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f ' 12 GOODW'IN'S'W'EEKi.y told ro pcw ' By Eden Phillpotts Mll ' J LITTLE girl came rushing Into 'r t I tho gate of tho vicarage at 1 " Postbrldgo, Dartmoor, and it M chancod that she met the minister B - t himself as ho bent in his garden and M scattered lime around upsprlnging H seeds. H "These slugs would try the patience 1 or a saint," he said, hearing footsteps, H and not looking up "They have eaten M off nearly all my young larkspurs. How H can one fight them?" M Then a small, breathless voice broke H in ui)onvhim. H 'Please, sir, mother sent me, an' 1 j I've runned a'most all tho way. from H our cottage wi'out stopping once. 'Tis M old Mr. Mundy, please. He'm dying M so he told mother when her fetched H him his milk this morning an' he B says ho'vo got something very special H to tell anybody as'll care to cornel an' H listen to it. But nobody don't want to M hear his secrets in the village; so H mother said 'twas your job, please, M an' sent me for your honor." H "My job yes, so it is, little maid. H T'll come at once. An' they'd better H send for the doctor. It isn't his rveg- H ular visiting day until Thursday, but H probably it's his job, too." mt "Mother axed the old man that; an' M, he said as he didn't want no doctor, fl nor his trade (medicine) neither. He M I say he'm nearly a hundred years old, i an' ho won't be messed about with at H J his time of life, but just die easy an' l '' comfortable." 1 In twenty minutes the clergyman 1 " had walked a mile and crossed a strip ML ' of the wilderness that stretched round H about the little hamlet on Dartmoor H where ho labored. A single cottage H separated from the rest by wide tracts H of fure and heather stood hero, and I, near it lay a neglected garden. But H "Gaffer" Mundy had long ceased to Hj fight tho moor or care for his plot of H I land. His patch of the reclaimed H i earth returned fast to primitive sav- H j agery. Brake fern sprouted in the po- H J tato bed; rush, heather and brier Hvi choked the currant bushes; fearless H ' rabbits nibbled every green thing. H ''Come In, whoever you may be," H said an ancient voice, so the visitor H. obeyed and entered, to find the suf- H ferer, fully dressed, sitting by a fire H of peat. Noah Mundy was once very H tall, but now his height had vanished H and he had been long bent under his H burden of years. A bald, yellow skull H rose above his countenance, and in- H finite age marked his face. As the Hj earth through centuries of cooling has I, wrinkled into mountains and flattened Hi into ocean beds between them, so Hj , these aged features, stamped and torn Hjr i with the fret and fever of long life, H sjj had become as a book whereon time Ha I had writen many things for those who Hfi ' rea'd them. Very weak was the man, Hj and very thin. He was toothless and l ' almost hairless; tho scanty beard that Hi fell 'from his chin was white, while HI ' his mustache had long been dyed with Hi t snuff to a lively yellow. His eyes re- imalned alive, though one was filmed over with an opaline haze. But from the other he saw clearly enough for II till his needs. Ho made it a boast that he could not write, and he could not road. There was no book in his house. " 'Tis you, eh? I could have wished for a man out of your trade, but It won't matter. I've got a thing worth tolling; but mark this, I don't care a buton what you think of it, an' I don't want none of your bunkum an' lies after I have told it. Sit down in that thicky chair an' smoke your pipe an' keep cool. Ban't no use getting ex cited now, for what I be going to tell 'o happened more'n sixty years ago afore you was born or thought about?" "My smoke won't trouble you?" "Bah? I've smoked and chewed an' snuffed for more'n half a century. I'm baccy through and through soaked in it, as you might say. An' as for smoke, if what you tell to church bo true, I shall have smoke, an' fire too, afore long. But hell's only a joke to fright en females. I don't set no store by if." 'Better leave that, Mr. Mundy. If you really believe your end is near, let us be serious. Yes, I'll smoke my pipe. And you must feel very, very sure, that what you tell mo is abso lutely sacred, unless you wish it other wise." "Nought sacred about it, I reckon all t'other way. An' as for telling, you can go an' shout it from top of Bell ever Tor you'm minded to. I don't care a farden curse who knows it now. Wait till I'm out of it; then do as ydu please." He drank a little milk, remained si lent a moment with his eyes upon the fire, and presently began to tell his "But that's to overrun the matter, life's strange tale. "Me an' my brother was the only children our parents ever had; an' my brother was five years older'n me. My father, Jonas Mundy, got money through a will, an' he brought it to Dartmoor, like a fool, an' rented a bit of moor from the Duchy of Cornwall, an' built a farm upon it, an' set to work to reclaim the land. At first he prospered, an' Aller Bottom Farm, as my father called it, was a promising place, so long as sweat of man poured out there without ceasing. You can see the ruins of it yet, for when Jonas Mundy died an' It failed to me, I left it an' corned up here; an' the chap as took It off my hands fte went bank rupt inside three year. 'Tis all failed to pieces now, for none tried again. When I was fifteen an' my brother, John James, was twenty, us both failed in love with the same maid. You stare; but though fifteen in years, I was twenty-five in understanding, an' a very oncoming youth where women were concerned. Nelly Baker had turned seventeen, an' more than once I told her that though a boy of fifteen couldn't wed a maid of her age with out making folks laugh, even if he could get a parson to hitch them, yet a champ of three-an'-twenty might very properly take a girl of five-an'-twenty without the deed calling for any question. An' her loved me truly enough; for though you only see a worn-out scarecrow afore you now, yet seventy year agone I filled the eye of more maidens than one, and was a bowerly youth to look upon tall, straight, tough, wi' hair bo black as a crow. "John James he never k'nOwed that I cared a button for Nolly. I never showed it to a living soul but' "her by word or look; an' she kept quiet for fear or being lauglied at, no doubt. , Her" folks were dead on the match with Jolm Jamed, an' he pressed her eo h'ard that she'd have took him but for me. He was a prety fellow' too the Mundys were very personable as n family. Quite different, though, from me. Fail polled, wi' flaxen hair, an' terrible .strong was John James, , i an' the best wrastler-on Dartymoor in them days. "Me an' her met by appointment a week afore she'd got to give him a final 'yes' or 'no.' I mind it very well to this hour; an' yet 'tis seventy-odd jears agone. On Hartland T4pr uq sat in the heather unseen, an I put my ' arms around her an'.loyed. hajv ai promised to make her a happy vydman. Tlen I told her what she'd gbtsto do. First I. made her 'prick he"r flnger."wl' a thorn of the furze, an' draw blood, an' swear afore the Living God .she'd marry me as soon as I couldrinake her mistress of a farm. k "She was for joking about the mat ter at first, but I soon forced her to grow serious. She done what.. I told her, anr since she "believed in the Liv- i t ' i$Wmt1'- fH JLJL .-,v VAHHr' 'iflYx HBrv rfliVJi ,. El shH Endorsed alike by busi- i"'; BikJ ifist&Mlm iiess men and working ':P';JKBff' JM men by tne men and the k'JAMTZ- H women, who are helping OHiHHHjLlHHHHHHHH to build a city here as a HH safe jHPH practical and en- IHHHHhHhBHhHhHHbIbIH terprising commissioner. He has talcen the initiative in street and sidewalk, park and boulevard improvements and his department is responsible for maintaining the streets of the city in their present un- , precedented condition of cleanliness and repair. Mr. Wells is a public servant not a master. He is ap proachable to all citizens. He plays no favorites. His rare un derstanding of men and measures, gained through years of personal contact with the community and its envirous, affords him a splendid equipment as a City Father. (Political Advertisement.) Jl BECCQ1 111 2V-ir BECKER'S' BECCO supplies the liquid part of 'BbjPJIh PSrV& A deined It completely satisfies the taste of the most itfIlhsL, Z3Ky!w Ts H-. critical commoisseur. It is a foaming, sparkling pure jt$0 sghMalv jraBjrjr Serve with neals or between meals, Rrarnmiirvtf