Democratic Sentinel, Volume 10, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 January 1887 — THE TRAMP’S SACRIFICE. [ARTICLE]

THE TRAMP’S SACRIFICE.

BY J. F. F.

Near sunset of an evening of the last July, Wellington Seymour stood by his front gate, resting himself after a hard day s labor in the harvest-field, by watching the people who passed on the road. They all bowed or spoke to him; no man in the town was more highly respected or better known. He was its Supervisor, and a deacon of the church over the hill; he owned an hundred acres of valuable land, which he worked himself, and the pretty frame house just behind him. His wife was at this time sitting on the piazza, and their only child, Winnie, was racing up and down it, somewhat boisterous with the high spirits of childhood. The family and the help had eaten supper, and all were enjoying in their own way the beautiful summer hour between sunset and darkness.

Wellington Seymour was forty-six years old. His hands were hard with toil; for, though rich and prosperous, he was one of those who deem manual labor a divinely imposed duty. He was bronzed and sunburned with exposure; and the trials and duties of life, as well as its sorrows, had given a grave and thoughtful aspect to his face. An observer would have added ten years to his real age. The few people in such a rural neighborhood as this who were accustomed to study character by the features had seen that there was something more than gravity in Mr. Seymour’s face. There was a restlessness about his eye. Sometimes he started upon hearing an unfamiliar voice. While the fact had not become a subject of remark, it had certainly been noticed by these few that Mr. Seymour did not often appear to be at ease. As he continued to stand at his gate, a man passed by on foot who neither bowed nor spoke to him. He was a stranger, clothed in tattered and dusty garments. He walked slowly past, using a long staff, and appearing very much fatigued. His hair and beard were long and unkempt; his face bore the unmistakable marks of dissipation and excess. He was, in short, a tramp; one of a class which Mr. Seymour hated—or would have hated had his Christian principles allowed such a feeling. He looked coldly at the man as he went by, merely observing that he was a tramp,, without taking particular note of his face. He did not see that the man stared hard at him, after he had turned his eyes from the unpleasant object. The man walked a rod past the gate, and then suddenly wheeled and came back. He stood right in front of the farmer and leaned heavily on his staff. “Sir,” he said, “I am very tired and very hungry. Will you feed me, and lodge me to-night?” “You look like a traijap,” the farmer replied. “You know the penalties you are liable to suffer.”

“Yes, I know,” the wayfarer cried. His dark eyes snapped viciously, and there was a ring to his voice that startled Mr. Seymour. “lam an outcast, an Ishmaelite—not because I am vicious, but because I am vicious and poor. The law makes it an offense to be poor, if you are bad. Perhaps it is right; but I’m too much exhausted now even to talk about such things. I appeal to you as a man to help a fellowman in distress. Twenty-five miles have I walked to-day; nothing have I eaten since noon. I have been refused relief at half a dozen farm-houses, and whipped off from wagons where I tried to get a rest for my I mor bruised feet. Well—are you heartess, too?” Those piercing black eyes were fixed on the farmer’s face, with an expression that haunts him to this day. A very brief struggle in his breast ended by his throwing open the gate. “Come in, poor fellow,” he said. “I’ll take care of you till to-morrow.” The tramp entered. A few words from the farmer to his wife explained the matter to her, and she went to the kitchen to prowide something for the poor waif to eat. The man went to the pump, washed himself, brushed off the dust, and then went into the kitchen and sat down to the table. The meal that he ate may have its parallel among those of his kind; the Seymour homestead had certainly never witnessed such a consumption of provisions by one person. While he was eating, little Winnie came into the kitchen, and, with the confidence'that is natural to some children, went up to him end laid her hand on his arm. He looked at her kindly. “What is your name, little one?” he asked. “Winifred. They call me Winnie, for short.” He wiped his mouth —and, most unromantic in this connection, but certainly true, there was a' tear in his eye, which he dashed away with the back of his band. Of what could he be thinking? Perhaps, of his own youthful days of innocence; perhaps, of words read long ago, but lately forgotten— “for of such is the kingdom of heaven.” “Would you kiss ms, Winnie?” She looked up into his fierce, bearded face, and found a very tender expression in his eyes, and she kissed him without hesitation. i , The mother s heart was also softened by this little episode; so, when the man had finished his meal, she said to him:

“I will make you up a bed on the floor, in the room above this. “You are very kind, ma'am,” he replied, “but, really, I don't think I could sleep in a made-up bed. So many years as I've slept in a hammock at sea, and on the ground under the trees in foreign lands, and in the fence-corners and in ( hay-lofts in my own country, have just about unfitted me for sleeping like a Christian, in a clean bed. Your husband can show me the way to the barn, and I’ll warrant that I get a night’s rest there.” Mrs. Seymour left him sitting there when she had removed the dishes and gone into the sitting-room. The servant girl and the two hired men looked into the kitchen, and, seeing who was i s occupant, withdrew. The brief evening passed; Mr. Seymour, according to his usual custom, had offered up his evening family prayer, and he then sang a hymn, while has wife accompanied him on the organ. - “What is that?” he asked, when he had finished. Both listened, and heard the tramp in the kitchen singing a verse of the same hymn. “He is a queer fellow,” said the wife. “He refused my offer of a bed over the kitchen, and wants you to show him the hay-mow. He said he had been a sailor, and couldn’t sleep in a bed. And to hear him singing that hymn after you!” Mr. Seymour started at her words, and walked the floor. Then, remarking that he would go and show him his bed in the bam. he left the room. His wife was wearied with the household labors of the long summer day, and retired to bed. Before her husband returned she was sleeping soundly. ’ There was no sleep for Wellington Seymour on that long-remembered night. The face and the voice of the tramp effectually drove slumber from his pillow, wearied as he was. When he showed him to his nest in the bam he had asked his name, but the man shook his head. “Name!” he cried, “what should I want of a name? Names are for people who can honor them. I suppose I hacrone, once; but I have pretty near forgotten it." The farmer walked the floor of the sitting-room for an hour, trying to compose himself, and to drive that face and that voice from his mind. The effort was useless, but it had so added to his exhaustion that he hoped he might sleep, and so he lay down on the lounge. In vain; he could not sleep. The clock struck twelve, and, after that, one; but Mr. Seymour still lay awake.

Exhausted in body and mind, he rose and went out into the open air. There was a brilliant harvest-moon in the heavens, and he saw from the side piazza a dark figure moving slowly down the hillside back of the house, and across the fields. He watched the movements of this figure, and was surprised to see it advancing straight toward his outbuildings. When the man was hidden from sight behind the barn, Mr. Seymour cautiously started out to reconnoiter. He placed his hand on the man’s arm just as he was entering the barndoor. It was the tramp. “What does this mean, sir?” he sternly demanded. “Don’t be alarmed,” said the man. “I’m neither house-breaker nor barn-burner, I assure you. But —but, many years ago I used to know this neighborhood, and I haven’t seen it for thirty years. I couldn’t sleep a wink to-night, and started to rove round—for that’s my disposition. I’ve >een all over your farm, and a fine place it is. And I see you’ve a cemetery up there on the hill. It's your first wife, I take it, and your two children that are buried there?” “Yes.” “Then you’ve seen sorrow as well as prosperity?” “God knows I have!” Seymour answered, with a great sob. “My very heart-strings were tom by the loss of the three who fill those graves.” “Well, well; life is pretty much the same —sorrow everywhere. Good-night—and, for that matter, good-by. shall be out of your hay-mow and on the road long before you are up.” s

Mr. Seymour’s face showed great surprise, and not only surprise, but relief. He eyed the man sharply for a moment, and then thrust his hand into his pocket. “Here is five dollars,” he said. “Take it; you are welcome to it.” The tramp took the money. He waited until the farmer was out of sight, and then threw it down and stamped on it. while something like an oath broke from his lips. Presently he grew calmer, picked up ihe money, and put it in his pocket, and clambered up again to his bed in the hay. Mr. Seymour was still unable to sleep. About daylight he heard the click of the gate-latch, and, peering through theblinds of the open window, he saw the tramp standing outside. He stood there motionless for at least five minutes, and appeared to be taking a survey of the entire premises. Then he turned and moved off down the road. A look of intense relief came to the farmer’s tired face. “I was foolish to be so disturbed,” he thought; “merely an accidental resemblance.” Then he lay down to sleep; and when the breakfast bell rang, an hour later, he was in a sound slumber, Wellington Seymour awakened, ate his meal, and went out among the harvesters, like one who has escaped from a threatening peril, and who can hardly realize the fact of his escape. All that had happened to him since the previous evening seemed like an unpleasant dream. The men in the field remarked that he was a whole hour late—something before unheard of—and that he did not talk as usual. At ten o’clock Dr. Beard’s horse and buggy dashed up the road and halted opposite the field where they were all at work. Mr. Seymour went instantly out to the road, with a premonition that he was urgently wanted. It was even so. The messenger told him that at Oldfield Crossing, an hour before, a tramp had tried to catch a ride on a freight train; that he had fallen under the wheels, and was now dying, with both legs crushed; and that he had begged the doctor to send at once for Wellington Seymour, for he could not die without seeing him.

Mr. Seymour waited npt an instant; not even to put on his coat, which he had left back in the field. He took his seat in the buggy, and in thirty minutes the fleet animal had brought him to the station. An oxcited crowd blocked the entrance to the freight house. Doctor Beard and several others came forward as Mr. Seymour stepped to the ground. “He can’t live half an hour,” said the doctor. “I sent for you, because he calls for you all the time—and he seems to be in his right mind, too. Who do you think he is? 8

•He is my brother,” said Mr. Seymour. “The crowd fell back as he advanced, and in a moment he and the doctor were alone with the dying tramp. A sheet bad been thrown over his mangled limbs. His fading eyes lighted as he saw Mr. Seymour by his side, and he held out his hand to him. “You didn’t know me last night, Wellington?” he said. “No, Winfield—not surely; but I sus;>ected. Why didn't you tell me—why not speak out?" “And make you miserable?—you, and your wife, and that dear child, whose face is so like our mother’s! Is she not like her, Wellington?” “ She is indeed; but ” “Wait; hear me. These are my last moments, brother; let me talk. Do you remember those old days, when father and mother and you and I were so happy there at the old homestead? Of course you do. You were ten years younger than I, and a little wild, because you were a boy; and father made his will, leaving everything to me, but charging me to be kind to you. And how things have changed! I became the wanderer, the sea-farer, and at last the tramp; you stayed at home, and when father died—when did he die, Wellington?” ‘“Three months after vou went away. He died suddenly, and never altered the will.” “ Yes, yes; I remember. All this I learned at Lennox, yesterday; I .saw the record of the will, and learned that you had all the property, because I was held to be dead, and you were my sole heir. Last evening I came to you with my heart full of bitterness. I meant to turn you out, and take possession of my property. You softened me, Wellington, by the way that you received me; you, and your wife, and that blessed child. Still, I was irresolute. Unable to sleep, I went out in the moonlight, and visited all the dear old familiar places on the farm; and I saw the graves of your dead. Then I was decided; my heart was not hard enough to disturb you. I meant to go in peace, and leave you unmolested.” Wellington Seymour was completely unmanned. The tears flowed freely down his face as held his brother’s hands. “You might have come back and lived with us, ” he said. “You don't know me, brother,” said the dying man. “I ran away from you this morning because I did not wish to injure yon. I am a vicious being, dissolute past all hope of reformation; and do you think I could come and cloud the happiness of such a home as yours? God will be merciful to me, brother. He is calling me to a better home.”

For a moment he lay silent, with his eyes closed. Wellington still held his hands, and sat by him, too full for words. “You know the chestnut tree, Welly?” said the tramp, opening his eyes. “Yes, of course; we’ve clubbed it many a time. Last night I saw it, and I thought that some time I should like to rest under it. The time has come sooner than I expected. I’m not fit to sleep beside your dead. Bury me under the chestnut tree—will you, Welly?” “But, Winnie ” “My last request, brother!” “Yes, Winnie—l will.” “Kiss me. Welly.” The strong man tdooped his head; the tears fell from his eyes; the arm of the poor tramp was thrown about his neck; and thus, even as in the years long gone he had fallen to sleep in the embrace of his brother, did Winfield Seymour enter into his final rest.