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Read Ebook: Behold this Dreamer by Bartlett Elizabeth
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Ebook has 162 lines and 13507 words, and 4 pages
CONNY LOSES HIS FATHER.
Dr. Hunter was riding leisurely on his morning rounds among the few people who managed to be sick at Dunsmore in spite of the clear sweet air that carried the balmy scent of the forests into all its pleasant valleys. Under the seat of his sulky was his little old-fashioned box of medicines, and close at his hand a tin box containing what was in the doctor's eyes quite as valuable--a specimen of a rare plant which he had discovered in a cleft of gray rock, and secured at the cost of some pretty hard climbing. The road upon which he was driving wound along the mountain-side, and he could look down upon the tops of the trees below, noting here and there the scattered buildings and stacks of feed that marked some little farm in a clearing, and from the very densest spot of all a faint thread of blue smoke rising above the trees. He had often noticed it, and more than once had asked about it, but no one gave him any satisfactory answer. You would have supposed that of all the men and women in Dunsmore not one had even chanced to see that smoke until the doctor's eyes had spied it.
"Smoke, sor?--so it be," said old Timothy, with a great pretense of straining his eyes to see it. "It's a fire in the woods, belike. Some tramping fellows on a hunt."
"It is always in one spot," said the doctor, "though sometimes it disappears for weeks. Is there any road that way?"
"Not the track of a squurl, yer honor. There's not a wilder bit in all the State, I'm thinkin'."
"I believe one might find a way on horseback," said the doctor, "and I shall try it some day."
"To be sure," said the doctor, turning again to look at the smoke.
"It's a bad business," said Timothy, carefully studying the doctor's face.
"Yes, it's a bad business, making whiskey, or selling it, or drinking it; but paying a tax to the government does not make it any better. I believe every dollar that comes to the government from such a source is a curse."
Timothy drew a long breath.
"You're right, sor. I'm not beholden to the stuff myself; but yer honor's done me a good turn, and I couldn't see ye bringin' trouble on yerself by askin' too many questions. It mightn't be--pop'lar, sor."
The doctor asked no more questions, but he watched the blue smoke more curiously than ever, wondering much about the outlaws who carried on their secret trade in the mountain fastnesses. He had been thinking of them that very morning as he rode along, with the reins lying loosely on his knee, when suddenly Prince gave a start that roused his driver. A small figure stepped out from the shadow of a rock, and stood close beside the gig, saying,
"Would you come to my feyther, sir?"
"Who is your father?" asked the doctor.
"He's sick this three days," answered the boy.
"What is his name? Where do you live?"
"It's not far, sir," said the boy, without answering the question.
"Well, jump in here;" and the doctor held down his hand.
"Ye'll not be riding, sir; it's a bit off the road."
The doctor hesitated a moment, then fastened Prince securely in the edge of the woods, and with his box in his hand prepared to follow his guide.
"Now, then, Johnny, go ahead."
"My name is Conny, sir," said the boy.
"Conny, is it? And what else?"
"Just Conny, sir;" and the boy led the way rapidly through what looked like a pathless tangle, until below a sharp ledge of rocks they struck a little stream by whose side they found a narrow but easy passage into the very heart of the wood.
"Surely no human being can live here," thought the doctor; but at that very moment they came upon a small weather-beaten cabin, so low and gray that one might easily have passed it unnoticed among the rocks that hung over it, and the bushes that crowded around and in front of it. The roof, thatched with bark, had fallen in at one end, and the place looked as if it might have been forsaken for years. But the boy led him around to the rear, and they entered quite a comfortable room, with a decent bed in one corner, on which a man was lying with his face to the wall.
"Feyther," said the boy, "I've brought the doctor to ye."
The man neither moved nor answered, and the doctor, going up to the bed, was shocked to see that he was dead. He turned to Conny and asked, "Has your father been long sick?"
"Always sick, sir. He couldn't work at the North, and they told him if he came here the air would cure him, and the smell of the trees, but he coughed just the same."
"Where is your mother?"
"Dead, sir."
"And there is no one but you and your father?"
"Only us two, sir."
"Conny," said the doctor, slowly, "I am afraid your father is dead."
Conny did not answer for a moment, but his thin brown face settled into a look of disappointment.
"He said he should die, sir, and nothing could save him, but I thought maybe if you came-- Couldn't you try something? They brought Black Joe round when he'd been long in the water, and was dead and cold--brought him round with rubbing, and stuff they put in his mouth. Isn't there something in your box that'll do it?"
"Nothing," said the doctor; "he is quite dead, my boy. You had better come with me, and I will send some one to attend to your father."
But no persuasion could induce Conny to leave the cabin, and the doctor was forced to return without him. For a quiet man, the doctor was greatly excited over the mystery of the little cabin, but old Timothy said, coolly, "That would be Sandy McConnell: one o' the moonshiners: varmint, all on 'em."
"But, Timothy, some one must see that he has a decent burial, and if you'll take a couple of men with you, and go down there--"
"Wait till to-morrow morning," said Timothy, significantly. "The birds of the air 'tend to their own funerals."
A terrific storm that swept over the mountains that afternoon compelled the doctor to follow Timothy's advice. The next morning, when they succeeded, with much difficulty, in finding their way through the tangle, the cabin was empty of every trace of human occupancy, and almost seemed as if it might have been undisturbed since the wood-choppers abandoned it. Under a great pine, a few rods away, they found a new-made grave, carefully sodded, and bound over, in old-country fashion, with green withes.
"The moonshiners have buried him," said Timothy. "I told ye, sor, they'd see to their own funerals."
"I wish I knew what had become of the boy," said the doctor, as they slowly picked their way upward; "he seemed such a quaint, old-fashioned little chap."
BROOKLYN, NEW YORK.
SARAH W. N.
EDNA, MINNESOTA.
About a month ago a man caught a young whooping-crane, which I bought of him. It is now so tame that it will eat out of my hand, and come in the house and eat from the table, or drink out of the water pail. I keep him tied out back of the house by a string about two rods long, so that he can walk around. He is not a very small bird, if he is young. His neck is about two feet long, and his legs are very nearly the same length, and when he stands up straight he is about five feet high. He is not fully fledged yet. His body is now about as large as that of a goose.
I like to write. I am not a very good writer, but I think I can be a better one if I write a great deal. I am the lame boy whose letters you printed in the Post-office Box last winter.
ELMER R. BLANCHARD.
PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA.
Since my request for exchanges was published in YOUNG PEOPLE I have received a great many letters from all parts of the United States, and I would like to inform the correspondents that I will answer all of them in due time. Now I am very busy. I am getting a new book and fixing it up, my school has commenced, and I am taking music lessons on the piano. I can play familiar tunes like the "Racquet Polka," "Fatinitza," "Pinafore," and others. I am also taking German lessons.
WILLIE H. SCHERZER.
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