Jasper County Democrat, Volume 9, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 November 1906 — Uncle Peter [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Uncle Peter

By EDITH M. DOANE

Thomas Coleman, cold, reserved, ambitious, sat at the head of the heavy library table. Beside him his pretty, fashionable wife drummed softly with her finger tips on the polished mahogany and watched her husband sideways out of her dark, inscrutable eyes.' The other poleman, Elizabeth, stood by the window, a letter with a queer South American postmark in her hand. “Poor, lonely old man,” she said softly. “Listen, Tom. ‘l’m kind of hungerin’ for the sight of a face that belongs to me,’ and thia—‘l jest want to get acquainted with my own folks’— isn’t that pathetic?” “*1 ain't beholden,’ she went on, scanning the letter swiftly. ‘I don’t ask no favors, but I’d kind of like to feel that them that is to have the little something I leave will have a kindly feelln’ for the old man who scraped It all together, when he’s gone.’ ” She looked up with swift comprehension at the tense attitude of the other two. “You do not suppose that ‘little something’ can be a fortune, do yon?’ she. said half nervously. - “It might be as well,” Thomas Coleman suggested, “to acquire more definite Information concerning it before—ah—committing ourselves.” Thomas Coleman was a man whom his friends called ‘level headed.” "May be nothing In it,” be added. "But if there should be?” suggested his wife, still drumming softly on the polished wood. Only his wife knew how fearfully Thomas Coleman had been hampered in money matters lately. “Whether there is or not, he has a claim upon us,” put in Elizabeth, hotly. “He’s a poor, lonely old man—our father’s brother.” Thomas Coleman raised a remonstrating hand. "Be reasonable, Elizabeth. We do not know him. It is not to be supposed that we can offer him

a home indefinitely unless we receive some little—ah—remuneration in the end.” “Although It would be in line with Elizabeth's quixotic ideas to do so,” said Tom’s wife, sharply. Elizabeth was a standing grievance with her sister-in-law—Elizabeth, who was supremely indifferent to the value of money—Elisabeth, tall and straight and splendid, who preferred a self supporting life in a tiny flat to dependence in her brother’s beautiful home, and who proposed to “throw herself away” on a fellow whose only lack was that of money. She confronted them now Indignantly. “It is a shame!" she flashed, looking like an enraged princess, with her flaming cheeks and heavy, red gold hair. “A lonely old man begs for affection. He freely offers us all ha has. Be it much or little, it is all. 'n return you weigh and appraise and calculate. Oh,” she broke off, “I am ashamed of you. Let us make him honestly welcome, whatever he brings.” And in that first day, while the others held aloof, it was Elizabeth who, In warm hearted, impulsive fashion welcomed the little old man enveloped in a shaggy greatcoat, who regarded his “own folks" with shrewd blue eyes which looked out rather wistfully from under the shaggy brows. On the second day Uncle Peter approached Thomas Coleman. “Some mornin’ when it’s convenient I'd like to go downtown with you. I want to find Willie Moore’s office,” he added apologetically. Thomas Coleman looked up quickly. “William T. Moore, the lawyer?” The old man nodded. “Willie Moore’s father and me was boys together, and I always had considerable confidence in Willie. I’ve got a few papers I'd kinder like him to keep,” he added. The few papers turned out to be |5,000,000 worth of shares in the El Juarez gold mines. Uncle Peter’s welcome was assured. For six months he was the recipient of every attention which the solicitude of his beloved and happily surprised nephew and his wife could devise*

then, one day, like a bolt from a clear sky, the storm burst. • The El Juarez mines were flooded! The rumor started In the Mining Exchange when, stock that had been $l5O was’ quoted at $25 a share; then the reporters got .it and the journals flaunted great headlines of "Panic In Wall Street!" “El Juarez Mines Flooded!” Later the report was confirmed, and by-3 o’clock the shares of the El Juarez mines were not worth the paper on which they were written. The old man to whom the mines bad been a lifelong companion stared desperately at. the flaunting headlines, then, covering his face with his rough, worn hand, gave way to his grief With the abandon of a child. “Them mines was jest like my own child,” he sobbed. “1 knowed they wasn’t actin’ up jest right when I left ’em, bat I never susplcloned they’d fetch up where they hev,” and again tears flowed unrestrainedly down the furrowed cheeks.

Disappointed, imblttered, almost maddened by the loss of sorely needed wealth just within his grasp, Thomas Coleman broke the silence. “Don’t worry,” he said coldly. "You are not too old yet to find some suitable enjoyment.” Uncle Peter looked up In astonishment, then as the meaning of the cruel words dawned upon him his face went suddenly and pitifully white. “I kinder thought if I was ever In trouble I could depend on my own folks.” The old voice quavered piteously as yie curtains parted and Elizabeth entered the room. Sweeping past the others, she took the old man’s hands in her young ones. “I have come to take you home with me,” she said simply. “But the mines,” he said unsteadily. “Never mind. There isn’t much room In my little flat, but there's a loving welcome, and soon”—she blushed happily—"there will be a little house in the suburbs.”

“But how about that young feller you’re goln’ to marry?” questioned the old man doubtfully. “He told me to come for you,” answered Elizabeth, with proud, happy eyes. e The old man rosd*and, still holding Elizabeth’s hand,* faced Thomas Coleman and his wife. “You said I wasn’t too old to find suitable employment,” he said, “and I ain’t. I’ve found it. I’m goln’ to buy that house out in the suburbs, and it won’t be no little one, either. An’ I’m goln’ to set the young feller up in whatever business he wants to be set up in, an’, what’s more, I’m goln* to give Elizabeth a million dollars in government bonds fer her weddin’ gift. I ain’t through with the other million yet, but when I am she an’ her children gits it My money wan’t in them mines. I told Willie Moore how they wuz actin’ up, an’ he took it out fer me three months ago. I ain’t denyln’ I felt bad about ’em, but ’twaru’t the money I wuz thinkin’ of. "No,” he repeated, “I warn’t thinkin’ of the money, an’ he patted her hand lovingly—“neither wuz Elizabeth, but,” he added slowly, with a shrewd glance at Thomas Coleman’s white, baffled face, “it kinder looks as though there’s others that wuz.”

“I HAVE COME TO TAKE YOU HOME WITH ME.”