The Yankee Champion — page 142: what you’re looking at

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

THE YANKEE CHAMPION. 135 “You don’t know anything about my Baas ” ut- tered the man, almost doggedly. “Ves, Ido. Your actions speak for you. Tell me, Luke, do you remember your own father or mother?”’ “Tt remember my mother, Gideon, but I hain’t much recollection about my father.”’ ‘‘And did you love your mother?’’ “Oh, Gideon, I’m afraid I didn’t love her as I ought to,’’ returned Luke, with considerable emo- tion. “N ow, tell me, Luke,” said Gideon, after a tchort silence, ‘‘suppose your mother had died, and you did not know where or how, and then suppose you should find a man who knew all about it, would you not wish that he should tell you about-it?”’ ‘*Perhaps I should.’’. “Yes, and I know you would. Now, I ask you— and I beg of you, to vel me what became of my fa- ther.’’ _ “Tt’s no use, it’s no use, Gideon, you mustn’t ask me.”’ “Luke Soper, I know you will not tell me a lie.” **No, I won’t.”’ ‘Then I’ll ask you a plain, simple question. Was not my father murdered?”’ ‘Murdered !’’ shrieked Luke, stopping short in the narrow path, as though he had seen some wild eye gleaming at him from the wood. ‘‘Who said he was murdered?’”? — ‘*You said so, Luke.’’ “I didn’t! I didn’t! I didn’t! I never said so. I never told a soul of it.’’ “You told of it on the same morning that your words gave me proof that Silas Ryan was not my Eomicbooks (elo)