension being slldable end wise in the box seat. The outer end of the extension Is formed Into a de pressed seat with folding back and arms, and when so folded can be push ed into the box seat so as to be out of the way when not wanted. A spring Is arranged so as to normally retract the extension and hold It In position. It would require only a few seconds to withdraw the seat from Its normal po sition, a catch preventing It from re turning until relensed. Many church es would find this "extensible pew," as the Inventor calls it, of great ad vantage when the ordinary seating ca pacity of the church Is not sufticleiit to accommodate those who attend. John P. Kline, of Reading, Va., Is the patentee. Heat Catcher. It Is a well-known fact that In the burning of coal or oil or other sub stance for heating purposes, a large amount of combustion Is lost and can not be utilized. Inventors have work ed over this problem for a long time, but as yet no plausible solution has been advanced. A New Jersey man has patented a device which he calls CATCITHS TIIE 11EAT. a "heat catcher," an illustration of which Is shown here. It is adapted to be Inserted in a furnace or stovepipe to catch and distribute the heat pass ing therefrom. It Is cylindrical In shape, a mass of refracting material being placed In' the" Interior, through which the heated products of combus tion pass. An air pipe for distributing the heat passes through the center of the refracting material, being connect ed with the outer air. A grate placed near the bottom holds the refracting material In position. Chambers top and bottom are provided, which are connected with inlet and outlet pipes, respectively. A perforated plate placed near the top of the upper chamber serves to distribute water over sub stantially tho entire cross-section of the refrueting material, pipes top and lKittotn supplying and removing the water, the latter acting ns a cleanser. Obviously, all wasted heat can be col lected and used by such a device. George Thomson, of Elizabeth, N. J., Is Uie patentee. means of steering ropes manipulated by any of the usual methods. A Poet's Declining Year. Swinburne, the poet, spends his de clining years In tranquil pursuit of the simple life, although It l.s doubtful whether the liook or the fad has ever dlstiirlcd his peaceful retreat. A friend Bays of him that he lives In possession of his needs. "Bounded on all sides by the best lvooks, enjoying the close com panionship of the truest friend ever given to a man of genius, and finding In a long walk nt itostinnn's pace a full satisfaction for the body's craving nf ter exercise, he lives through the twi light of his days In a greater security and under the ppell of a dceiier peace than be knew iu the boisterous dawn of his life." List of the H.-oober Family. Mrs. Isabella Beeclier II (Hiker, the only surviving member of the famous Beecher family, has celebrated her Kid birthday at her home lu Hartford. She Is the youngest daughter of Rev. Ly man Beecher and sister of Rev. Henry Ward Beecher and Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe. She was born In Litch field, Conn. She was married In 1841 to John Hooker, for many years the reporter of the Supreme Court, who died Feb. 12, 11)01. Mrs. Hooker has two children and six grandchildren, and has for ninny years been actively Interested In woman suffrage. A gossip's specialty la th making of. unhappy homes.