—

The Sleeping Soul

A COMPLETE NOVELETTE

By Oney Fred Sweet

I'd picked up with Hard-Faced Mike oat In the North Dakota harvest Arid, had seen hln off and on all winter while we was both loafin' around Chi•aco barrel-houses, and In the ipritiE we'd shipped out together for a ral! road construction job in Montana. * It was In Miles Citr bat HardFaced Mike runs onto some acquaintance of his in a pool hall, and right away he wants me t<> beat it tack to Iowa with hln. He 1 argued me Into gettln* off at a little Junction before pallin’ into a certain ta k town and we was hlttin' the dusty -oad between the lown cornfields wh n 1 got out of him v. iuy he was so ax zioos to “make" the town, and yet s< all-fired sneaky about it. “I ain't been back here for 17 years,” he explains, pullin' 'he lira of his black hat down over 1 is eyes as an automobile zipped past i s. But I don't feel like takln' any chi ncer of being recognized." “What wits it?" I asks. 'What' the constable in the town ahead here apt to pick yon up for?” He didn’t answer for a m nut* Just shifted his hot black coat to ' other arm and kepi poor.d!" ale In the dust with those clingy si.'***

of his.

“She was a hired girl that worked In the neighborhood,’' he grumbles finally. “She wrote me a letter about her troubles while I was down a'. Chlckamaugua with the militia company for the Spanish-American war. I fooled her. I didn't come back with the rest of the boys that fall. After gettln' that letter I didn’t Intend ever come back, bu' Hank Bayles tells me out there in Miles City about the . old man havin' dropped off. The otd Inan had a place here, and I’m goin' to cash in on it and go back and buy a share In Hank's pool hall." Well. It was all out in a breath. How ne'd been livin' the past 17 years was written all over him. He had the hobo way of catr/in’ his coat: there was the bo dent in his limp-brimmed black hat. the bo twist in his mouth when he talked, and the suspicious to

squint to his eyes.

•This has got to be a great country through here.” I remarks, glancin' ! over tue June-high cornfields. “I hope [ the old man left ytu quite a pDce. So you was one of the soldier boys,

eh?"

“It was Just an acre or two and

the house." he mumbles,

seemed to think it would bring me >e..ty enough to buy an interest In rith him. Thete's an old guy who« livin' in the neighborhood who'll b" glad to dose the ..eal with roe provid' gets his rake-off big enough and he's the kind. too. who’ll keep mum

about me bein’ around here.’

"I see." 1 says, "you’re anxious lo this old guy who’s strong for flirt aortgages, and you’re Just as anxious about not seeln' this hired girl." "Just playin' safe." Hard-l'aced Mike assures. “She really didn't have nothin’ on me. Hardly anybody had •ver seen us together: we'd always

the back streets. See that conn

i tower and the water works' Standpipe slickin' out above the naples there? That’s the burg. We’ll cut through these here wooes. It's it as close, and I ain't stuck on ssln' any more of those d n auto-

ooblles.”

see. there wasn't much of a cornin’ thrill in Hard-Faced i system. Henry Klagge. the Idennan who owned the barrel boose Chicago where we’d hung out most rinter, had riven my partner Is name, and It was a good one. Here s within a mile of Uls old home and he merely looked tired, usty and disgusted. You could see plain enough that e cool, green cornfields, shimmerin' the sun. that we'd walked through id been Just cornfields without the green and the shimmer, rasn't hoarin' the finches slngln’ In sumac bushes on the i-oadsld-the woods we v as gettln' to was tonin' no more memories than s ibblt. The expression on his dusty id sweaty and sun-peeled face as e climbed through the barbeo wire mce to get Into the woods showed trw the callouses had layered about

Is heart.

It took an effort for him to crawl igh the barbed wire fence, too. ad he must have laughed at that Une dinky barricade Jade me think of the way the spo. t ghters in the bout that leave* them

•'has-been

But with Hard-rhtced Mike, youth ad not only gone out of his bod: Bi out of his soul. too. It's the both f 'em gone that maker, for a real

(lockout.

He was complainin’ about sonic Bidt-rbrush that had got In his way.

stopped short at the sudden

took on more squint. He was leary about runnin* into anybody; we was gettln* pretty close to home. There was more than one voice. There was an echo of voices—a Jumpbled echo, but nothin' to see ahead of us but the big wanlut and butternut

trees.

Then there came the sound of a

splash.

M-hm," says Hard-Faced Mike, with a knowin' Jerk of his head. “We'll have to steer shy. It's the gang in swl minin'.” “You old fool," I says, "do you expect any of that bunch ahead there know yon?" I honestly believe he dldn t think long enough but what first he figured he was Just about to run Into his old gang! few rods farther and we was •hie to look down on the naked forms cavortin' In the waU-r. The farmland "crick" had widened at the spot to a distance, I should say. of about 15 feet. There was a slippery place close to the dark-green water that was being used to dive from and there was lamps of wearin' apparel scattered around the big walnut tree near the bank. Of course the faces bobbin' around water was none of 'em familiar to Ha.-d-Faced Mike, and Into none came any rlgn of recognition or welcome. When we come and stood above 'em on the edge of the bank mey cut out their barterin' Just long make sure we wasn't too near their clothes to stsel 'em. and then kidlike, they lost Interest

Faced Mike could see a hawk circlin' high In the sky, beneath the white floatin' clouds .hat. with their gold edge*, was sailin' along like treasure-

ships.

And the yellin' and the splashin'! Hard-Faced Mike was bearin' the echo come- back from the shadowy pockets beneath the law-branched plum T.d choke-cherry trees. .w Hard-Faced Mike crop down on the bank, an' for the first time he was noticin' the June-high blue grass which he'd been lay*n’. catchin' the smell of the June warmed larth. and he was bearin' the Insects—the Insects .hat war keepln' up a snare-drum effect to the alto of the creek rippK-s and the tenor of the echo back in the shadows. Over on the dusty road a lumber-wagon goss ramblin' along, an' I could see Hard-r'aced Mike recollected the nimble—a farmer drivlc’ home Irom town. Seventeen years had suddenly dropped off of Hard-Faced Mike; a sev-enteen-year growth of scales and for the minute cleared away from his eyes, and his heart was poundin' hard against the seventeen-year-thick callous about it. The cynical squint was ail gone au he followed the antics of the young savage:, in the dinky crick, and listened to the new kind of lingo the/ babbled when they came out on the bank to dress. “Can you pick ’em all out?” I asks, j"the old gang?" i He didn't answer. He was watchin'

from home, and I"You got that one from the hired iri." I finishes. The old sqtdnt comes'Into his eyes

again.

'I didn't have to come back with the boyr that fall." he mumbles. . “I guess I showed her and everybody that. I guess 1 prrved to her that 1 wasn't quite so easy." After a while he looks over the edge of the bank, an' when be did so he sort o' stared. I guess it had shrunk for him again back into a dinky little crick. He was Just tired •gain—Just tired and disgusted. “I hope the place the old man left me brings enough to buy that share in the pool ball," he says. “Come on. I want to see old man Harlow.” By the time we got to the edge of town and into his old neighborhood the sun had pretty near gone down. Wo makes sure we ain't wat-h-d. and sneaks around back and pulls open one of the closed green blinds on the place his old man had left Peekin' in. I could see the rag carpets tacked close to the edge of the Imitation oek stroked wainscotin', carrying In coal and carryin' < ashes for. and tbs organ against the wall with a crayon portrait above it

When she answers I see that she's I Through the open doorwayr conu s got a trace of accent. “Hr. Harlow I the mellow notes of some kind of a ain't here no more." she says. "He's'night-bird, high in the quivering leaves

some agent had sold. On the whatnot the door lets in a full whiff of t

To them we was Just a couple of old men. that was all—rank outsiders How does she look?" I asks. 'J can almost step across it." poohs

Hard-Faced Mike.

your old gang Is gone scattered by now." I nays. “What was the freckle-faced kid’s name then, and the one that was afraid to go In deep, and the one that always stayed ••'til his lips was blue? Where are they now—runnin' corporations, doin' time, or In a place where there ain't no coolin' water like this?" Hard-Faced Mike tilted his black felt hat on the back of his head until the mm that was goin' down struck him straight in his squlnty eyes, times I had an Idea that by the way the sun hurt his eyes perhaps he was gettln' in need of a half attempt to straighten his damp hair. His hair

as gettln’ thin on tc “Come on." he says.

Lookin' at that swlramln’ hole wasn't makln' no more difference to him than if it was Just the dusty road we'd left. He was dulled. Hard-Faced Mike was. He’d got through takli

interest In things.

“Come on,” he says again. But just as we started to go. naked form rushed past us .and reach in' thp edge of the “crick" bank, sipped head first Into the dark green water. When I looked up at HardFaced Mike 1 saw him turned ready to go but his head was lookin' back waitin' for the the kid to come up. 1H be d d!" rays Hard-Faced Mike. 'That's the very stunt I used do myself when Hank Klein and the McNeill kids and Jim Wirt and Earne Sopere didn't das't." The kid that had just made the dive as no more than up out of the water than he started to duck the kid nearhim. I don't know that 1 can de scribe the kid that made the dive except that ho had “youth" written all er him in circus poster letters. There was a cowlick In his whitish hair that the ''crick" water hadn't plastered down the wetness Just glis tened >.n his tanned skin, and he war shakin' the drops out of his blue eyes like a regular river animal. lookin' over at Hard-Faced Mike and he was starin' at where tli* kid had come up in the water. Some how his eyes had lost their squint; there was a dreamy look In 'em. 1 you've been around with a guy long you can pretty near read the thoughts

sometimes.

Do you know what Hard-Faced Mike was imaginin'? He was Imaginin' that the dark-green water was creep lukewarm cool, about his own tanned and sunburnt self. an. his toes had left his clumsy bis k shoes an', in fancy, they was wrigglin' again In the slimy creek bottom among the

crawfish and boodsuckers.

The ripples Jurt before the spot where the crick widened, had started sing a song again for Hard-Faced Mike, and when a snakefly esme floatin' along to dip down to the troubled water* end skim oa to lose Itself In the cattail reeds on the opposite shore. Hard-Faced Mike had even seen the red design on the Inaec'.'s

yelow wings.

The overhangli.’ willows was castin' myrterlous shadows on the smoo surface of the nick just above tb»

rer In the cemetery." “Oh. If ho ain't here no more," says Hard-Faced Mike, "why. we won't bother." But he didn't hurry away from the doc An old couple was cornin' along the board sidewalk on their way down town, and Hard-Faced Mike steps Into tne kitchen Just in time before they him. I follows on in. There was vashtub by the window, some cookin' and flat-irons on the stove, and the dishes was set out on a red table cloth. She offers us each une of the kitchen chairs that had the bird's egg b'ue paint on 'em practically scoured off. It was up to Hard-Faced Mike to say something. "How is everything?" he askr weakly. The woman goes over to the stove and tests the heat of a fiat-iron with a quick slap of her forefinger. 1 gur*4 there was a washln' had to be delivered that night. “The Norton's have got clear on by now." she mays pretty soon. “You can get out without bein' seen." Hard-Faced Mike docs go and open the kitchen door again, an' his openin'

of the poplars, an' tnere drifts In the smell of lilacs that was about all in for the summ’-r. The yellin' and laughin' out on the hill comes echoed back from way. way off on the dark prairie. The boy blinks at me and then at the woman and then at Hard-Faced

Mike.

Sizin' up Hard-Faced Mike. 1 could •e plain enough that he'd never dodge cinders with me on the blind baggage again, nor keep me company freight-train "rods." You could see d found “home" and was goin’ to

stick.

The woman had been quick to read him. too. she who fi.ially started the explainin’. 'It was a mistake what I'd always told you.” she says to the kid. “Your pa wasn't dead; he—” I finishes, seeln' she was tumblin', "it was just that his soul had gone to sleep."

the kid with cow-lick In bit. whitish hair, that had made the dive from

the bank.

Yon could see the kid's musclec pple beneath hts shoulders that was particularly sunburnt on top when he nsed his arms to brush his hair back smooth, like the gent’s in the colic.r advertisements. His clothes wasn’t much when he came hut somehow ther • was a college boy hang »o Ms narrow-legged pants. could notice hla voice, when he jolneu in the babble, hadn't fully got past the stage of havin’ a break

In it.

It seemed so all-fired easy for that gang to laugh, but there was mighty few of their Jokes that we had the key to. We was like foreigners In a ttrange country. The gang's “who-cares-about-you" attitude seemed to sort o’ hurt Hard-FWced Mike. They had stolen his old haunts as If he and his gang had never originally ruled

over ’em.

He watches ’em wistfully when they flies out down the path that takes ’em over the dusty road toward stoppln’ every now and then to pick preen gooseberries, or to throw

stick at a squirrel.

We sat on the bank of the crick a long time after the gang had drifted out of sight between the low-branched plum and choke-berry trees. Grooves in Hard-Faced Mike’s brain that had been cobweb bed over for seventeen Hare was suddenly gettln’ active. "What you thlnltln’ about?” I asks. And what do you suppose that old

b. rrel-house bum answers?

I wonder who’s playin’ wld the old red carnelian now.” he says, "the one I used to win marble games with back of the school-house? Hank Klein i.nd the McNeill kids an’ Jim Wirt an’ Earne Soper** always thought that "canick’ was charmed. An’ then there that catapult I made. I hunted ell spring to find the right kind ol •rotch. and 1 picked a whole fiourseck fall of maple seeds to pay for the rubbers, but I pecked a crow with of the top of one of old man

Harlow’s pop! >r trees."

don’t say anything for just a minute, and men he goes on: 1 guess 1 told you back In the road." he says, "about the crowd that down to the depot platform that morn in' when Company D left to take part in the Spanish-American. The band was playin' and the town was crowded around the depot, clear back far as Shane's coal-shed, and some 'em was standln’ on top of box's. You’d outght’va seen us goin' aboard In our blue uniforms, with the r equipment rolled in blankets our shoulders. 1 was the firs' sergeatt. Everybody was cryin' ant! carryin on and the fellows was all gtvln' the girls brass buttons off their coats to bo turned Into hatpins. We'd been loafin' aiound town dreased In uniforms all week, and say—w« were seme strong with the girls. Down at Des Moines they camped __ In !he cattle bams on the State fair grounds, and finally they shipped

Chlckamaugua. I

Sopere and a bunch of us was o the train platform slngln' 'On Banks of the Wabash Far Away' wh.-n we i ode across the river in the moonlight. and then after we got in Coot

was stereopticon views of the Chicago world's fair, an' a glass globe full cf sand that some relation on a visit from back east had brought as a relic from Niagara Falla. was a lounge that sagged where the springs was broken, an' n crocheted tidy was coverin' a place where the upholstery had been worn

through.

Some fancy place In its day.” I comments. "Do we go in and 'jungle'

here for the night?"

takin no chances,” answe-s Hard-Faced Mike. "I want to drop down and see old man Harlow about settlin' the thing up for me, and be gone. He lives In that unpainted shark under the poplar trees at the bottom of the hill. The tallest poplar’s the one I shot the crow out of with a catapult. It's Just the kind of

a. deal that'll appeal

He'll still be livin' alone, and let him see a little extra In It and he'll be willin' to keep as mum as a clam

about my bein' here."

There was a half a block of vacant lots that was bein' used for a pasture the side ol the hill that we walked along by on the way down to old man Harlow's. I reckon Hard-Faced Mike had walked down that old plank s'dewalk a thousand and one times— hurrying oat alter supper to Join thgang; pickin' his way along, barefoot, on some errand to the fl»e blocks be rood Main Street: saunterin' along It of an evenin' when he had become bic and sassy enough to be a loafer la front ol the restaurant: takin' it that m nlng on the way to the depot in his blue first-sergeant uniform. We got to the row of poplars walked t*-rough the vegetable garden, to knock at old man Harlow's door. While we wa-t waitin' for him to come to the door—and we had to wait a long time—I see that the swlmmir' hole gang had come out on the vacant block for rn evenin' of "work-up.” a fuller bein' allowed to stay at hat till he was caught out and then the next feller gettln a whack at the ball. When the kitchen door fl- ally opers ft wasn't no old man who opened It— it was a woman with whitish hair an 1

pale-blue eyes.

All In a glance I could see she had come over from north Europe in the steerage as a young girl, and had hi: raighl for her acquaintances in the middle west, where she'd pitched in right away washln' other folk's diskShe was a robust-lookIn' person, but the pink gore out of her checks io seer who's at the door. Hard-Faced Mike stammers arourd >r a while and then he exp..dns lha' he wanta to see Mr. Hallow. The woman looks down freshly scrubbed floor. The ro -m bad. ol her was dark. Th* re was a clock

tlckln on the ma

game of work-up out on the pasti It was the kind of a game that darkness couln't Interfere with until It got so pesky dark you couldn't see-

the ball.

hear the echo of kids playin' like that on the edge of a small a summer evenin'? It's a peculiar kind of an echo that only youth can make. Just a "once over" at HardFaced Mike, and I knows how many times his kid voice had been a part of that same kind of an echo on the

same pasture lots.

Mahbe part of it was his voice echoing back down seventeen years. I knew that suddenly for HardFaced Mike and the poplar trees that stood in a row outside the unpainted .hack had begun to tower higher, and he whs seeln' the silver sides of the leaves as they fluttered in the dyin’ evenin' breeze. That fain* breeze was cornin' from ''somewhere t." and Hard-Faced Mike was seeln' that “out West" not as he'd recall seen it. hut as he'd Imagined It 17 years before. 'Way oft beyond the pasture a lighted train was jinglin', faint-like, on its start toward far-off

big cities.

Dark ns It was gettln' we could make out most of the swimmln' hole gang In the lot. We could tell it was the whitish-haired kid who had mad-i the dive from the crick bank that was up at bat. and it was while we was watchin' him tba. he cif-es the ball a whack clear over the whit" picket fence across the street. I see Hard-Faced Mike bondin' ovn with his arras rigid, as If he himseif was doin' the runnin'. I couldn't have told you what the kids was yellin'. It was In their own lingo, and we only got the evenin' air echo of it. The next thing we knew, instead of the kid runnin' on around th" bases he figures the game over an' comes laughin' and all out or breath plump into the doorway in front of us. Hard-Faced Mik<* steps aside fohlm just in time. About this time the woman lights the lamp, and we finds the kid. white-and-red cheeked, blinkin' at us out of his pale-blue eyes.

The Stable Fly ion had been that te two were IdenThe acute pain produced by the Insertion of the proboscis of the stable fly brings to any man a sudden realization that this biting Insectls pointedly different irom the house fly or typhoid fly. although hitherto his opln piercing mouth parts. It breeds iu

ttcal.

At times this fly becomes excessively abundant and occasions heavy losses among nearly all classes of live stock. Year In and year out it is a source of great annoyance, especially horses and cattle, and is an all-too-common and persistent pest. The adult stable fly resembles’th" house fly. but is slightly broader and feeds principally on ihe blood of animals. which is drawn with Its long, piercing mouth parts. I tbreed In accumulations of various kinds of egetable matter and also in manure, especially when the latter Is mixed with straw. When straw stacks bscomo wet soon after thrashing the files breed in the decaying straw and it is this set of conditions which produces the severe outbreaks. Spraying animals with rejiellents Is not very satisfactory, but the numb*-! s of stable flies c.in be kept down b> caring properly for stable refuse and by stacking or otherwise disposin'! of straw as described in a free bulletin Issued by the Department of Agriculture.

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