Thumor.

Manawatu Standard, Volume IV, Issue 252, 20 September 1884, Page 5 (Supplement)

Thumor.

Father and Soil.

"Saladin.l" ' ", ' ' i •: Saladin paused and his attitude was one to charm the eye of artist and the soul of poet. One lithe leg was already swung over the tbp of the fence, clinging thereto by the firm bent' knee. ; Below the 1 other lletheg — the left , one ; lit had intended to have left with the other one, right soon, but for the voice that hailed him back. Chestnut brown, and shod with lusty stone bruises, were the unsandalled feet. Under the towering rim of the torn straw hat Saladin glanced with eyes that gleamed less with defiance than more with a distressful cousciousness that he had been caught up m the very moment of his triumph. He turned, and knew his father, and him he answered that expressive imonosy liable of his native tongue: , ; . 1 "Hay?" ; : \ Back to thy haunt, false fugitive!' . H4 I • Bend to thy task, and ply the greas-ed saw' with many a muffled ; wheeze, till high the severed hickory piles the woodshed floor, lest with a pliant skate strap I pursue, and t&ike the fur along thy truant spine. Ha, thbu rebellious child of mine, what hid'st thdu underneath that recreant jacket?" j For a moment Saladin struggled with his emotion, and strove to look as though he had nothing under his jacket. But a large sized tomato can is too obtrusive m its rotundity, and too definitely pronounced m its platform to escape public attention, even when close buttoned under the snug fitting garmeture df a boy of eleven years. With a despairing sigh he said: ' i " Can full o' worms." . ; " '< The skate trap fell from his lordly father's nerveless grasp. ■ ■ ." ' l ' | " Fishin' worms ? " he asked, " Hannenj toomy 1 " which by interpretation is hand them unto me. . . i He took the can and stirred up the met nagerie with a stick. . . . ; ; " Varlet," he" said, "where keepest thou thy rod and lines ?". „ 1 Saladin pointed to a gloomy corner of the wood shed, and his worthy father scooped thetaoklein. ; „...-- "Where, thou truant villain, where are they bitin' best?" "" j " Bight m the slough, just below the second; bridge," Saladin said. . i " Now, by my halidame, and I enjoy not anj afternoon's sport myself. I were worse than' an infidel; and thou, Sir Sluggard, if there be one small stick not sawn asunder when I hie! me home, — see thou to it. : I And his sire was gone ; gone with his rod,! ; his hooks and lines, his bait. As his hurry-! ing feet carried him out of sight, Saladin' smiled, a melancholy, bitter, yet withal, a: ; joyous smile. ' j "An' he find not the ice at the second! bridge frozen clear to the bottom," he said,! " an' it be not still thicker at the first bridge, : an' if he find a hole m the ice m all that land '• whereto I have sent him, then may these; jyearning eyes of mine ne'er gaze upon the! back of me neck again." . ' And he turned to the woodpile, and picking \ out all the hard, tough, knotty sticks, tossed ! them with a boy's 'generous impulse over the ; fence into the yard of a poor neighbor. 1" They will steal our wood, anyhow," mut- 1 tared Saladin, "and Heaven knows it; is right that I should save them the sin, and pick out the hard ones." ; - > ■; And as with many a rhythmic wAee-shaw, 10/iec-shaw, he sawed the easy sticks. The boy's heart, . ever, slow to harbor malice, softened and melted m the breast, as he thought of the old gentleman trying to cut holes m ten -foot ice with a pocket-knife. Verily, the man, emptieth ashes against the north wind who thinketh that he getteth a Jong yray ahead of even a very small boy.^ Tlie Hawkey e. [. . '..