Jasper County Democrat, Volume 19, Number 104, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 March 1917 — Then I'll Come Back to you [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Then I'll Come Back to you

By Larry Evans

• SYNOPSIS Ca'4i» H~:er i-s Sarsi. wtlo ihrfr hgn* boci-eZess azui friendly boy, aarurs froca >h» -*lideniess to se* tie city. Ctephesa O'Mara gttcr.e- a giiirrae of Barbara AEisoa. Tbe girl ‘is raA T*ie tTUira boy XaHs in Jove triti h». Sie la tea. be fcsmees. Tse boy and girl are ia a pin? ,'^ mZ * 5 be toift. The cod peojhe - --C~ wrtn eo, ter-. Use yotub's groasrs axzxcr.zn.isit for the girl. Caleb ia Eineh teja’essed with the bay's g obi Bsotfcg ct rfraber. Ee preActsm great fatare -for'ttse lad. O MaJa whips Archibald tTjckcrshars ia a boyhood fight over Barresra. She aka WickKsaai’s sis, arsd Step he- leaves tor parts stfcaows, saying. "I II come back to too.” Tears later tise boy j eturtis as. a ’-m. He is a easiraetsr. Sarah wtirrwi iur=_ Barbara is a beantifnl wm CHAPTER .VL ‘ My Man O'Hara. SOR a week and more Caleb Hunter seocred the sufroundjtigromtTT He whipped over the hiEs in every direction bslf hopeful that be might oyertaie the boy who had gone in the night. But none of the farmers on the out lying roads had seen pass their way a little foot traveler soch as be described. and after a time even that small hope died. When Dexter Allison came over the next day, his face far more fertmiel than Caleb had ever before seen it by the news which Barbara in tears bad carried to him. together the two men searched for Steve, driving in sSence through the country until they both realized that the search was useless. And at last, one day in early fall. Caleb started alone upon his errand Into that stretch of timber to the north which the boy himself had vaguely designated as “up river.” He spent a week in the saddle before be located the cabin of the Jenkinses Jn an isolated clearing upon the main branch of the river. And even then, when be did locate the Jenkinses, it took hours of quiet argument before Caleb could convince those shy and suspicions people that his errand was an boniest one. Eventually they did come to believe him. They led him afoot another half mile up the timber fringed stream to a log caLin set back in the ha Earns upon a needle earpetel kcofl. And they stood and stared in stolid wonder at this portly man in riding breeches and leather puttees when he finally emerged from that aanall shack. Old Tom's tin box under his arm. and with lips working strange ly pinned the door shut behind him. Caleb left in the Bmp fingers of the head of the Jenkins’ bousehc-id a yellow tinted note of a denomination which they had not even known existed. He left them half doubting its genuineness Until later when there fame an opportunity to spend it- And Sarah was waiting at the door of the white place on the hill when Caleb wheeled into the yard at dusk two days later. ‘'You've found him!" she exclaimed as she glimpsed his face when he entered the haH Caleb shook his head. Ms heart aching at the haaeer in her question. “No. I haven’t found him. Sarah." he aid gently enough. “But I —l've found out who be m.”They forgot their supper that night. With beads dose together they hung for hours over the ink smeared shea? of papers which the tin box yielded up. Most of them wee covered with a cramped and misspelled handwriting which they knew most be that of the one whom Steve had called “Old Tom." Some of them were hard to decipher, bet their import was very, very dear. There was one picture, a miniature of a girL eager of face and wavy of hair. Her relationship to the boy was unmistakable. Sarah found that an-J wept over It silently, and while she wept Caleb rifted ,out the renaming loose sheets. , .... “It's not hard to understand now. is itbe said. “It's pretty l**" now why be had to go. And we. Sarah—we wh » were going to make something ci _im'—why. we should have known aLo- lately without this evidence. They laughed at him, they made fan of him, an ? there isa't any better blood than fievrs in that boy's veins! He was Stephen son...and no mote: brilliant ?, rrister than OTMara ever addressed a Jury of a prisoner's peers and—and broke their very hearts with the simplicity, cf his. pleading.” Small folded her thin bands over the woman's picture. . ’ —1 nkfc, Lis mother's face." she murmured faintly. “And I'm jealous of her. Cal! Yob don't kaTe to remind me of tie rest «f It, either, for I re call -it. .aIL She “died and he—he Wect all to pieces- They siid at Ms death that he was Ami; when he did follow her —across —they htmaeJ everywhere, didn't they, anl neyer found the: bqy? Didn't some pf the newspapers argue that a servant —a gardener—had stolen him?" Caleb nodded kia head.

xoat servant was uid uom. Ana tne only defense he makes is just one line or so in—in this." Caleb dropped a hand upon the half legible pages. "He says that he wasn’t going to let civilization make of the boy’s life the wreck which he. poor, queer, honest soul, thought it had made of his father’s. And do you know, Sarah, do you know. I can't help but believe that this overzealous thing which the law would have prosecuted whs the best thing he could have done? I’ll take these things now and lock them in the safe for the boy until he conies back home!” But Sarah Hunter kept the picture of Stephen O’Mara’s mother separate from the reat; she took it upstairs [ with her when she went, white and tired faced, to bed. And it was Sarah’s j faith which outlasted the years which . followed. She never weakoned in her I‘ belief that some day the boy would come back —she and one other whose faith in his last boyish promise, phrased in bitterness, also endured. For during the next five years there was not a summer which brought Allison into the hills but what the first question of his daughter Barbara, motherless now herseLf, was of Steve. “Has—has Stephen come back?” she asked invariably. At first the query was marked by nothing more 'than a child’s naive eagerness, and later, when it was brought up in a casual, by the way fashion, it Was. nevertheless, tinged with hope. Five years lengthened into ten, and still Steve did not come. But whenever Barbara asked that question Caleb remembered, as though it had happened only yesterday, that morning when she first appeared to the boy. Then came a morning when Stepleu O'Hara did return. All winter and throughout the summer, too, the Hunter place had been closed until that day in late October. It had been a warm week —a week of such unseasonable humidity for the hills that Caleb, rising somewhat before his usual hour, had blamed his sleeplessness, as usual, upon the weather. He was glad to be home again that morning. Caleb was wondering if Barbara would be with her father on this trip. Barbara had, he knew, been two years on the continent. “finishing.” Allison called it, always with a wry face and a gesture toward his wallet pocket. He was wondering as he came down the stairs if she would ask him again if—if—and then at the sight of a seated figure outside on the top step of the veranda he pulled up sharp in the doorway. Caleb didn't have to wonder any

longer. The attitude of that figure before him was so like the picture which time had been unable to erase, so absolutely identical in everything save garb and size alone, that the man, recoiling a little dragged one hand across bis forehead as though he doubted his own eyes. But when he looked again it was still there, sitting chin in palm, small bead under a rather weather beaten felt hat thrust slightly forward, gazing fixedly toward the stucco house beyond the shrubbery. And before Caleb eonld move, before he was more than half aware of the painful pulse [ in his throat, it all happened again just as it had happened years and years I beforeCaleb heard voices In the adjoining grounds, and as he half turned in that direction Allison’s bnlky form, vivid in a far inore vivid plaid, appeared in the hedge gap. While Caleb stared another figure flashed through ahead of him. laughter upon her lips, and paused a-tip-toe to wave a hand in greeting. And instantly, as they had ten years before. Barbara Allison’s eyes swung in instant scrutiny of the one who was seated at Caleb's feet. She hesitated and recovered herself. Bnt when with quite dignified deliberation she finally came forward to pass that motionless figure upon the steps every pulse in her body was beating consciousness of his' nearness. And yet at that when she paused at Caleb's side and bobbed bier head with a characteristic impetuosity which she had never lost she seemed completely oblivions to the presence of any one save Caleb and herself. # “Good morning. Uncle Cal,” she murmured very demurely. Then the man upon the steps moved He rose and turned and swept his rather weather beaten hat from his head. His hair was stiß wavy, still chestnut in the shadows. And Caleb. though he coaid not force a word from his tightened throat, marveled how tall the boy had grown—hqw paradoxically broad of shoulder and slender of body beseemed to be. Dexter Allison. coming up less airily acroßS the lawn, surprised bis daughter poised with one hand outstretched, red ilp® half open. He found her staring. velvet eyed and pink of face, at a tad figure in blue flannel and corduroy. aad. although he had never seen : him in all the months that the latter ’ M been In his employ, Allison knew j thk must be the one in whose keeping ; lay. directly or Indirectly, the success i or failure of the biggest thing he bad

ever attempted in this north country—the man to whom he always referred, whenever he boasted of his exploits, as “my man O'Mara.” “I always told them that you would come back,” she murmured then. “Just as you—you said you would.” The remark was barely loud enough for even Steve to hear, bufe hard upon its utterance she caught her breath in anger at herself for her own senseless confusion, which had led her into saying the one thing she least’ of all bad wanted to voice'. Even an inane remark concerning the weather would have been better than that girlish naivete which she felt seemed to force upon him, too, a recollection of the very letter of a promise which had, no doubt, long since become in his mind nothing but a quaint episode not untinged with absurdity. “Hum-m-m!” puffed Allison, “num-m-m!” He spoke directly to Stepheu O’Mara, who half turned his head at the first heavily facetious syllable. “So you did get my message, eh? I rather thought that it wouldn’t reach you up river until today.” An ample smile embraced the tall figure In riverman’s

garb and his own daugnter’s crimson countenance—a most meaningful smile of roguery. “Well, from what I’ve heard,” he stated, “and what I’ve * * * seen, I should say that you are my man* O’Mara. Mr. Elliott himself has informed me that your quite spectacular success in one or two vital campaigns has been entirely due to the fact that you are an—er—opportunist! I agree with Mr. Elliott absolutely—that is, if my first premise Is correct.” Barbara’s face had cooled a little In that moment since Steve’s eyes had left her face. Now she forgot her confusion—forgot to be annoyed, even at her father’s clumsy banter. “Your man, O’Mara!” she exclaimed Indignantly. “Your man! Why, he—he’s my”— And that was as far as she went. Her voice thinned Into nothingness, but words were not necessary to tell either Caleb or Steve that she had been about to assert a prior claim which dated back years and years. “I have always insisted to Mr. Elliott,” Steve said, “that the solution of all tie difficulties, which he chooses to view as gloriously romantic tilts with Destiny, depends one half upon luck and the other half on being on the ground personally when the —affairstarts.” He half faced toward Allison. “I am O’Mara,” he finished very briefly; “your man, O’Mara—if you happen to be the East Coast Development and Timber company.” There was at most no more than the barest suggestion of It in Steve’s crisp question, but Caleb sensed Immediately that Allison’s placid appropriation of the blue flannel shirted one as his own particular property was not a mutually accepted status. Dexter, however, failed or chose to read nothing In the drawling question. “I’m it,” he agreed jovially—“that is, I and two or three others, including Mr. Elliott, our esteemed president. I’ve heard much of you. Mr. O’Mara. I’ve looked forward to this meeting,” he added as he shook hands. “Now 1 want to tell you that I am proud to know you. And so you didn’t get my message, after all?” “I had to come down river yesterday,” Steve explained. “Your telegram found me here, and I waited over until this morning, as you'suggested.” “Surely—surely! I see—l see!” Allison emphasized his comprehension, “Not that it was anything of vital importance. I just wanted a short Conference with you, that was all.” “Would you—would you mind finding Miss Sarah, Steve?” Caleb asked. “Will you tell her. please, that we are to be subjected to another—neighborly Imposition?” Allison shook his head and led the way to a chair. “I didn’t know that you were acquainted with him. Cal. Have you known him long?” “TTm-m-m-ryes!” Caleb weighed his reply. “Quite some time. I, think I might say.” He shook with Scarcely suppressed laughter, but Allison Ignored his senseless mirth. “I’d like to claim that boy as my own discovery,” he avowed-, “but I can’t, not without fear of successful contradiction on Elliott’s part. And In point of service It isn’t fair to call him a boy. either, though I suppose both of ns are old enough to be his father. He’s Elliott’s find. Elliott suggested him as the one man for this job when I consolidated with the Ainnesley C'Tfwd and they took no the contract

to move tne reserve timber from Thfi* ty Mile and the valleys above. Elliott , knew of him, but I’ve been looking up I his record pretty closely since he took hold in earnest. ’ “He’s in hi? twenties, as near as I can make out, but he’s come through on one of two jobs that might well make nn old oampaigher envious. He took a fortune in hard woods out of San Domingo for a Berlin concern: he was the only man on the St. Sebastian river job who said the construction was too light. He said it wouldn t stand when .the, ice began to move in the spring, and it didn’t! Oh, he knows his business! But it wasn’t his suc- ■ cesses which caught Elliott’s eyq. It s the way he lias failed a. couple of.times, fighting right back t<J the last ditch, and fighting and fighting, when all the rest had quit, that made me anxious to get a look at him. Perhaps there are older men who can outtigure him i on loads and stresses, but as a field '.general he stands alone. He can banj die men. And when it comes to meeti ing conditions just as they arise Elliott says lie’s a wonder. lie can out guess dear old Mother Nature herself, “That’s why the East Coast company brought him up here to build its bit of road,” lie went On slowly. “They’ve got to move that Reserve company timber. They have n contrfict that’ll break ’em—break us—if we fall down. And do you know, Cal. I—l can’t help but believe that the tiling is beyond the pale of possibility. I believed it six months ago, when Elliott and Ainnesley and the rest of them were so keen for it, and I believe it still, even thougli I have seen Elliott’s engineer and know what lie has already accomplished. That track’ll never go through on schedule—and that’s why I’m up here for the winter. It’s going to be a hot little race against time, with some millions for a purse. It’ll break the East Coast company if he fails, and”—his voice became oddly intense—“and I tell you again that it—can’t —be— done!” Allison lay back In his chair and breathed deeply, slowly, and Miss Sarah appeared that moment in the door : way, pinker of cheek and more tremulous of lip than her brother had ever seen her before. She dropped Allison an old fashioned courtesy, which was ab exceedingly frivolous performance for Sarah. “Breakfast is served, Cal,” she fairly chortled, “and there are tWQ very Jiunerv children Inside.” (To be continued.)

"I always told them that you would come back" she murmured.