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Home My WebLink AboutThe Huron Expositor, 1919-04-18, Page 717-1 18, i$i9 APRIL 199 Book Beauty en - )ostCard and at Once, all IS to -day. )Iflpany �dy door bell rigs. You ,ad a busy e, but you off our and go to . o you do! I'm see you. Come of course you'll that on the adys you have leans ediy. You are - t unprepared. can or two of lain or with ad and butter ~gid you have a ii, ready `at a nutriment of ans, with the :rk Tomato if you want it. ice tins, vain - Limited 3-50 and13.54 THE INDIAN DRUM O By WI LIAM MaelAjtG and • EDWIN BALMER Thomas Allen, Publisher, Toronto (Continued from last week.) CHAPTER KIi The Land of the Dm Alan went with Wassaquaan into- the front library, after the Indian had shown Spearman out. "This was the man Judah, wh,p came for Mr. Corvet that night I was hurt?" "Yes, Alan," Wassaquam said. "He was the man, then, who came here twice ,a year, at least, to see Mr. Corvet," "Yes." • "I was sure of it," Man -said. Wass- aquam had made no demonstration of any sort sinci; he had snatched at n Sl e arses n s Wrist to hold him back when Alan had beat to the drawer, Alan could define no rear change now -in the Indian's manner; but he knew that, since Wassaquam had found him quarreling with Spearman, the Indian somehow had "placed" hint more sat- isfactorily. The ',reserve, bordering upon distrust, with which Wassaquam had observed Alan, eeiainly was less- ened. It was in recognition of this that Alan. now asked, "Can you tell me now why he came here., Judah ?" "I have told you- I do not know," IdTassaquam replied. "Ben always saw him; Ben gave him money. I do not know why." Alan had . been holding- his hand over the papers which he had thrust into his pocket; he went back into the smaller library and speed there under the reading lamp to examine them. Sherrill had; eiss'um,ed ;that Corvet had left in the house a record which would fully explain what had" thwarted his life, . and would shed light upon what had happened Corvet, and why he had disappeared; Alan had accepted this assumption. The care- ful and secret manner in which ;these pages had been kept, and the import- ance which -Wassaquam plainly had attached to then--anci which must have been a result of his' knowing that Corvet regarded them of the utmost importance—made Alan certain that he had -found the record which Sher- rill herrill had believed must be there. Spear- man's manner, at the moment of dis- covery, showed too thatthis had been what he had been searching for in} his secret visit to ' the house. But as Alan looked the pages over now, he felt a chill of disappointment and chagrin. They did net contain any narrative concerning Benjamin n Corvet's life; they did not even re- late to a single event. They were no narrative at all. . They were in his firet examination of therm he could not . tell what they were.. • They 'consisted in all of some dozen sheets of irregular size, some of which had been kept much longer than others env, a f . ofwhich appeared fresh and pp new. The three pages which Alan thought, from their yellowed and worn look, must be the oldest, and which roust have been kept for many years, contained only a list of names and ad- i" dresses. Having assured himself that there was nothing else on them, he laid them ` aside. The - remaining pages, which he counted as ten in num- ber, contained nearly a hundred brief clippings from newspapers; the clipp- ings had been very carefully cut out, they " had been pasted with painful regularity on the sheets, and each had been elated acrossl its face—dates made with many different pens and with many different inks, but all in the same irregular handwriting as the letter which Alan had received from. Benjamin Corvet. Alan, his fingers numb in his dis- appointment, turned and examined all these pages; but they contained noth- ing else. He read one of the clippings which was dated: "February 1912." The passing away of one of the oldest residents of Emmet, county oc- curred at the poor farm on Thursday of last week. Mr. Fred Westhouse was one of four brothers brought by their parents into Emmet county in 1846. He established himself here as a far- mer and was well known among our people for many years. He was near- ly the last of his family', which was quite well off at one time, Mr. West - LIFT OFF CORNS! Apply few drops then lift sore, • touchy corns off with fingers Doesn't ,hurt a. bit 1 Drop. a little iereezone an an ebbing corn, instantly thn.t corn stops hurting, hien. you . lift it night out. Yee, magic! A. tiny bottle of Freezone costs but a, few cents at any drug store, but is suffi- cient to remove every hard corn, soft corn, or corn between the toes, and the calluses, without soreness or irritation. Freozone . ie the sensational discovery. el a C,'inciiinati genius, It is wonderful.' house's three brothers. and his father having perished in various disasters upon the lake. His wife died 'two years ago, Ile is urvived by a daugh- ter, Mrs. Arthupearl, of Flint. He read another: Hallford-Spens: --4n ;Tuesday last, -Miss Audrey Hallford, daughter of ,Mr. and Mrs. Bert Hallford, of this place, was united in the bonds of holy matrimony to Mr. Robert Spens, of Escanaba. Miss Audrey is one of our most popular young ladies and was valedictorian of her class at the high schoohgraduation last year. All 'wish the young couple well. ; He read another: Born to `Mr. and Mrs. Hal French, a daughter, Saturday afternoon last, Miss Vera Arabella French, at her arrival `neighed seven and one-half pounds. This clipping was dated, in Ben- jamin Cornet's- hand, "Sturgeon Bay, Wis., August, 1914." Alan put it aside in bewilderment aria amaze and took up again the sheets he first had looked at. The names and addresses on. these oldest, yellowed paged had been first written, it was plain, all at the same time ;and with the same pen are mi- _andI each sheet in the beginnt ing Mei contained seven or eight -names. " Some of these original names and evctz the addtesses had been left unchanged, but most of them had been scratched out and altered many times. —other and quite different names, had been substituted; the pages had be- come finally almost illegible, crowded scrawls, rewritten again and again ip Corvet's cramped hand. Alan strain- ed forward, holding the first sheet to the light. Alan. seized the clippings he had looked at before and compared them swiftly. with the page he had just read; two of the names—Westhouse and French—were the same as those upon this -list, Suddenly he grasped the other pages of the list. and -looked them through for his own name; but it. was not there.. He dropped the -Meets upon the table and got up and began to stride about the room. He felt that in this list and in these clippings there must be, somehow, some one general meaning—they must relate in some way to one thing; they must have deeply, intensely concerned Benjamin Corvet's disappearance and his present fate, whatever that might be, and they mast concern Alan's fate ase well. Rut in th ear disconnection, � their incoherence, he could discern no common threat';. • What. ilenceciv'abie bond could there ha'$e been uniting Eenjetn_in Cc(rvet at Once with an• old Man dying u.pc n a poor farm in Em- met county, iwherever that might be, and with a aby girl, now some two years old, inSturgeon Falls, Wiscon-. sln . Ile bent t suddenl y and swept the pages into the drawer of the table and reclosed the drawer, as he heard the doorbell ring and Wassaquam went to answer it. It was the police, Wass- aquam carie to tell him, who had come - for Luke's body. Alan went into the hall too meet them. The coroner's man : eith,r had come with them or had arrived at the the same time; he introduced himself to Alan, and his inquiries made plain that the young doctor whom Alan had called for Luke had fully carried out his offer to look after these things, for the coroner was already supplied with an account 'of what had taken place. A. sailor formerly employed of thee Corvet ships, the coroners office had been told, had come to the Corvet house, ill and seeking aid; Mr. Corvet not berg at home, the people of the house had taken -the plan in, and called the doctor; but " the man had been already beyond doctors' help and had died in, e few hours of .pneu- monia and alcoholism; in Mr. Corvet's, absence it had been impossible to ,learn the sailor's full name. • Alan left corroboration of this story Mostly to Wassaquam; the sevant's position in the house being more easily explicable than his own; but he found that his right there was not question- ed, and that the police 'accepted him as amember of the household.- . He suspected. that they did not think it necessary to push inquiry very activ- ely in such a home as this. After the police had gone, he called Wassaquam into the library and brought the lists and clippings out a- gain. ' • "Do you know at all what these are, Judah'?" he asked. "No, Alan. I have seen Ben have thein, and take them out and, put them back. That is all I know." "My father never spoke to you a - abut them `" "-Once he spoke to me; he said I was not to tell or speak of them to any one, or even to him." "Do you. know any of these people?" He -gave the lists to Wassaquam, who studied them through attentively, holding them to the -lamp. "No, Alan." "Have you ever heard any of. their names before?" "`hat may be. I do not blow. They are common names." "Do you know these places?" "Yes—the places. They are lake ports or little villages on the lakes, I have been in most -ea them, Alan. I Emmet County, Alan, I came from there. Henry comes from there too." 1 "Henry Spearman?" WIE Fron. Suffering byGetting Her Lydia E. Pinkh>a's_ Veget&ble Compound.: Pittsburgh Pe.---" For many months I was not able to do my week owing to a weakness which caused backache and headaches. A friend ' called m y attention to one of your news paaper` advertisements and immediately my husband bought. three bottles of Lydia E. Pinkharn's Vegetabl`eComs pound for me. After taking two bottles 1 felt fine } and my troubles caused by that weak- ness are a thing of the past. All women who suffer as.I did sould try Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegeta e Com ound. "--. Mrs. JAs. l�'OHRBE2� 620 app St, N. S., Pittsburgh, Pa. • - Women who suffer from any form of weakness, as indicated by displacements, inflammation, ulceration, irregularities, backache,- headaches, nervousness or "the blues," should accept Mrs. Rohr berg's suggestion and' give. Lydia E. Pinkham s Vegetable Compound a thorough trial. For over forty years it has been cgrrecting such ailments. " If you have mysterious complications write for advice to Lydia E. Pinkhara Medicine Co., Lynn, Mass. would, not let me only throw them a- way." -" That's all you • know about them, Judah?" "Yes, Alan; that is all." Alan dismissed the Indian who, stol- - idly methodical -in the moist of these events, went down-stairaand emmenc- ed to prepare a dinner which Alan knew he could not -eat. 'Atari got up and Moved about the rooms; hewent back and looked over the lists and clip- pings once more; then he moved a- bout again, How strange a picture of his father did these things call up to him t When. he had thought of Benjamin Corvet before, it had been as Sherrill had described him., purr by some thought he could not conqueror, seeking relief in study, in correspondence with scientific socie- ties-, in anything which could engross- hint ngross-hina and -lout our me ory. But now he must think of him, not merely as one trying, to forget; what had thwarted orvets life was not only in the past; it was sdMething still going on. ; It had-. amazed Sherrill to learn that Corvet had kept trace in the same way and with the sante sec- recy of many other people --of at ext.. a score of ifeople:,7When Alan thought of Corvet, alone here in his silent house, he must think of him as solic- itous about these people; asseeking- for their names in the newspapers which he took for that,purpose, aid as recording the changes in their lives. The deaths, the births, the marriages among these people had been of the intensest interest to Cor - vet. - It was possible that none of these people knew about Corvet; Alan 'had not known him in Kansas, but had known only that some unknown per- son had sent money for his suPPort. , But he appreciated that it did not 1 matter whether they knew about him ' or not; for at some point common to i 'all of them, the lives of these people must have touched Corvet's life. When Alan knew what had been that point of contact, he would know about Cor - vet; he would know about himself. Alan had seen among Corvet's books a set of charts of the Great Bakes. He went and got that now and an at- las. Opening them upon the table, he looked. up the addresses given on Corvet's list. They were most of them, lie found towns about the northern encs of the lake; a very few were upon other lakes—Superior and Huron—but most were upon or very close to Lake Michigan. These people lived by means of the lake; they got theirsustenance from it, • as. Corvet had lived, and as Corvet had got his wealth. Alan was feeling like one, 'who, bound, has been .suddenly un- loosed. Fromo the time when, coming to see. Corvet, he had found Corvet gone until now, he . had felt the im- "Yes!, "Then that is where they hear the Drum." "Yes, Alati." "My father took newspapers from those places, did he, not?" Wassaquam looked over the address- es again. "Yes; from all. He took them for the shipping news, he said. And sometimes he cut pieces out of them—these pieces, I see now; and afterward I burned the papers; he I poissibility of explain 1 from' . any:. thing he knew or sed likely to learn the mystery whichdiad surround- ed himself and which ''had surrounded Corvet. But these /seines es. and -Ad- dressesl They indeed offered some- thing to go upon, though Luke now was forever still, and his pockets lead told . Alan nothing. He found Emmet County on the map and put his fingeren it. -Spear- man, fan„ Wassaquam .had- said came from there. "The Land of -the Drum!" he said aloud. Deep and sudden feeling stirred in him ashe traced out this land on the chart -the, little towns and villages, the islands " and head- lands; their lights and their uneven shores. A feeling of `home' had come to him, a feeling he had not had on corning to -Chicago. Tyre were In- dian names and Frenchk,•np there a- bout the meetings of the;great waters. Beaver Island He thought of Mich abou and the raft. The sense that he was of these lakes, the surge of, feeling which he had felt first in conversation with Constance Sherrill was strengthened anhundredfold; he found himself humming a tune.. He did not know where he 'had heard it; indeed, it was not the sort of tune which one knows from -=having heard; it was the sort which one just knows. A ryhxne fitted itselfto the hum, "Seagull, seagull sit on the sand, It's never fatr'weather when you're on the land." He gazed down;, at the lists of names which Benjamin Corvet bad kept so carefully , and so secretly; these were his father's people too; these ragged shores and the islands studding the channels were the lands where his father had spent the most active Bart of his life, There, then— these lists now made it certain that event had happenedby which that life had been blighted. Chicago and this house here ,hads been for his father only the abode of : memory and retribution: North#.there by the meet- ing of the waters, was the region of wrong which was done. "That's where I must go!" he said aloud. "That's where I must go!" Constance Sherrill, on the following afternoon, received a telephone 'call from her father; he was coming home earlier than usual, he said; if she had planned to go out, would she wait until after he got there./ She' had, just come`in and 'had been intending to go out again at once; but she took off her wraps and waited for him. The afternoon's mail was upon a stand in the hall. She turned it over, look- ing through it --invitations, social notes. She picked from among them an envelope addressed to herself in a firm clear hand, which unfamiliar to her, still 'queerly startled ter, and tore it open. - I Dear Miss Sherrill, she read, I am closing for the time being, the house which, for &fault of other ownership, I must call mine. The possibility that what has occurred here would cause you and your father anxiety about me in case I` went away without telling you of my intention is the 'reason for this note. But it is not the only reason. , I could rot go away without telling you how deeply I appreciate the geperosity and del - dewy ,you and your f `:the' Bove shown • tet .me in spite of My Oesition'here and of .the the d.ia ;,a t.:all upon you. I shalt nett, forget those -even though -what: happened- here last night makes it impossible for meto try "to • see- you again ar even to write to you. , ..' Alan Conrad. She heard her father's motor enter 'the drive and ran to him with the letter n her i hand. h "He's 'written to you then," he -said alt sight of it. ' eves!, 9 had a note from hini this after- noon at the office, asking me 'to hold in abeyance for rthe time being the trust that Ben had left me and return- ing the key of the house to me for safekeeping." "Has he already gone.? "- ' " I.suppese so; I don't knows" "We must find out." She caught up her wraps and began to put them on. Sherrill hesitated, then assented; `and they went round •the. block to- gether to the Corvet house. ' The shades, Constance saw as they ap- proached, pproached, were drawn; their' rings at the doorbell brought .no response. Sherrill, after a few instants' hesita- tion, took the key frog his pocket- ,and unlocked the door ,and they went in. ' The rooms, she saw, were all -in perfect order; summercovers had been put upon the furniture; protect ing cloths had been spread over the beds up -stairs. Her father tried the v water .and :.the gas, and found they had been turned off. After their in- , spection they came out again at the front door,; and her.. father closed it with a snapping of he spring lock. Constance, as , they walked away, turned and looked back ,at • the old house, gloomy and dark among its newer, fresher -looking neighbors; and suddenly she choked, and her eyes grew wet. That feeling 'was not for Uncle Benny; the drain of days past had exhausted such a surge of feling for him. That which she could not wink away was for the boy who had come to that house a few weeks ago and for the man who just now had gone. UAPTER XIII The Thin From Corvet's Pockets "Miss Constance Sherrill, Harbor Springs, Michigan." The address' -in large scrawling let- ters, was written across the brown paper of the package which had been brought from the post office in the little resort village only a few mom- ents before, The paper covered a shoe box,' crushed aridold, bearing the- name of S. Klug, Dealer in line Shoes, Menitowoc, Wisconsin. The I box, like the outside wrapping, was carefully tied with string. Constance, knowing no one, in Man- itowoc and surprised at the nature of the package, -glanced at the post- mark on the brown paper which she -had removed; it too was stamped Man- towoc. She cut the strings about the box and took off the cover. A black 'and brown dotted silk cloth filled the box, and, seeing it, Constance caught her breath. It was—at least it was very like -the muffler which Uncle Benny used.to wear in winter. Re- membering him most vividly as she had seen him last, that stormy after- noon when he had wandered beside the lake, carrying his coat until she made him put it on, she recalled this silk cloth or one just like it, in his coat pocket; she had taken it from his pocket and put it around his neck, `e She started with trembling fingers to take it from the box; then, n e , alining from the weight of the pack- age that the cloth was only wrapping or, at least, that other things were in the box, she hesitated and looked a- round for her mother. But her mother had gone out; her father and Henry both were in Chicago; she was alone in the big summer t"cottage; ' except for servants. Constance picked up box and wrapping and ran up to 'her room. She locked the door and put the box upon the bed; now she lifted out the cloth.. It was a wrapping, for the heavier things came ,with it; and now, also, it revealed itself plain- ly as the scarf --Uncle Benny's scarf!' A paper fluttered out as she •began to . unroll it --=a little cross -lined leaf evidently torn from a pocket memor- andum book. It"had been folded and 'rolled up.. She spread it out; writing was upon it, the ' small irregular let- ters of Uncle Benny's hand. "Send to Alan Conrad," she read; ,there followed a Chicago addrees— the number ,of Uncle Benny's house on Astor Street, Below this was 'an- other- an- othe - lime: "Better e are of C'onstaiace Sherrill (Miss)." There followed the Sher rills' address' upon the Drive. And to this was another correction: membered that" Adan Conrad had been brought tothe :people in Kansas; he "about was three years old." If this wedding' ringwas has mother's, m er s the date would be about right; it was a date probably something more than la year before, Alen was born. Con- ' 'stance put down the ring and pinked up the watch.. Wherever it had lain, it had been less protected than the l ring; the covers of the cese bad been almost eroded away, and -whatever initialing or other marks there might have leen hmon the outside kvere gone. But it was like Uncle Benny's w tch--or like one of his watches. Hb had several, she knew, presented "Not after June 12th; then to Har- bor Springs, Michigan. Ask some ,one of that; be sure the date; after June 12th." , unrolled Constance, trembling,of ed the scarf; now coins. showed from a fold, next a pocket knife, ruined and rusty, next a watch—a man's large gold watch with the case, queerly pitted and worn completely through in piaces and last a plain little band of gold of the Size for a woman's finger a wedd- ing ring. Constance, gasping and with fingers shaking so from excite- n,zent that she could scarcely hold these objects, picked them up and ex- amined them the ging first. It very evidently was, as she had immediately thought, a wedding ring once fitted for a. fiinger, only a trifle less slender than her own. ' One side of the gold band was very much Worn, not with the soft wear which a ing ,gets on a'hand, but by some diffeent of sort -of abrasion. The other sid the band was roughened and pa d but not so mudh worn; the in ide still bore the traces of an inscrip ion. "As long as we bo... all live," on - stance could read, and the date "June 2, 1891. . It was January, 1896, Constance re- c to him at various tries -=waters h1- most always were ` the testimonials given to seamen for acts of sacrifice and brave She remembered n'3'' find- ing d ing some of those testimonials in a drawer at his house once where she was rummaging, when she was a child. One of them had been a watch just like this, large and heavy'. The spring which operated the cover would not work, but Constance forced the cover open. There, inside the cover as she had thought it would be, was engraved writing. Said had seeped into the (Continued on Page Six) WhaTCOMFORT LYE a 3 • Conifers Lys is a very powerful cleanser. It is used for cleaning up the oldest and hardest dirt, grease, etc. Comfort Lye is fine for making sinks, drains and closets sweet and clean. Comfort Lye Kills rats, mice. roaches and insect pests. Comfort Lye will do the hardest spring cleaning you've got. Comfort Lye, is good for making soap. It's'powdered,perfumed and 100%pure. s s splendid (0 a a. 4 4 a 4 Its the sealed Package to get WRIGLEY'S. it's in a sealed package, but look for the name—the Greatest Name in Goody -Land. WRIGLEYS Sealed 'Fight :Kept Right ACTUAL SIZE—the "Bigger Bar" 29 It's the work of Comfort Soap— for 25 years . Canada's biggest seller. Its big chunky bar means no waste—it's the biggest and best, soap , for the money n Canada. - There's no need to experiment—trust in Comfort. 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