Beadle's Dime Novels No. 35: East and West — page 48: what you’re looking at

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

' 48 THE BEAUTY OF WILLARD’S MILL. ‘Is there danger every spring?” cried Constance, quite ap- 3 palled. “ No, not allus. There ain’t no danger anyways; I know of, only to mill-dams. But this sile can’t stand the water—it jist melts right away. Waal, as I was sayin’, when the rise come, it took the mill another time, spite of all the men could do—an’ they had lots of ’em. The women worked too—even Minnie—throwin’ in brush an’ logs to hold the dam. *Twan’t a bit of use, the water works so quick—an’ it went all to nothin’ agin in one forenoon. Then your aunt and .Minnie, they went into the cabin—they’d got the cabin built up there then—an’ cried. But your uncle, he walked, an’ walked, up an’ down the creek-bank, nigh the place where the mill was, an’ he never said a word. Then Gleason, he went up to him, kind of smilin’, an’ he says to him, says he, ‘ Willard, it’s my turn to try agin now.’ So Gleason went to Hllinois about gettin’ some more money to start the mill agin. But things was growin’ worse an’ worse. The man he'd sold out to had got the buildin’s there insured ; then burnt ‘em up to git the money, an’ run away. I never see anybody so con- sarned about any thin’ afore, as Gleason was about losin’ that property. He never had been a hearty man; an’ now he jist pined away of layin’ awake nights, thinkin’ of bein’ so »poor, an’ he a gittin’ old. I seen trouble in them days, but *twan’t the worst yit. There was a man up to the Grove loaned your uncle some money to go to work at the mill the third time; an’ Gleason kept his word, and gin all his time, an’ all his means, to help your uncle. In the course of the year they got it goin’ agin, better’n ever. They was sure it would stand this time. But we’re neyer sure of any thin’ ‘cept dyin’ when our time comes. The very next spring it went agin !” Mrs. Gleason paused to wipe her eyes, while Constance found her own were very misty. — “ Gleason never got over it. It jist broke his heart like, an’ he didn’t live more’n two months. Nothin’ could stop your uncle, though. He borrered some more money some place or ‘nother, an’ went at it more fiercer’n ever.” “Seems to me,” said Constance, “he carried his persever- ance too far in one direction.” » . comicldooks.comnm