Jasper County Democrat, Volume 19, Number 99, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 March 1917 — Then I'll Come Back to you [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Then I'll Come Back to you

By Larry Evans

of '• J ONCE TO EVERY . .-'."-A.

SYNOPSIS Ca’eb Hunter and his sister Sarah welcome to their home Stephen O Mara, a homeless and friendless boy, starting from the wilderness to see the city. Stephen O’Mara catches a glimpse of Barbara Allison. The girl is rich. The O’Mara boy falls in love with her. She la ten. he fourteen.

CHAPTER IV. -HI Tell Her You’re a Baptist.”

ITEVE was most taciturn at I the table the following momI ing. His moody silence puzI zled even Sarah Hunter. But

when the latter, whose Sunday schedule no storm could alter, came home from church and found Caleb and the bey immersed in a mass of flies and leaders and lines which had been skein. «d to dry her thorough disapproval loosed the boy’s tongue. She stood in the doorway surveying with a frown their preoccupied industry. ... "It seems to me, Cal.” she commented. “that even if you haven’t any regard for the Sabbath you might do better than lead those younger than yourself into doing things which might better be left for days which were meant for such things.”

She swished upstairs before Caleb had a chance to answer. But after she had gone Steve looked up from a line he was spooling. "She 1 ain’t particularly pleased, I fake it.” he remarked. “Not particularly,” Caleb chuckled, “It’s funny, too. because I do most of this sort of work on Sunday. You’d think she’d become resigned-to it, but she doesn’t.” The boy thought deeply for awhile. “Didn't—didn’t the ’postles cast their nets on Sunday ?’ he asked presently. Up shot Caleb's head. “Huh-h-h?” he gasped. “I sed didn’t the ’postles cast their nets on Sunday?” Steve repeated. “Seems to me they did, but I can t just rec'lict now what chapter it was in." Caleb pulled his face into a semblance of sobriety. “Seems tome they did,” he agreed a Httle weakly, “now that you mention it. I don’t just recollect where it occurred. either, at the moment, but we’ll hare to look it up, because as a case of precedent it’ll be a clincher foi Sarah.”

Allison joined them Monday morning at daybreak. All day they drove through the seeping rain—drove north in Caleb’s backboard, to turn off finally upon a woods trail that ran into the east along the lesser branch of the river. During the ride Steve’s bearing toward the third member of the party was too plain to escape notice, for he never looked at nor directed a word to Allison unless it was in reply to a direct question, and then his answers Were almost monosyllabic. But Alliaon, who, as usual, gave his undivided attention to the country through which they were passing. In attitude toward the boy was even more remarkable. Once when they had halted at noon ije pointed out a hillside of pine, black beneath the rain, close clustered and of mastlike straightness. “There’s a wonderful stand of pine, Cal." he remarked. “I’d venture to say that it would cut at least 2,000,000 feet." ,

Instantly, although the remark was addressed to him. Caleb knew that it was Stephen’s comment for which Alli-| son was angling, and hard upon his | casual statement the boy’s head cataie sharply around. . “Shell run nigh double that." he swallowed the bait. “Shell run double and mebby a trifle more.” Nor did Allison even sniile now. “What makes you think so?” he asked. Again there came the boy’s pat answer. ° . “I ain't thinkin'," be said. “It’s jest there. They’re close set, them trees, and they’re clear, clean to the tops. Th.re ain’t a stump won'trun near ten standard.” AT’ison squinted and finally nodded hi c head ■ • “Maybe." he agreed; “maybe.” But later Caleb saw him enter some figures in his small, black -bound notebook.

That night the episode was repeated With a hit of variation. They had set up their tent and made camp a little before nightfall. Far below them, hidden by the trees, the east branch cut a threadlike gash through the center of a valley broad enough and round enough to have been a veritable amphitheater of the gods. The whole great hollow was clothed with evergreen. a sea of dripping tops in the semigloom, and Allison, when he had set aside his plate and lighted his pipe, lifted a hand in a gesture which em braced it ail. “If you weren’t so lazy brained, CaL” he said, “that sight would stir in you something more than a mere appreciation of what you call the ‘sublimity of sheer immensity.* For the man who can look ahead ten or a dozen years

tnere ip an undreamed of fortune right here in this valley.” Caleb yawned. “No doubt.” he agreed. “But I didn’t coin that phrase for immense fortunes. I guess I’m old fashioned enough to like it a whole lot better just as it is.” Then he became suddenly awaVe of the tense earnestness with which Stephen O’Mara was listening: And when Allison, thinking aloud, mused that the cost of driving the timber down the shallow stream to the faroff mills would be perhaps prohibitive words fairly leaped to the boy’s lips. “But they—they won’t be drivin’ that timber by floods when they git tc tacklin’ these here valleys!” he exclaimed. “Old Tom ses when they really git to lumberin’ these mountains they’ll skid it daown to the railroad tracks and yank it out by steam!” That sober statement in the piping voice bad a strange effect upon Allison. He leaned forward, a sort of guarded astonishment in his attitude, to peer at the childish face in the Are glow. Then he seemed to remember that it was just a bit of a woods waif who had spoken. But Caleb, who was lazy brained in some matters, sensed that Steve had put into words Allison’s own unspoken thought, just as Allison at that moment voiced the question which he was about to utter himself. ;■ ”1 suppose it was this—this Old Tom who taught you all these things you know about timber?” he said, curious. Steve pondered the question-“Wal-1-1, yes.” he answered at last “Old Tom learned me some, but—but most of it I kind of feel as If I always knowed.” The boy was fast asleep, curled up beneath the blankets, when Caleb finally broached that night the matter which had kept him awake the entire nighf"before. And when he had finished Allison sat quiet for a long time before he offered anjl reply. “Yon mean” — he began at length. “I just mean that I’m going to give him his chance,” Caleb cut in. His voice was hushed, but vehement. | “Why, man. think what he has this minute to start with—a brain as clear as a diamond, absolutely fresh, absolutely unspoiled or fagged with the nonsensical folderol which makes up the bulk of the usual boy’s education of his age. and a working knowledge. ' for instance, of this north country • which most men envy! Why. the possibilities are limitless!” Allison puffed his pipe in silence. ■„ “No doubt you’re right,” he admitted. "In ten years, with a technical education to back up his practical knowledge, he might prove priceless to some one who had need of such a specialist, always assuming, of course. , that he developed according to prom- ; ise. But the possibilities are.limitless, 'too, in the other directions, aren’t they?" “Meaning?” invited Caleb. “Well, you don’t know any too much concerning his antecedents, do you?” Allison suggested. “And still”— “I don’t have to.” Caleb interrupted, “not after one look at him."

. —“and still if you catch a boy young enough,” Allison finished serenely, “you can make a fairly presentable gentleman out of almost any material, with time enough and money enough i to teach him what to do.” “You can,” Caleb came back, "but. no matter howTnueh money you spend, you can’t make the sort of a gentleman out of him that knows without being taught what not to do! They—they have to be born to that. Dexter.” And there they let it drop. But the next morning when they were alone upon the brook Caleb, after several false starts, managed to reopen the subject with the boy himself. “Has it ever occurred to you. Steve/’ he asked, “that all these things you know about the woods might be valuable some day to—to men who pay well for such knowledge?” Steve paid no apparent heed to the question until he had landed a trout which he had hooked a moment before. It was a heavy fish, and Caleb had, promised to teach him how to handle that fly rod. Then he looked up. “Once Old Tom sed they’d be payin’ me more’n he ever earned in his lifetime jest to go araound and tell ’em i how much good lumber they was in standin’ trees. Is that—is that what you mean?’ 1 “Partly—partly, but not entirely either,” Caleb went on. “You said last night that when 'they got to lumbering these mountains they’d be taking it out by steam. When they do they’ll want men who know the woods, but they’ll have to know how to bridge rivers and cross swamps too, won’t they?” The boy promptly forgot his fishing. Knee deep in the stream, he faced squarely around toward Caleb, and from that glowing countenance the man knew that he had only repeated something which long before had already fired the boy’s imagination.

“Tbey’s places wnere I kin git ’em to learn me them things, ain’t they ?” he demanded. “Yes.” sai l Caleb, “there are places. And you—you were thinking of going to school?” “Thinkin’ of it?" echoed Steve. “I always been thinkip’ of IL Why, thet’s all x come outen the timber fer!” “But you said you meant to locate something to do.” the man argued, nonplused, “after you had looked around a trifle.” Steve’s eyes dropped toward the white drill trousers and big boots, the latter half hidden from sight by the' swirling water. “I got to earn mopey first,” he explained patiently. “I—l jest couldn’t git to go to school—in these here clothes.” “Oh!” murmured Caleb. “Oh!" And then, recovering himself, “That’ll take a long time,” he ventured. The boy smiled strangely—the first smile of man’s sophistication which Caleb had seen upon his “face. “I’ve always bed to wait a long time fer everything I’ve wanted,” he answered, “but I always git it, just the same, if I only want it hard enough.” Caleb cleared his throat self consciously. “Still,” he argued again, “it would waste some very valuable years. Now

—now, what do you think of staying with me. and—and starting in this fall?” t The boy’s lips fell apart while he stood and gaped up into Caleb’s slightly red face. “You mean,” he breathed; “you mean —jest live—with you?” “That was my Idea,” said Caleb. And th£n slowly the boy’s head dropped again, as it had when he bowed to gaze at his uncouth, begrimed clothes. The man thought that he caught the inference of that moment of silence. “We can fix up the matter of clothes later/*he made haste to forestall any objecuon in that direction. “That doesn’t amount to anything, anyway.” The clear eyes lifted again, steady and wide and very, very grave. “I always knowed it was cornin’.” said Stephen O'Mara. “I always knowed it was a-comin’ —this chance — even when I didn’t know haow it would come. Ner I wa’n’t thinkin’ about my clothes. I reckon I kin learn jest as fast in these as in any. I was jest thinkin’ about Miss Sarah. She—she might not like it. hevin’ two men folks a-raound the house under foot.” It was Caleb’s turn to stand agape.

“Miss Sarah!”’he faltered, astonished, and then he remembered. He laughed unsteadily with relief. For an instant he had been inexplicably afraid that the boy was going to refuse his offer. “Why, you mustn’t mind what Sarah said yesterday,” he rushed on. “She—she—well, she’s a Baptist Steve, and you know what that means.” He leaned forward a little, his voice quite stealthily confidential. “But I can fix that all right." he promised. “I can surely fix that. For I’ll tell her—l’ll tell her you’re a Baptist too. Will you—will you stay ?” And after a time solemnly Steve nodded. Later, when alone, Caleb chuckled mountainously over his reply. “Thet’s—thefs what I cal’late I be.” he said. J _ (To be continued.) ;

“You mean,” he breathed; “you mean —jest live—with you?”