Argosy All-Story Weekly, Vol. 123, No. 4 — page 62: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

568 not believe some tramp had ravaged their stores—but at least he’d fix it so they never could-disprove it! He blew out his candle, and, bundle in hand, began his return trip. There was no trouble crossing the kitchen. There was even less in going up the stairs in the dark than in coming down. But Elmer had been away from home for years. On this last visit he had been taken directly to his room, and had not left it until now. There were six sleeping cham- bers up-stairs, three on each side of the hall which ran straight through the house from front to rear. His own, the guest chamber, was the front one on the west side. Next to it was Nancy Hines’s. Near- est the stairs, an empty one, facing another across the hall, the other two being used by Hetty and Letty. A journey in the dark always seems longer than in the light. To Elmer, inch- ing along the hall in pitch blackness, it seemed that he must have gone even far- ther than his door; and the latch which his cautious hand touched at length, he ac- cepted without question as his own. It was the portal of Nancy Hines’s virgin bower. Like many people who rasp the nerves of others, Nancy had none of her own. She slept the innocent, untroubled slumber of a hibernating cobra. She did not hear Elmer as he stealthily opened her door and closed it after him. She did not hear him when he knelt by her bed—not in silent prayer, but to thrust far beneath it the forage with which he proposed to with- stand a long siege. But when, his strata- gem having succeeded as he fondly con- ceived, he sat down heavily upon the bed, -his hundred and ninety pounds causing _Nancy’s side to shoot up and catapult her spare frame into the air—then she awoke. The full details of what next took place will never be clearly known. The two sis- ters, quaking in their beds, heard Nancy’s hyenalike yell, and Elmer’s calls upon his Maker. They heard furniture crashing, and finally a door being violently slammed and the bureau dragged across the room against it. Nancy herself, seeing- nothing, could not have testified accurately. Elmer, who should know better than any one else ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEERLY. what happened to him, often pondered the matter in later years, and finally decided that it would be better to enumerate the few things that didn’t happen to him. It would save much time! Upon hearing Nancy’s preliminary yell, - he was scared nearly out of his wits. He forgot where he was, or even who he was. When the dreadful truth dawned upon him he was completely turned around in the dark, and couldn’t find the door. It was while he was seeking it that the worst things happened to-him. He barked his shins so many times that he lost count. His nose rammed into something that would not yield, so that he tasted sulfur. But what remained his most vivid single impression was the time Nancy hit_him a chance blow on the head with a hair-brush, bristle side down. The bristles were of wire; they left ninety-seven tiny punctures in his bald scalp. There may have been a few more; it was hard to count them accu- rately next day. All things must have an end. He found himself in the hall a few years later, as it seemed, and still later, in his own bed. Letty crept chattering into Hetty’s room, and spent the remainder of the night with her. From Nancy’s room not another sound came. The incident was closed, in her opinion. She went to sleep again. No one else did, save for brief cat naps. Very early next morning Letty rose and peered out of the window. The east was aflame, turning the snow a faint rose color. Water dripped from the eaves. After a moment her startled voice roused Hetty, who joined her at the window. Swinging down the road toward Pepper- ill was brother Elmer, fully dressed, and bearing his old valise. He limped some, but was making surprisingly good time. Letty began to whimper faintly. “TI c-can’t help feeling guilty to think that we let him go out from his own old home on an empty stomach!” Hetty said nothing, but looked as if she, too, would like to cry. - A little later, when they beheld their pantry, their minds were entirely relieved. . Enough for their own simple dinner was salvaged from beneath Nancy Hines’s bed. ae Lh GOL DOOIX =) CO nin IT] O TA UNT\