22

DALLAS GALBRAITH. “ The day after the weddin’ the infair’s

to be held at old Mrs. Laddoun’s,” con

tinued Nixon, hastily gathering up the reins of the conversation again; “ the whole village is bid, young and old. I hear Lacldoun is having his con-fection ery down from New York. I don’t know what truth there is in that.” “I heern, too,” said a man who had not yet spoken, “ that Van Zeldt is bringin’ down fireworks as his weddin’ present. I’ve read of them fireworks; blazin’ tem

ples, and armies in the sky. Such as we read of in the book of Revelations.

[_IANU)R',

“ One minute, Mr. Kimball!” and Nixon put his hand on the wagon-door and began to whisper, glancing back, as if for approval, at the other men, who nodded and put the word from one to to the other. The old man listened with his brows knit, muttering “Umph” to himself, but with a pleased smile. “A very good thing!” he said em phatically, aloud. “A pleasant little plan, and the lad deserves it, brethren. VVell, good morning. Wedding weather,

eh P” and the yellow wagon rolled leisure

ly away. Seems to me that be hardly the work for Back from the road, half hidden by a church-member. It be mockin’ the Graah‘s cedar swamp, was the old Byrne Scriptures.” place ; nothing but a strip of pasturage ‘-' Both them reports,” said Graah, and bit of pond, beside the house. Lad severely, “ came from Pete Van Zeldt. doun would come into possession of it to He‘s a onreliable boy. I’d take them re morrow in right of his wife. Laddoun ports with caution, Mr. Kimball, and not had added one hundred acres to another venture on repeatin’ them, if I was you.” since he left college, until he was one of “ Anyways, we’re havin’ stirrin’ times,” the largest landholders in the county. broke in Nixon, impatiently. “ Stirrin’ ' “ Chemicals, I suppose,” said old Mr. times ! Manasquan’s wakin’ up. I count, Kimball, with a puzzled knot in his fore too, confident on George Laddoun. He head. “ It’s a business I don’t under has the materials of a great man, Mr. stand. But it pays him well.” He had fallen into the habit of thinking aloud in Kimball, that young man ; an’ when he’s settled down, I make no doubthe‘ll give his continual, long, solitary journeys. He this town a h’ist up such as it has never leaned forward to see if the Byrne house had. He’s known in high quarters, was open, and saw a blue rift of smoke George is, and he promises to put his coming from the chimney, and at the shoulder to the wheel in the Legislature, same time Dallas Galbraith going into and get that railroad down from New the woods through the stubble-field. York. By next winter, gentlemen, we’ll “ Hollo, Dallas! Here!” he shouted. Father Kimball had an odd liking for have the iron horse in Manasquan.” “ I’ve bin listenin’ for that horse’s the boy. He was more pleased to meet neigh a good many years,” said Graah, him than he would have been anybody satirically. But the laugh did not fol- ‘ in Manasquan. He had taken his part low which he expected. strongly years ago, when the men at “ We made no doubt of havin’ that Nixon‘s tavern began to hint at queer railroad in my father‘s time,” said Nixon, suspicions about the strange boy that gravely. “ He had his wires all laid, as Laddoun had brought among them. “Don‘t I know a good tree when I you might say, ready for pullin’. He‘d hev give the land for a depot himself: see it P” he said, vehemently. “ There's half an acre there by the cedars. But a hundred signs beside the Scripture one of fruit. Clean bark, stout limbs, the he was took away suddently. Of pleu leaves with a healthy rustle in them. risy.” “ Well, good-bye, brethren,” said the Jest so with human nature. The boy’s a preacher, who had no mind to enter on strong, manly fellow, sound to the core.” this interminable railroad-field of -talk, He liked to watch the lad wrestle or every inch of which he knew by heart. swim, as he grew older, finding him “I‘m afraid Sister Noanes' dinner will different from the drowsy Jerseymen about him_full of vitality, zealous, terri be cold.”