Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 259, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 October 1912 — LITTLE MISS CALIPERS [ARTICLE]

LITTLE MISS CALIPERS

How a Sick Lumberjack’s Daughter Made Good.

By N. J. COTTON.

Amos Tuttle hobbled slowly into his rude leg shack, a half mile below the landing and camp of the Kilkenney Lumber company, and wearily threw down his string of wooden figure tablets and calipers. “It’s no use,” he dejectedly exclaimed, “Ican’t go on with that scalings The rheumatism has got me worse than ever. I don’t know what’s to be done. I asked Dunn for a lay-off tonight, and he told me if I quit now it would be for good. He’s had it In for me for a long time, and I suppose he thinks this is his chance to ship me.” • “I’m sure I don’t know what is to become of us, with a payment due on the farm,” complained Mrs. Tuttle, a little worn, tired-faced woman. "Say, dad!" cheerfully exclaimed a sturdy, rosy-cheeked girl of eighteen, throwing an arm lovingly around his neck. “Why can’t ,1 take your place on the log pile? I have been with you ever since I can remember, scaling timber.” “Why, gal,” replied the old man, tenderly stroking her cheek, “it’s no place for you among all those rough men.” ** “But I know the most of them, dad,, and 1 am not afraid.” i “Amos Tuttle loved his daughter better than anything else on earth, and he was proud to have her offer -to step into the breach. But instinctively he shrank from consenting to her coming in contact with all those rough men. For several moments he tenderly regarded her in thoughtful silence. At length he spoke, but with evident reluctance. “Well, Rita, if Dunn is/willing you may try It, but if any of those Jacks Insult you, gal, tell me, and I’ll crawl up there on my hands and knees and shoot the cusses.” Then next morning Amoß Tuttle could not get out of bed, but his substitute, cheerful and self-reliant, promptly at seven o’clock swung the calipers and figure tablets across her shoulder and resolutely started for the landing.-Clad in short skirts and red sweater, with long garters and overshoes, and her riotous curls confined by a long topped Canadian toboggan cap, she successfully defied the cold and was a most bewitching wood nymph personified. Jim Dunn, the boss, was alone on the landing when she arrived. The teams had gone up the mountain after their first load, and the landing men had not come up from the camp. Dunn was a big, coarse, illiterate man, who kept his job by sheer muscular force.

“Hello, little one,” he exclaimed In a" coarse, familiar Voice. Rita acknowledged the greeting as graciously as possible. She had an instinctive dread of this man. “Father is laid up with rheumatism. May I take his place?” Dunn regarded her a moment in open admiration before answering, then laughing coarsely he said: “It’s irregular, gal, and might cost me me job, if the company knew it. But, 1% be danged if I won’t do it, on one consideration. If you’ll give me a kiss every morning, I’ll do It,” he finished. , Rita’B heart sank. “Is there no other alternative?” she asked. “I don’t know what that jawbreaker means; but I reckon you mean, is there smother loop-hole? I opine there ain’t It’s a kiss a day, or you don’t get the job.” “Put a daughter of yours in my place, Mr. Dunn,” she pleaded. “Ain't got none, an’ if I had reckon a kiss wouldn’t hurt her any,” was his unfeeling reply. Her plea had fallen on barren ground. She hesitated. It was an infamous proposition he offered, but on it hung her father’s job, and they needed the money. v 1 “I accept,” she crisply replied, “provided you take the kiss when no one is around.” “All right, my dear, just as you say. Quess I’ll take me first installment now.” Inwardly Rita trembled, and an overpowering disgust for this beast filled her soul. But she resolutely held up her head and submitted to the sacrilege. It was well Amos Tuttle did not witness the act; if he had Jim Dunn would never have lived to insult another woman. Energetically wiping her outraged lips, Rita went to the scaler’s little shack to wait for her first load of timber.. It was not long before several teams drove on the landing, with clanking of chains, booming of dragging timber, and hoarse shouts of the teamsters. Rita’s debut created a sensation, but it was a cordial, good-natured one. Admiration for the plucky girl who so bravely took her father's place amid such trying circumstances brought out a shout of approval from those rough men. One old teamster, a friend 'of her father’s, shouted enthusiastically: “Bully for yew, little Miss Clh pers!” A cheer and the name were taken up and repeated, until the woods rang with the echoes. There was not a man in camp but would have championed her, and taken a licking from Dunn, had she appealed to them. But she realized Dunn was a power there, and it would do no good to appeal to anyone When •he could stand it no longer she would quit v A week passed, and Mr. Tuttle grew

no better. Dunn was somewhat addicted to drink, and on several occasions Rita had been saved further indignities by the opportune arrival of the landing man. On Monday morning Dunn had been drinking more than common, and insisted on kissing Rita several times before he would release her. Suddenly she was conscious of a stranger present, and looking up she saw a tall young man standing in the doorway sympathetically regarding her. ' ■ , There was a quick step, and a clenched fist caught Dunn on the ear, and he went down. With a curse, he was on his feet in an instant,- ugly as a bull. Dunn was a fighter, and Rita trenibled for the stranger; but her concern was needless; he just played with Dunn; circling around him, and when he wished he promptly knocked him down, until Dunn, acknowledged he had enough. “Now,'* said the stranger, standing over the prostrate man, “don’t you ever try to insult this girl again, or you won’t get off so easy next time; and remember she is to continue with the scaling unmolested. I suppose you may as well know, first as last, that I am Ralph Orton, eldest son of Arthur Orton, senior member of the Kilkenney Lumber company. I shall be here for some time, looking after our interests; and if I hear of any more of your deviltry, we shall dispense with your services.” Finishing, with a cheerful nod to Rita, he turned on his heel and walked away. Dunn painfully rose to his feet and slunk away, a look of concentrated hatred on his brutalized face. Rita, trembling with excitement, went into the shack to think, and cherish something new and strange ,that had entered her souL . The days and weeks went by uninterrupted. Ralph Orton took up his abode at Tuttle’s home, and the old man soon acquired a distinct liking for this energetic young man. Ralph helped Rita with her work when he was not on the mountain. Dunn kept his place in sullen, vindictive silence. Ralph and Rita soon fell into the pleasant habit of waiting for each other at the landing, and walking home together in the twilight.

It was a Saturday night in February. The men had all come off the mountain early, except Ralph and Dunn. Anxiously Rita waited, but still they did not come. The sun had dropped behind the western horizon in a deep red setting, tinging the snow blood red. She trembled. A foreboding of danger reached out and closed about her heart. Suddenly she heard a step on the snow. Darting behind a tree, she waited, alert and expectant, Her quick ear told her it was Dunn. Presently he came in sight, and her heart Bank like lead. His face carried a covert look of triumph. Instinctively she knew something had happened to Ralph. Soon as his footsteps had died away she sprang into the road and sped up the hard mountain road like a startled fawn. Her one thought was of the man she loved better than life. She had no definite idea where to look for him; nor had it occurred to her to alarm the man. She knew he waß in grave danger somewhere on that bleak mountain side, and on her rested the task of rescuing him; so, panting and trembling, she sped on. Every few stepß she stopped and called his name. No answer come back, but the moaning of the light breeze through the woods. On she pushed to the top of a ridge. It had got quite dark now. Pausing on a ledge almost on the top of the cant, she shouted: “Ralph! Ralph! where are you?” "Here, Rita, at the top of the cant,” came the quiet, reassuring reply. With a glad cry she hurried to the top of the ridge, where a lone spruce stood. Then she stopped, and her heart sprang into her throat. She saw his danger, and swayed dizzily. -“Courage, my little girl, courage,” came from the smiling lips in cool, even tones. “This is some of that devil Dunn’s work. When my back was turned the coward laid me out. Take heart, little one, we win yet.” It was an appalling situation- Ralph was bound to the lone spruce with a piece of snub warp. The spruce was nearly cut off, so that it cracked ominously in the rising wind. Rita heard it roaring in the distance, and knew when that wave reached them the spruce would break and leap over the ridge to the north, a sheer drop of one hundred feet. A nameless terror seized her as she frantically dug at the knots, and the rising wind roared in her ears like the knell of doom. “Take It easy, Rita, dear, there is plenty of time,” his cool voice reassured her. “My knife is in my pocket, tear it out and cut the warp.” ' Nearer and; nearer the wind came, roaring like a demon in her ears. With one last mad effort she cut the last coil, and Ralph stepped from the tree, safe. With a wild, exultant swoop the wind tore through the tree tops and, with a sharp crack, the lone tpruce sprang over the ledge. “My brave little girl,” he tenderly whispered as she clung to him, choking back quick, nervous sobs. “Thank God! you are safe, Ralph,” she fervently murmured. “God is good, my dear,” was the sober reply. “Let us thank him, Ralph,” she softly whispered. Devoutly two faces were lifted heavenward, one, fair and trustful, the other strong, masterful, compelling, and in each were thanks, mute and appealing. * (Copyright. 1912. by the McClure Newspaper Syndicate.)