Pittston Gazette

              mm W: -WgTUffr} Oldest Newspaper In the Wyoming Vallev PITTSTON, LUZERNE COUNTY, PA., FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 1899. ~AWefe I : ! ' OF Aft jfl I wr Cnuw x/\ SCHKEDTEE. *3 iininiFUi' I l; 1 A TALE OF LIFE IN THE f| ]\[ ★ BOER REPUBLIC. §| L  "-' CHAPTitn t " :kly Local and Family Journal. J ftl.OO a Tear ; iaAdniiM. this mountain. Be thou cast into the sea, nothing doubting. It shall be done.' I ask for the sake of Jesus Christ. Spot m ej/ui m mnu ui ivou. ween after week, month after month, the sun looked down from the cloudless sky till the "karroo" bushes were leafless sticks broken into the earth, and the earth Itself was naked and bare, and only the milk bushes, like old hags! pointed their shriveled fingers heavenward, praying for the rain that never came. "There was a living man called Bonaparte once," said she of the great eyes. As the two girls rounded the side of the "kopje" ap unusual scene presentr-d Itself. A large group was gathered Rt the back door of the homestead. rafters hung down straps, "reims," old boots, bits of harness and a string of onions. The bed was in another corner, covered by a patchwork quilt of faded red lions and divided from the rest of the room by a blue curtain, now drawn back. On the mantelshelf was an endless assortment of little bags and stones, and on the wall hung a map of south Germany, with a red line drawn through it to show where the German had wandered. This place was the one home the girls had known for many a year. The house where Taut' Sannle lived and ruled was a place to sleep In, to eat In, not to be happy In. It was In vain she told them they were grown too old to go there. Every morning and evening found them there. Were there not too many golden memories hanging about the old place for them to leave it? which the friends at Kmmans, beholding It, said, "It Is the Lord!" "Bjf this time the bears were sitting in a circle all round the tree. Yes," said Bonaparte, impressively fixing his ayes on the Oerman, "a regular, exact circle. The marks of their tails were left in the snow, and I measured it afterward. A drawing master couldn't have done it better. It was that saved me. If they'd rushed on me at once, poor old Bon would never have been here to tell this story. But they came on, sir, systematically, one by -one. All the rest sat on their tails and waited. The first fellow came up, and I shot him; the second fellow—I shot him; the third—I shot him. At last the tenth came. He was the biggest of all—the leader, you may say. " "Wall,' I said, 'give me your hand. My fingers are stiff with the cold. There is only one bullet left I shall miss him. While he is eating me you get down and take your gun, and live, dear friend, live to remember the who gave his life for you!' By that time the bear was at me. I felt his paw on my trousers. Again and yet again, through the long hours of that night, as the old man walked, he looked up to the roof of his little room, with its blackened rafters, and yet saw them not His rough bearded face was illuminated with a radiant gladness, and the night was not shorter to the dreaming sleepers than to him whose waking dreams brought heaven near. Amen." "Ah, yes, I know," said Em—"the poor prophet whom the lions eat I am always so sorry for him." He knelt down with his face upon the ground, and he folded his hands upon his curls. The fierce sun poured down its heat upou bis head and upon his altar. When he looked up, he knew what he should see—the glory of God! For fear his very heart stood still; his breath came heavily; he was half suffocated. He dared not look up. Then at last he raised himself. Above him was the quiet blue sky, about him the red earth. There were the clumps of Bilent ewes and his altar; that was all. On the doorstep stood the Boer woman, a hand on each hip, her face red and fiery, her head nodding fiercely. At her feet sat the yellow Hottentot maid, her satellite, and around stood the black Kaffir maids, with blankets twisted round their half naked figures. Two, who stamped mealies in a wooden block, held the great staminers in their hands and stared stupidly at the object of attraction. It certainly was not to look at the old German overseer, who stood in the center of the group, that they had all gathered together. His salt and pepper suit, grizzly black beard and gray eyea were as familiar to every one on the farm as the red gables of the homestead itself, but beside him stood the stranger, and on him all eyes were fixed. Ever and anon the newcomer cast a glance over his pendulous red nose to the spot where the Boer woman stood and smiled faintly. "He was the greatest man who ever lived," she said, "the man I like best." "And what did he dor* asked Em, conscious that she had made a mistake and that her prophet was not the man. It was on an afternoon of a long day In that thirsty summer that on the side of the "kopje" farthest from the homestead the two girls sat They were somewhat grown since the days when they played hide and seek there, but they were mere children still. "He was one man, only one," said her little companion slowly, "yet all the people In the world feared him. He was not born great He was common, as we are. Yet he was master of the world at last Once he was only a little child, then he was a lieutenant then he was a general, then he was an emperor. When he said a thing to himself, he never forgot it He waited and waited and waited, and It came at last" Bo quickly the night fled that he looked up with surprise when at 4 o'clock the first gray streaks of summer dawn showed themselves through the little window. Then the old man turned to rake together the few coals that lay under the ashes, and bis son, turning on the sheepskins, muttered sleepily to know if it were time to rise. He looked up. Nothing broke the Intense stillness of the blue overhead. He looked around In astonishment. Then he bowed again and this time longer than before. Their dress was of dark coarse stuff. Their common blue pinafores reached to their ankles, and on their feet they wore homemade "vel-schoen." shadows from child lit*. The full African moon poured down Its light from the blue sky Into the wide, lonely plain. The dry, sandy its coating of stunted "karroo" bushes a few inches high, the low hills that skirted tbe plain, the milk bustMll with their long, flngerllke leaves, all "were touched by a weird and.Sii almost oppressive beauty as theyfey in the white light. in one spot only was the solemn The boy lay with his eyes wide open. He saw before him a long stream of people, a great dark multitude, that moved in one direction. Then they came to the dark edge of the world and went over. He saw them passing on before him, and there was nothing that could stop them. He thought of how that stream had rolled on through all the taig ages of the past, how the old Greeks and Romans had gone over. The countless millions of China and India—they were going over now. olnce be had come to bed Jiow many had gone? They sat under a shelving rock, on the surface of which were still visible some old Bushman paintings, their red and black pigments having been preserved through long years from wind and rain by the overhanging ledgegrotesque oxen, elephants, rhinoceroses "Lie still, lie still! I would only make a fire," said the old man. When he raised himself the second time, all was unaltered. Only the sun had melted the fat of the little mutton chop, and it ran down upon tbe stones. Long winter nights, when they had sat round the fire and roasted potatoes and asked riddles and the old man had told of the little German village where, 60 years before, a little German boy had played at snowballs and had carried home the knitted stockings of a little girl who afterward became Waldo's mother, did they not seem to Bee the German' peasant girls walking about with their wooden shoes and yellow, braided hair and the little children eating their suppers out of little wooden bowls when the good mothers called them in to have their milk and potatoes? "He must have been very happy," said Em. "Have you been up all night?" asked the boy. "I do not know," said Lyndall, "but he had what he said he would have, and that Is better than being happy. He was their master, and all the people were white with fear of him. He was one, and they were mi Ay, and they got him down at last Tbey were like the wildcats when their teetli are fast in a great dog, like cowardly wildcats," said the child—"they would not let him go. They were many. He was only one. They sent him to an island in tbe sea, a lonely island, and kept him there fast He was one man, and they were many, and they were terrified at him. It was glorious!" said tbe child. "Yes; but It has been short, very short Bleep again, my chicken. It Is yet early." Then the third time he bowed himself. When at last he looked up, some ants had come to the meat on the altar. He stood up and drove them away. Then be put his hat on h*8 hot curls and'Bat in the shade. He clasped his hands about bis knees. He sat to watch what would come to pass. The glory of the Lord God Almighty—he knew he should see it! "I'm not a child," cried the Boer woman in low Cape Dutch, "and I wasn't born yesterday. No; by the Lord, no! You can't take me in! My mother didn't wean me on Monday. One wink of my eye, and I see the whole thing. I'll have no tramps sleeping on my farm!" cried Tant* Sannle, blowing. "No, by the devil, no, not though he had 80 times six red noses!" " 'Oh, Bonnie, Bonnier said the Dnke of Wellington's nephew. But I Just took my gun and pnt the muzzle to the bear's ear. Over be fell—dead!" Bonaparte Blenklns waited to observe what effect his story had made. Then he took out a dirty white handkerchief and stroked his forehead and more especially his eyes. "It always affects me to relate that adventure," he remarked, returning the handkerchief to Ms pocket. "7 gratitude—base, vile Ingratitude—Is called by It That man, that man, i but for me would have perished in pathless wilds of Russia, that max the hour of my adversity forsook n The German looked up. "Yes," a Bonaparte, "I had money, I had lax I said to my wife: There Is Africa struggling country. They want ct tal; they want men of talent; tl want men of ability to open up t land. Let us go.' "I bought £8,000 worth of machir —winnowing, plowing, reaping chines. I loaded a Ship with t Next steamer t came out, wife, dren, all. Got to the Cape. Wb the ship with the things? Lost to the bat torn! And the box w noneyt Lost—nothing saved! W-v t  and a one horned beast such as no man ever has seen or ever shall see. And he went out to fetch more fuel. vof the plain broken. Nea the center a small soMaij- "kopje*' rose. Alone It lay there, a heap of round ironstones piled one Upon another, as over some giant's grave. Here and there a few tufts of grass or small succulent plants had sprung up among Its stones, and on the very summit a clump of prickly pears lifted their thorny arms and reflected, as from mirrors, the moonlight on their broad, fleshy leaves. At the foot of tbe "kopje" lay the homestead, first the stone walled sheep kraals and Kaffir huts, beyond them the dwelling bouse, a square red brick building with thatched roof. Even on its bare red walls and the wooden ladder that The girls sat with their backB to tbe paintings. In their laps were a few fern and ice plant leaves, which by dint of much searching they bad gathered under tbe rocks. CHAPTER IV. Bonaparte Blenklns sat ou the side of the bed. He had wonderfully revived since the day before, held hla head high, talked In a full, sonorous voice and ate greedily of all the viands offered him. At his side was a basin of soup, from which be took a deep draft now and again as he watched the fingers of the German, who sat on the mud floor before him mending the bottom of a chair. BLESSED IS BE THAT And the watch said, "Eternity, eternity, eternity!" "Stop them! Stop them!" cried the child. Em took off her big brown kappje and began vigorously to fan her red face with It but her companion bent low over the leaves In her lap and at last took up an ice plant leaf and fastened it on to the front of her blue pinafore with a pin. "My dear God Is trying me," be said, and be sat tbere through the fierce heat of the afternoon. Still he watched and waited when the sun began to slope, and when It neared the horizon and the sheep began to cast long shadows across the "karroo" be still sat tbere. He hoped when the first rays touched the hills till the sun dipped behind them and was gone. Then he called his ewes together and broke down the altar and threw the meat far, far away Into the field. And all the while the watch kept ticking on. Just like God's will, that never changes or alters, you* may do what you please. There the German overseer mildly interposed that the man was not a tramp, but a highly respectable individual, whose horse had died by an accident three days before. And were there not yet better times than these — moonlight nights, when they romped about the door, with the old man, yet more a child than any of them, and laughed till the old roof of the wagon house rang? Great beads of perspiration stood on the boy's forehead. He climbed out of bed and lay with bis face turned to the mud floor. "Then he was alone there in that island, with men to watch him always," ■aid her companion slowly and quietly, "and in the long lonely nights be used to lie awake and think of the things he had done in the old days and the things be would do if they let him go again. In the day, when he walked near the shore, it seemed to him that the sea all around him was a cold chain about bis body pressing him to death." "And what then?" said Em. "Diamonds must look as these drops do," she said, carefully bending over the leaf and crtishlng one crystal drop with her delicate little nail "When I." she said, "am grown up, I shall wear real diamonds exactly like these in my hair." "Don't tell me!" cried the Boer woman. "The man isn't born that can take me in. If he'd had money, wouldn't he have bought a horse? Men. who walk are thieves, liars, murderers, Rome's priests, seducers! I see the devil in his noser* cried Tant' Sannie, shaking her fist at him. to come walking into the house of this Boer's child and.shaking hands as though he came on horseback—oh. no, no.1" Presently he looked out, where, in the afternoon sunshine, a few half grown ostriches might be seen wandering listlessly about, and then he looked In again at the little whitewashed room and at Lynda 11, who sat in the doorway looking at a book. Then he raised his chin and tried to adjust an imaginary shirt collar. Finding none, he smoothed the little gray fringe at the back of his head and began: "You are a student of history, I perceive, my friend, from the study of these volumes that lie scattered about this apartment This fact has been made evident to me." Or, best of all, were there not warm, dark, starlight nights, when they sat together on the doorstep, holding each other's hand, singing German hymns, their voices rising clear In the still night air, till the German would draw away bis hand suddenly to wipe quickly a tear the children must not see? Would they not sit looking up at the stars and tnlking of them—of the dear Southern Cross; red, fiery Mars; Orion, with his belt, and the Seven Mysterious Sisters—and fall to speculating over them? How old are they? Who dwelt in them? And the old German would say that perhaps the souls we loved lived in them. There, In that little, twinkling point, was perhaps the little girl whose stockings he had carried home, and the children would look up at it lovingly and call It "Uncle Otto's star." Then they would fall to deeper speculations—of the times and seasons wherein the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll and the stars shall fall as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs and there shall be time no longer, "when the Son of Man shall come in his glory and all his holy angels with him." In lower and lower tones they would talk till at last they fell into whispers. Then they would wish good night softly and walk home hushed and quiet ✓ "O God, God, save them," be cried In agony, "only some, only a few, only for each moment I am praying here—one!" He folded his little hands upon his head. "God. God, save them!" I /y J OUT* SCHRIIKKR ("HALPH IRON"). Her companion opened her eyes and wrinkled her low forehead. He walked borne behind his flock. His heart was heavy. He reasoned so: "God cannot lie. I had faith. No fire came. I am like Cain—1 am not his. He will not hear my prayer. God hates me." Oh, the long, long ages of the past. In which they bad gone over! Oh, the long, long future, in which they would pass away! O God, the long, long, long, eternity, which has no end! He groveled on the floor. "Where will you find them, Lyndall? The stones are only crystals that we picked up yesterday. Old Otto says so." "And then?" said Em, much interested.The stranger took off his hat, a tall battered chimney pot, and disclosed a bald head, at the back of which was a little fringe of curled white hair, and he bowed to Tant' Sannie. "And you think that I am going to stay here always?" "He died there in that island. He never got away." The boy's heart was heavy. When he reached the kraal gate, the two girls met him. The child wept and crept closer to the ground. The lip trembled scornfully. "It is rather a nice story," said Em, "but the end Is sad." "Ah, no!" said her companion. "I suppose some day we shall go somewhere, but now we are only 12, and we cannot marry till we are 17. Four years, five—that Is a long time to wait And we might not have diamonds if we did marry." "What does she remark, my friend?" he Inquired, tnrning his crosswise looking eyes on the old German. THE SACRIFICE. "Come," said the yellow haired Em. "Let us play coop. There Is still time before It gets quite dark. You, Waldo, go and bide on the 'kopje.' Lyndall and I will shut eyes here, and'we will not look." "It is a terrible, hateful ending," said the little teller of the story, leaning forward on her folded arms, "and the worst is It is true. 1 have noticed," added the child very deliberately, "that it is only the made up stories that end nicely. The true ones all end so." "Well—a little—perhaps ■aid the German meekly. may be," "My wife wrote Ungton's nephew. I She did It without m, "What did the man ed do? Did he send me 'Bonaparte, my brother, ; crumb T No; he sent me noi "My wife said, 'Write. 'Mary Ann, no; while these 1 power to work, no; while has power to endnre, no. I it be said that Bonaparte B1  ed of any man.'" The man's noble Independence • ed the German. The farm by daylight was not as the farm by moonlight. The plain was a weary flat of loose red sand, sparsely covered by dry "karroo" bushes, that cracked beneath the tread like tinder and showed the red earth everywhere. Here and there a milk bush lifted Its pale colored rods, and in every direction the ants and beetles ran about in the blazing sand. The red walls of the farmhouse, the zinc roofs of the outbuildings,' the stone walls of the kraals, all reflected the fierce sunlight till the eye ached and blenched. No tree or shrub was to be seen far or near. The two sunflowers that stood before the door, outs tared by the sun, drooped their brazen faces to the sand, and the little cicadalike Insects cried aloud among the stones of the "kopje." "Being a student of history, then," said Bonaparte, raising himself loftily, "you will doubtless have heard of my great, of my celebrated, kinsman, Napoleon Bonaparte?" The German rubbed his hands and hesitated. "Ah — well — ah — the — Dutch—you know—do not like people who walk- In this country—ah!" The girls hid their faces In the stone wall of the rfheep kraal, and the boy clambered half way up the "kopje." He crouched down between two stones and gave the call Just then the milk herd came walking out of the cow kraal with two palls. He was an 111 looking Kaffir. "And you think that I am going to stay here till then?" "Well, where are you going?" asked her companion. As she spoke the boy's dark, heavy •yes rested on ber face. "My dear friend," said the stranger, laying his hand on the German's arm, "I should have bought myself another horse, but crossing, five days ago, a full river, I lost my purse—a purse with £500 In It. I spent five days on the bank of the river trying to find it —couldn't; paid a Kafllr £9 to go in and look for it at the risk of his life— couldn't find it" "Yes, yes," said the German, looking up. "You have read it have you not7" "I, sir," said Bonaparte, "was born at this hour on an April afternoon three and fifty years ago. The nurse, sirshe was the same wTkD attended whan the Duke of Sutherland was bornbrought me vo my mother. *There Is only one name for this child,' she said. 'He has the nose of his great kinsman,' and so Bonaparte Blenklns became my The girl crushed an Ice plant leaf between her fingers. He nodded. "Yes; but the brown history tells only what he did, not 1?hat he thought" led Bp to the loft the moonlight cast i kind Of dreamy beauty and quite etbe realised the low brick wall that rax before the house and which inclosed a alt patch of sand and two straggling sunflowers. On the sine roof of the great open wagon house, on the roofs of the outbuildings that jutted from its side, the moonlight glinted with a quite peculiar brightness till it seemed that every rib in tbe metal was of burnished silver. Bleep ruled everywhere, and the homsstasd was not less quiet than the •oUtaxy plain. "Taut* Sannle la a miserable old woman," she said. "Tour father married her when he was dying because be thought she would take better care of the farm and of us than an English woman. He aaJd we should be taught and sent to school. Now she saves every farthing for herself, buys us not even one old book. She does not 111 use us. Why? Because she Is afraid of your father's ghost. Only this morning she told her Hottentot that she would have beaten you for breaking the plate but that three nights ago she beard a rustling and a grunting behind the pantry door and knew It was your father coming to 'spook* her. She Is a miserable old woman," said the girl, throwing the leaf from her. "But I intend to go to school." "Ah," thought the boy, "perhaps he will die tonight and go to hell! I must pray for him! 1 must pray!" "It was In the brown history that I read of him," said the girl, "but 1 know what he thought Books do not tell everything." "Tour case Is bard; yea, hard," said the German, head. Bonaparte took another i soap, leaned back against _ and sighed deeply. "I think," be said after awhile, tt lng himself, "I shall now wandai the benign air and taste the gentle C of the evening. The stiffness hoi oxer me yet Exercise is beneficial So saying, be adjusted bis hat o fully on the bald crown of his h and moved to the door. After iie gone the German sighed again over 1 work: Then be thought "Where am 1 going to?" and he prayed desperately. "Not" said the boy, slowly drawing Bearer to ber and sitting down at her feet "What you want to know they never telL" The German would have translated this information, but the Boer woman gave no ear. name—Bonaparte Blenklns. Yes, sir," said Bonaparte, "there is a stream on my maternal side that connects me with a stream on his maternal side." "Ah. this is not right at all," little Em said, peeping between the stones and finding him in a very curious posture. "What are you doing, Waldo? It is not the play, you know. You should run out when we come to the white stone. Ah, you do not play nicely." Tonight when Lyndall looked In, Waldo sat before the fire watching a pot which simmered there, with his slate and pencil in his band. His father sat at the table buried in the columns of a three weeks' old newspaper, and the stranger lay stretched on the bed In the corner, fast asleep, his mouth open, his great limbs stretched out loosely, betokening much weariness. The girl put the rations down upon the table, snuffed the candle and stood looking at the figure on the bed. Then the children fell into silence till Doss, the dog, growing uneasy at its long continuance, sniffed at one and the other, and his master broke forth suddenly. "No, no! He goes tonight See how he looks at me, a poor, unprotected female! If be wrongs me, who Is to do me right?" cried Tant* Sannie. The Boer woman, seen by daylight, was even less lovely than when In bed she rolled and dreamed. She sat on a chair in the great front room, with her feet on a wooden stove, and wiped her flat face with the corner of her apron and drank coffee and in Cape Dutch swore that the beloved weather was damned. Less lovely, too. by daylight was the dead Englishman's child, her little stepdaughter, upon whose freckles and low, wrinkled forehead the sunlight bad no mercy. The German made a sound of astonishment"I think," said the German In an undertone, "if you didn't look at her quite so much it might be advisable. She—ah—she—might—imagine that you liked her too well—In fact—ah"— "The connection," said Bonaparte, "is one which could not be easily comprehended by one unaccustomed to the In the farmhouse, on her great wooden bedstead, Tant' Sannle, the Boer woman, rolled heavily in her sleep. Sbs bad gone to bed, as she always' did. In her clothes, and the night was warm and the room close, and she dreamed bad dreams—not of the ghosts and devils that so haunted her waking thoughts, not of her second husband, the consumptive Englishman, whose grave lay away beyond the ostrich camps, - nor of her first, the young Boer, bat only of the sheep's trotters she had eaten for supper that night She dreamed that one stuck fast in her throat, and she rolled her huge form from side to side and snorted horribly. Is the next room, where the maid had forgotten to close the shutter, the whits moonlight fell In In a flood and made it light as day. There were two small beds against the wall. In one lay a yellow haired child, with a low forehead and a face of freckles, but ttke loving moonlight hid defects hero. Is elsewhere, and showed only the innocent face of a child in Its first sweet sleep. , "I—I will play nicely now," said the boy, coming out and standing sheepishly before them. "I—I only forgot. I will play now." "It they could talk, if they could tell us now," he said, moving his band out over the surrounding objects, "then study of aristocratic pedigrees, but the connection Is close." ve would This *kop- "Certainly, my dear friend, certainly," said the stranger, "I shall not look at her." "Is It possible?" said the German, pausing in his work with much Interest and astonishment. "Napoleon an Irishman!"jo.' If It could tell tis how It came here! The Physical Geography says," be went on, most rapidly and confusedly, "that what are dry lands now were once lakes. And what 1 think Is this: These low hills were once the shores of a lake. This 'kopje' Is some of the stones that were at the bottom, rolled together by the water. But there Is this: How did the water come to make one heap here alone In the center of the plain?" It was a ponderous question. No one volunteered an answer. "When 1 was little," Bald the bo v. "I always looked at It and wondered, and I thought a great giant was burled under It Now I know the water must have done It, but how ? It is very wonderful. Did one little stone come first and stop the others as they rolled?" said the boy, with earnestness. In a low voice, more as If speaking to himself than to them. "He has been to sleep," said freckled Em. "And if she won't let you 7" "I shall make her." "How?" "Uncle Otto," she said presently, laying her hand down on the newspaper and causing the old German to look up over his glasses, "how long did that man say he had been walking?" "Since this morning, poor fellow! A gentleman, not accustomed to walking —horse died—poor fellow!" said the German, pushing out his lip and glancing commiseratingly over his spectacles in the direction of the bed where the stranger lay, with his flabby double chin and broken boots through which the flesli shone. "Ah, Lord! Bo It la! Ah!" He thought of the ingratitude of the world. -No," said beautiful little Lyndall, looking curiously at him; "he has been crying." Saying this, he turned bis nose full upon a small Kaffir 2 years of age. That small naked son of Ham became Instantly so terrified that he fied to his mother's blanket for protection, howling horribly. "Yes," said Bonaparte, "on the mother's side, and that Is how we are related. There wasn't a man to beat him," said Bonaparte, stretching himself, "not a man, except the Duke of Wellington. And It's a strange coincidence," added Bonaparte, bending forward, "but he was a connection of mine. His nephew, the Duke of Wellington's nephew, married a cousin of mine. She was a woman! See her at one Of the court balls—amber satin, daisies in her hair! Worth going a hundred miles to look at her! Often seen her there myself, sir!" "Lyndall," child said to ber little orphan cousin, who sat with her on the floor threading beads, "how Is it your beads never fall off your needle?" "Uncle Otto," said the child In the doorway, "did you ever hear of ten Kara sitting on their tails In a circle?" "Well, not of ten exactly, bat bears do attack travelers every day. It Is nothing nnheard of," Baid'the German. 'A man of such courage too! Terrible experience that!" "And how do we know that the story Is true. Uncle Otto?" The child took not the slightest notice of the last question and folded ber small arms across her knees. She never made a mistake. THE CONFESSION. "But why do you want to go, Lyndall r "I try," said the little one gravely, moistening ber tiny finger. "That is why." One night two years after the boy sat alone on the "kopje." He had (crept softly from his father's room and come there. He often did, because when he prayed or cried aloud his father might awake and bear him, and none knew his great sorrow and none knew his grief but himself, and he buried them deep in his heart. Upon this the newcomer fixed his eyes pensively on the stamp block, folding his band on the head of his cane. His Moots were broken, but be still had the cane of a gentleman. "There Is nothing helps In this world," said the child slowly, "but to be very wise and to know everything— to be clever." The overseer, seen by daylight, was a huge German. earing a shabby suit and with a childish habit of rubbing his hands and nodding bis head prodigiously when pleaaed at anything. He stood out at the kraals in the blazing sun, explaining to two Kaffir boys the approaching end of the world. The boys as they cut the cakes of dung winked at each other and worked aa slowly as they possibly could, but the German never saw it "You vagabonds se Engelschman!" said Taut' Sannie, looking straight at him. . . m • m • The German's Ire was roused. "That is what I do hateP' be cried. 'Know that it -is true! How do yon mow that anything is true? Because you are told so. If we begin to question everything—proof, proof, proof—what "But I abould not like to go to school!" persisted the small freckled face. "And 4o you believe him, Uncle Otto r* "And you do not need to. When you are 17, this Boer woman will go. You will have this farm and everything that Is upon it for your own. "But I," said Lyndall, "will have nothing. I must learn." This was a near approach to plain English, but the man contemplated the block abstractedly, wholly unconscious that any antagonism was being displayed toward him. "Believe him? Why, of course I do. He himself told me the story three times distinctly." He turned up the brim of hla great hat and looked at the moon, bnt moat at the leaves of the prickly pear that grew Just before him. They glinted and glinted and glinted, just like his own heart —cold, so hard and very wicked. His physical heart had pain also. It seamed full of little bits of glass that hurt He had sat there for half an hour, and he dared not go back to the close house. The German moved the leather thongs in and out and thought of the strange vicissitudes of human life which might bring the kinsmen of dukes and emperors to his humble room. "If," said the girl slowly, "he had walked for only one day, his boots would not have looked so, and if— will we have to believe left? How do yon know the angel opened the prison door for Peter except that Peter said bo? How do yon know that God talked to Moses except that Moses wrote it? That is what I hater The girl knit her brows. Perhaps her thoughts made a longer Journey than the German dreamed of, for, mark yon, the old dream little how their words and lives are texts and studies to the generation that shall succeed them. Not what we are taught, but what we see, makes us, and the child gathers the food on which the adult feeds to the end. "You might not be a Scotchman or anything of that kind, might you?" suggested the German. "It is the English that she hates." Away beyond the "kopje" Waldo, his son, herded the ewes and lambs, a small and dusty herd, powdered all over from head to foot with red sand, wearing a ragged coat and shoes of undressed leather, through whose holes the toes looked out His hat was too large and had sunk down to his eyes, concealing completely the silky black curls. It was a curious small figure. Hin flock gave him little trouble. It wan too hot for them to move far. They gathered round every little milk bush as though they hoped to find shade and stood there motionless in clumps. He himself crept under a shelving rock that lay at the foot of the "kopje," stretched himself on his stomach and waved bis dilapidated little shoes in the air. "Oh, Lyndall! I will give you some of my sheep," said Em, with a sudden burst of pitying generosity. "Oh, Waldo, God put the little 'kopje' here," said Em, with solemnity. "But how did he put It here?" "By wanting." "If!" said the German, starting up in his chair, Irritated that any one should doubt such irrefraglble evidence. "If! Why, he told me himself! Look how he lies there,," added the German pathetically, "worn out, poor fellow! We have something for him, though," pointing with his forefinger over his shoulder to the saucepan that stood on the lire. "We are not cooks — not French cooks, not quite—but It's drinknble, drinkable, I think, better than nothing, I think," he added, nodding his head in a jocund manner that evinced his high estimation of the contents of the saucepan and his profound satisfaction therein. "Blsh, bish, my chicken!" he said as Lyndall tapped her little foot up and down upon the floor. "Bisli, bish, my chicken! You will wake him." The figure In the companion bed belonged of right to the moonlight for tt was of quite elfinlike beauty. The child tad dropped her cover on the floor, and the moonlight looked in at the naked little limbs. Presently abe opened her eyes and looked at the moonlight that was bathing her. "Km!" she called to the sleeper In the other bed, but received no answer. Then she drew the cover from tbe C- floor, turned tar pillow and, pulling the sheet over her head, went to sleep again. Only In one of the outbuildings that Jutted frojB.the wagon bouse tbeVe was some one who was not sleep. Tbe room was dark.. Door and shutter were closed. Mot a ray of ilgbt entered anywhere. The German overseer to whom the room .belonged lay sleeping soundly on his bed in tbe corner, bis great arms folded and his bushy gray and black beard rising and falling on bis breast Bat one In .the room was not asleep. Two large eyes looked about In tbe darkness, and two small hands were smoothing the patchwork quilt Tbe boy, who slept on a box under the window, had Just awakened from his first sleep. He.drew the quilt up to his chin, so that little peered above tt bnt a great bead, of silky black curls •ad the twp.bjack eyes. He stared about In tjig .darkness. Nothing was (risible, net even the outline of one worm eaten ijifter, nor of tbe deal table, on which lay the Bible from whlcB bis father had read before they went to bed. No one could tell where tbe Bonaparte appeared lost among old memories. "My dear friend," said the stranger, '*1 am Irish, every Inch of me—father Irish, mother Irish. I've not a drop of English blood in my veins." "1 do not want your sheep," said the girl slowly. "I want things of my own. When I am grown up," she added, the flush on her delicate features deepening at every word, "there will be nothing that 1 do not know. 1 shall be rich, very rich, and 1 shall weat not only for best but every day, a pure white silk and little rosebuds, like the lady in Tant' Bannie's bedroom, and my petticoats will be embroidered, not only at tbe bottom, but all through." "But how did the wanting bring It here?" "Ah, that Duke of Wellington's nephew!" he broke forth suddenly. "Many's the Joke I've had with him. Often came to visit me at Bonaparte Hall. Grand place I bad then—park, conservatory, servants. He bad only one fault, that Duke of Wellington's nephew," said Bonaparte, observing that the German was deeply Interested in every word. "He was a coward, what you might call a coward. You've never been in Russia, 1 suppose?" said Bonaparte, fixing his crosswise looking eyes on the German's face. He felt horribly lonely. There was not one thing so wicked as he In all the world, and he knew It He folded his arms and began to cry—not aloud. He sobbed without making any sound, and his tears left scorched marks where they fell. He could not pray. He had prayed night and day for so many months, and tonight he could not pray. When he left off crying, be held his aching head with his brown hands. If one might have gone up to him and touched him kindly, poor, ugly little thing! Perhaps bis heart was almost broken. "Because It did." "And you might not be married, might you?" persisted the German. "If you had a wife and children, now! Dutch people do not like those who are not married." The last words were uttered with the air of one who produces a clinching argument What effect It had on the questioner was not evident for he made no reply and turned away from her. "Ah," said the stranger, looking tenderly at the block, "I have a dear wife and three sweet little children, two lovely girls and a noble boy." Drawing closer to Lyndall's feet he said after awhile In a low voice: When the German looked up next, there was a look of supreme satisfaction In the little mouth and the beautiful eyes. The lady In Tant' Bannie's bedroom was a gorgeous creature from a fash-* ion sheet which the Boer woman, somewhere obtaining, had pasted up at the foot of her bed to be profoundly admired by the children. "Lyndall, has It ever seemed to you that the stones were talking of you? Sometimes," he added In a yet lower tone, "I lie under there with my sheep, and it seem8 that the stones are really speaking—speaking of the old things, of the time when the strange fishes and animals lived that are turned into stone now and the lakes were here, and then of the time when the little Bushmen lived here, so small and so ugly, and used to sleep In the wild dog holes and In the 'sloots' and eat snakes and shoot the bucks with their poisoned arrows. It was one of them, one of those old wild Bushmen, that painted those," said the boy, nodding toward the pictures, "one who was different from the rest He did not know why, but he wanted to make something beautiful; he wanted to make something, so he made these. He worked hard, very hard, to find the juice to make the paint, and then he found this place where the rocks hang over, and he painted them. To us they are only strange things that make us laugh, but to him they were very beautiful."This information having been conveyed to the Boer woman, she, after some further conversation, appeared slightly mollified, but remained firm to her conviction that the man's designs were evil. "No, no," said the old man humbly. "France, England, Germany, a. little In this country—It is all 1 have traveled." "What doet see, chicken?" he asked. The child eaid nothing, and an agonising shriek was borne on the afternoon breeae. Soon, from the bine bag where he kept his dinner, be produced a fragment of slate, an arithmetic and a pencil. Proceeding to put down a sura with solemn and earnest demeanor, he began to add It up aloud, "Six and 2 Is 8, and 4 Is 12, and 2 Is 14, and 4 Is 18." Here he paused. "Aid 4 Is 18, tnd—4 Is—18." The last was very much drawled. Slowly the pencil slipped from bis fingers, and the slate followed It Into the sand. For awhile he lay motionless, then began muttering to himself, folded his little arms, laid his head down upon them and might have been asleep but for a muttering sound that from time to tine proceeded from him. A curious old ewe came to Bnlff at him, but it was long before he raised his head. When he did, he looked at the faroff hills with his heavy eyes. "I, my friend," said Bonaparte, "have been in every country in the world and speak every civilized language excepting only Dutch and German. I wrote a book of my travels—noteworthy Incidents. Publisher got it—cheated me out of it Great rascals, those publishers! Upon one occasion the Duke of Wellington's nephew and I were traveling in Russia. All of a sudden one of the horses dropped down dead as a doornail. There we were—cold nightsnow four feet thick—great forest—one horse not being able to move sledgenight coming on—wolves. With his swollen eyes be sat there on a flat stone at the vJh-y top of the "kopje," and the tree, with every One of Its wicked leaves, blinked and blinked at him. Presently he began to cry again and then stopped his crying to look at It. He was quiet for a long while. Then he knelt up slowly and bent forward. There was a secret he had carried In his heart for a year. He had not dared to look at It he had not whispered It to himself, but for a year he had carried It. "I hate God!" he said. The wind took the words and ran away with them among the stones and tlirough the leaves of the prickly pear. He thought it died away half down the "kopje." He had told it "It would be very nice," said Em, but. It seemed a dream of quite too transcendent a glory ever to be realized. "For, dear Lord," she cried, "all Englishmen are ugly! But was there ever such a red rag nose thing with broken boots and crooked eyes before? Take him to your room!" she cried to the German. But ajl the slu he does I lay at your door." He moved the candle so that his own head might Intervene between It and the sleeper's face, and, smoothing his newspaper, he adjusted his spectacles to read. "O God, my God, I am killed!" cried the voice of Bonaparte as he, with wide open mouth and shaking flesh, fell Into the room, followed by a half grown ostrich, which pat Its head In at the door, opened its beak at him and went away. At this instant there appeared at the foot of the "kopje" two figures—the one. a dog, white and sleek, one yellow ear hanging down over his left eye; the other, his master, a lad of 14 and no other than the boy Waldo, grown Into a heavy, slouching youth. Tbe dog mounted the "kopje" quickly. His master followed slowly, he wore an aged Jacket, much too large for him and rolled up at the wrists, and, as of old, a pair of dilapidated "vel-scboens" and a felt bat He stood before the two girls at last. The child's gray black eyes rested on the figure on the bed, then turned to the German, then rested on the figure again. Tlio Hprmnn havlncr trdrt him bow matters were arranged, the stranger made a profound bow to Tant' Sannie and followed his host who led the way to bis own little room. "Shot the door! Shut the door! Aa you Talue my life, shut the door!" cried Bonaparte, staking Into a chair, his face blue and white, with a greenlshness about the month. "Ah, my friend," he said, tremulously, "eternity has looked me In the face! My life's thread hung upon a cord! The valley of the shadow of death!" said Bonaparte, seizing the German's arm. "I think he Is a liar! Good night Uncle Otto," she said slowly, turning to the door. "I thought she would come to her better self soon," the German said Joyously. "Tant' Sannie Is not wholly bad—far from It, far." Then, seeing his companion east a furtive glance at him, which he mistook for one of surprise, he added quickly: *Ah, yes, yes, we are all a primitive people here—not very lofty. We deal not In titles. Every one Is Tanta and Oom—aunt and uncle. This may be my room," he said, opening the door. "It Ie rough; the room Is rough—not a palace, not quite. But It may be better than the fields, a little better," he said glancing round at his companion. "Come in, come in. There is something to eat, a mouthful, not the fare of emperors or kings, but we do not starve, not yet," he said, rubbing his hands together and looking round with a pleased, half nervous Bmile on his old face. after she had gone the German folded his patDer up methodically and put it in his pocket " 'Spree!' nays the Duke of Wellington's nephew. The stranger had not awakened to partake of the soup, and his son had fallen asleep on the ground. Taking two white sheepskins from the heap of sacks In the corner, the old man doubled them up and, lifting the boy's head gently from the slate on which it rested, placed the skins beneath it " 'Spree, do you call it? says I. 'Look out' "What have you been doing today?" asked LCyndall, lifting her eyes to his face. "Dear, dear, dear!" said the German, who had closed the lower half of the door and stood much concerned beside the stranger. "You have had a fright I never knew so young a bird td chase before, but they will take dislikes to certain people. I sent a boy away once because a bird would chase him. Ah, dear, dear!" "I love Jesus Christ but I hate God!" now! "There, sticking out under a bush, was nothing less than the nose of n bear. The Duke of Wellington's nephew was up a tree like a shot I stood quietly on the ground, as cool as I am this moment, loaded my gun and climbed up the tree. There was only one bough. tool box was and where the fireplace. There wu something very Impressive to the child In the complete darkness. At the head of his father's bed hang a great silver hunting watch. It acKea loudly. The boy listened to It and began mechanically to count Tick, tick, ""^Uek—one, two, three, four! He lost count presently and only listened, fltek. tick, tick, tick! ItSiever waited, it went on inexorably. and every time it ticked a man died! He, raised himself a little on his elbow and listened. He wished it would leave off. The wind carried away that sound as it had done the first. Then he got up and buttoned bis old coat about him. He knew he was certainly lost now. He did not care. If half the world were to be lost, why not he too? He would not pray for mercy any more. Better so—better to know certainly. It was ended now. Better so. "Looking after ewes and lambs below the dam. Here!" he said, holding out his hand. "I brought them for you." "Ye shall receive—ye shall receive— shall, shall, shall," he muttered. He sat up then. Slowly the dullness and heaviness melted from his face. It became radiant Midday had come now, and the sun's rays were poured down vertically. The earth throbbed before the eye. The children had turned round and looked at the pictures. "Poor lambie, poor lambie!" he said, tenderly patting the great rough bearlike head. "Tired, is he!" There were a few green blades of tender grass. "Where did you find them?" "On the dam wall." She fastened them beside the leaf on her blue pinafore. "He used to kneel here naked, painting, painting, painting, and he wondered at the things he made himself," said the boy, rising and moving his hand in deep excitement. "Now the Boers have shot them all, so that we never see a little yellow face peeping out among the stones"—he paused, a dreamy look coming over his face—"and the wild bucks have gone and those days, and we are here. But we will be gone soon, and only the stones will lie on here, looking at everything as they look now. 1 know that it 'is I who am thinking," the fellow added slowly, "but It seems as though It were they who are talking. Has It never seemed so to you, Lyndall ?" " 'Bon,' said the Duke of Wellington's nephew, 'you'd better sit In He threw an overcoat across the boy's feet and lifted the saucepan from the fire. There was no place where the old man could comfortably lie down himself, so he resumed his seat. Opening a much worn Bible, he began to read, and, as he read, pleasant thoughts and visions thronged on him. "When I looked round," said Bonaparte, "the red and yawning cavity was above me and the reprehensible Oontlnaed on pmfte four. The boy stood up quickly and cleared a small space from the bushes which covered it. Looking carefully, he found 12 small stones of somewhat the same size. Kneeling down, he arranged them carefully on the cleared space in a square pile, In shape like au altar. Then be walked to the bag where his dinner was kept In it were a mutton chop and a large slice of brown bread. The boy took them out and turned the bread over In bis hand, deeply considering It Finally he threw it away and walked to the altar with the meat and laid it down on the stones. Close by In the red sand he knelt down. Sure, never since the beginning of the world was there so ragged and so small a priest. He took off his great hat and placed it solemnly on the ground, then closed his eyes and folded his hands. He prayed aloud: front' He began scrambling down the sides of the "kopje" to go home. " 'All right,' said I, 'but keep your gun ready. There are more coming He'd got his face burled In my  " 'How many are there?" said b " 'Four,' said I. " 'How many are there now 7 Better so! But oh, the loneliness, the agonized pain, for that night and for nights on nights to come, the anguish that sleeps all day on the heart like a heavy worm and wakes up at night to feed! 'They look nice there," said the boy. awkwardly rubbing his great hands and watching her. ,„ | RHEUMATISM,! 8111(1 ■ I ?oes  70U SafTlT RICHTCRT'iw , ANCHOR - Vpain expellerj ■ World renowned (Remarkably niccewf al! 1 and ■Only fennJne with Tr»d« Mark •• Anchor."! lad. I 95°* «50o. a bottle. AtaUdnu*tat»orthroo«h ■ m^SfSSSHrn^^t ss l iniiif Endorsed and j?iwtTMmn(fr(f 6y A It, I Leading ntudeeale and JletaU /S ?ou "*.«*■ ell 19 people- || "Yes; but the pinafore spoils it all It is not pretty." How many times had it ticked since lie came to lie down? A thousand "1 was a stranger, and ye took me He looked at It closely. "Yes; the squares are ngly, but It looks nice upon you—l»eautiful." "My friend, my dear friend," said the stranger, seizing him by the hand, "may the Lord bless you, the Lord bless and reward you—the God of the fatherless and the stranger. But for you I would this night have slept In the fields, with the dews of heaven upon my head." In," he read times, a million timed, perhaps. He tried to count again and sav to listen better"Dying, dying, dying." salt watch, "dying, dying, dying!" He haard it distinctly. Where they going to/-ali those people? He lay quickly and pulled cover op over his head, but the sfiky curls reappeared. "Dying, dying, dying." said "dying, dying, dying!" He thought of the words bis fa had lead that evening, "For v the gate and broad is the waj leadeth to destruction, aad many be which go Id thereat" "Many, many, many!" said watch. "BecaoM nfraight la the gate, ■UMM la th» way that leadeth mtm*? There are some of ua who in after years say to Fate, "Now deal us your hardest blow, give us what you will, but let us never again suffer as we suffered when we were children." He turned again to the bed where the sleeper lay. " 'Eight,' said L " 'How many are there now?' He .now stood rtllent before them, his great hands banging loosely at either side. Very tenderly the old man looked at him. He saw not the bloated body nor the evil face of the man, but, as It were, under deep disguise and fleshly concealment, the form that long years of dreaming had made very real to him. "Jesus, lover, and is it given to us, weak and sinful, frail and erring, to serve thee, to take thee in?" he said softly as he rose from his seat Full of joy, he began to pace the little room. Now and again as he walked he sang the lines of a German hymn or muttered broken words of prayer. The little room was full of light. It appeared to the German that Christ was very near him and that at almost any moment the thin mist of earthly darkness that clouded his human eyes might be withdrawn aud that made manifest gg "I was a stranger." " 'Ten,' said I " 'Ten, ten!' said he, and down bis gun. " 'Wallle,' I said, 'what have done? We're dead men now.' " *Bon, my old fellow,' said h£ couldn't help It, my hands trem! so!' the were "Some one has come today," he mum bled out suddenly when the idea struck him. The barb In the arrow of childhood's suffering Is this—Its Intense loneliness, its Intense ignorance. the presently "Who?" asked botii girls. "An Englishman foot." "What does he look Ilk. Em. "I did not notice, but *'.ery large nose." wild the boy sloi. ' j v? asked the way to the house." "Didn't he tell you his name?" 1*0; 11 never sw'Uis so 10 me, bih Late that evening Lyudall came down to the cabin with the German's rations. Through the tiny square window the light streamed forth, and without knocking she raised the latch and entered. There was a fire burning on the hearth, and it cast Its ruddy glow over the little dingy room, with its worm eaten rafters and mud floor and broken, whitewashed walls, a curb ous little place, filled with all manner of articles. Next to the fire was a great tool box; beyond that the little bookshelf with Its well worn books; fcoyood that to the corner, a heap of an|p feu* From the The sun had dipped now below tne hills, and the boy, suddenly remembering the ewes and lambs, started to his feet. answered CHAPTER II. PLANS AND BUSHMAN PAINTING#. tbe " 'Wall,' Bald I, turning round seizing his liand, 'Wallle, my dear goodby. I'm not afraid to die. My are long; they hang down. The bear that comes, and I don't hit off goes my foot When he takes shall give you my gun and go. may yet be saved, but tell, oh, Mary Ann that 1 thought of her, that prayed for her!' .ther ide ia At last came the year of the great drought, the year 1862. From end to end of the land the earth cried for water. Man and beast turned their eyes to the pitiless sky that, like the roof of some brazen oven, arched overhead. On the farm, day after day, month after month, the water In the dams fell lower and lower; the sheep died In the fields; the cattle, scarcely able to cr«*k totttred M Uwx ami tnn "Let us also go to the house and see who has come," said Km as the boy shuffled away to rejoin his flock, while lDoss ran at his heels, snapping at the ends of the torn trousers as they fluttered in the wind. that tbere "O God, my Father, I have made thee a sacrifice.* J have only twopence, so 1 cannot buy a lamb. If the lambs were mine, 1 would give thee one. But now 1 have only this meat It Is my dinger meat Please, my Father, send lie down bom heaven to bora It TLou "Yes—Bonaparte Blenklns." "Bonaparte!" said Em. "Why, that is like the reel Hottentot Hans plays on the violin: the and onto "Bonaparte, Bonaparte, mj wile la rick In the middle of the week, but Sundaja not. 1 (In tor rte* and bean lot amp. CHAPTER III. *1 WAS A VtUAHUMK YB TOOK MM * 'Goodbj, old f*Uowr said fc*