The Sunday Bee I MAGAZINE SECTION | VOL. 52—NO. 27. OMAHA, SUNDAY MORNING. DECEMBER 17. 15)22. K1VK CENTS The Tune Digger O===i®"==0 By Helen Topping Miller I Ely Could “Dig Up a Tune” for Every Occasion; This Is the Story of o Melody From Beyond the Grave. A HAW wind pelted over tho snow flats to tho north, flinging great dotted lumps of anow down from tho ham roof and alack. I.ucien MetTord regarded tho ragged sky with eyea schooled to tlio weather. "Hlg anow coming," ho Raid. A dog, part collie, part husky, beautifully ruffled, with small, keen eyea and a pelt as clean as a woman s hair, turned an exploring muzzle aloft. "She's coming, Chinook.” repeated I.ucien. Tho dog leaped, all the husky In him alert. "Smell it? Smell that old she-wolf howling over the hill? Sho's got a blizzard in her teeth, pup, and wind in her whiskers. Como along —we better cover th#t wood In the shed.” With the dog at his heels, I.ucien tramped tho path, hip high with shoveled snow on either side, to tho house. The house was little more than a shanty, half slabs, half tarred paper nailed to planks with great glistening tin discs. On either side of the door * the discs had been tacked to form two huge letters, six feet high, on the east an I., on tlio west an M, Ely had done that. Ely enjoyed a trick like that. He had laughed aloud as he nailed the shining tins into the Af, which Htood fur Melford, and ^tho I., which meant Lucas. ■ "Ain’t everybody can have tneir muiaia embroidered on their mansion, Loosh," Ely chuckled. “Your letter looks like you swear it does. Sort o’ square and determined with botli feet on the ground. No curlecues or foolishness. Me—I'm sitting down as us ual. Feet stuck out in front of men. L looks like me, don't it? Ever think what a lot of devilment the letter I, gets into? Toughing and loafing, and laziness and liquor—lying and love making?" That was Ely. Red head and laughing brown eyes. Freckles on his nose like a boy. Coat always flying, cheeks red—too red. Luclen Mefford stood still in the path and looked at the rust streaks like the mark of tears dripping down from the letter L. Un consciously he reached a hand behind him and instantly the dog’s cold nose found it. They stood, twn furry statues in the snowy dusk, motionless, dreading—dreading to en ter tliul lonely house. On an impulse Luclen plunged out of the path and struck out into the pines, the dog wallowing after. Xt was very dark undel ete trees, but Luclen walked straight to the spot under a hemlock, where the snow was a trifle higher, bulking long and sloping. Stolidly lie set himself to kick away tin white burden. With wet mittens and side flung motions of his feet, ho dug, the dog digging, too. and whimpering a little us ho stopped to bite his ch lied toes. The length of earth they uncovered was raw and new and patiently shaped with a spade. Frost had honeycombed it' and crusted it with a rimy < namel. A barberry bush, leafless and incredibly fragile in its nakedness, stood at one end, Us branches shivering icily. “Tomorrow I’ll fix some kind of shelter out here.” mused Luclen aloud. “I don’t know why 1 haven’t done It. He hated snow —Ely did. He was always worrying about things freezing and dy’ng In the woods, and l the birds not getting anything to eat. Hang • lug up hones and shelling corn for the rab bits. Quit that, you pup!" Chinook had fallen to digging at the frosted patch of earth, scratching with his nails, whining dismally. They wallowed back through their broken ' track, und Luelen unlocked the door of the house. The air they entered was ghastly chill, with a stale bone piercing cold, holding the odors of dead tobacco, cold soot, unolred clothing, and fried fat. Leaving the door open. Luelen tramped through the echo ing room and lighted a lamp on the shelf over the stove, Tho room had the vague, desolate look of a place long kept Immaculate and lately permitted to fall into slovenly dis order. Tlio stove was blackened and polished above it burned and rusty belly. Newspapers had been cut into scallops and put on the plank shelves, hut the decorated edges were smoked and torn. The wooden bed on I lie west side of the room was neatly made up. the quilt tucked in carefully, the pillows standing stiffly against the headboard. Hut the cot on the opposite side was tumbled and• loaded with a miscellany of abandoned property—a pair of soiled wool socks rolled into a ball, a shot gun and belt, a pound of six-penny nails lumped in a brown paper, a pile of ragged Canadian newspapers. Luelen kindled a fire in the stove and instantly the first two lengths of pipe glowed red hot and tho smoke of burn ing stove polish lloated against the ceiling. The dog crouched in a waiting attitude, licking ids cold toes, with one eve on the man. The man, too, had a transient air of waiting, a look of impermananey as though the house were no longer a fixed abode, hut a place of brief, bewildered so journ. and everything n tin room shared this aspect. The table was filtered witli unwashed pans and plates on which halt eaten food was drying. The three chairs sat at differ ent tingles, turned ns chairs are turned upon which one sits casually, but not as chairs upon which a weary house holder may rest. A pipe lay on a shell, cold, unlighted for Weeks. One knew the house for a place forenkon swiftly at dawn and occupied briefly and reluctantly at night. One knew, too, that this forlorn stall was recent and that the two ► Vila .-dialed it wore dazed arid wretched, helpicn.v. uncertain lmt to co about altering It. "Tin’ mesa would list, mad Inly ■ T.mUrt mused tihaid. "I know I bought more seonrlnc snap and lye for him Ilian any woman it» Mahopae W'o’v ■ got to clean it 1;1 S' t cliow. pup, you and me.” • lie took off the fur coat and the muffling cap of coney with eartahs, and kicked out of his great felt hoots nn«l mackinaw, and Instantly stood forth, amazingly slender, amazingly youthful, a lithe steel ramrod of a : in w h t sober, palish face with dark hair looped ncross tlV; fore head, and straight, thin, dead black eyebrows. II s mouth was sensitive and sparingly molded over u chin hull! on an unyielding curve, and as he moved about the room Ills lips twlched nervously. Always he moved one-sidedly, keep.ng an averted shoulder toward the empty bed in the corner, always the haunted look lay in his eyes. He heated a great pot of water and attacked the dlaor deny table, drying eacn dlsti awkwardly and at length, na though he wore watched and were eager for approval. When every cup and pan was returned to the shelf, he shook out the red table cloth, turned a clean side up permost, and set the lamp in the middle. The cot was nnoothed, the covers straight ened. the gun hung up. Even . the kindling was laid in an orderly row under th stove. And then. Invol untarily, I.ueien Mef ford turned toward —< hunted, us a tortured peni tent might say a ndsere. tho solitary bed, grinning triumphantly, liut the grin died in a swift, contorted spasm of remembering anguish, lie wheeled away and flung his arm over his eyes. . “Clod!” he wh sitored. “I’m always doing that. I'll take that bed out of here tomorrow." The dog came crawling to him. prone, abject, muzzle upturned uneasily, passionate tail heating the floor. I.ucicn patted the white, narrow head. “Just you and me, Chinook," he comforted. “Just yon and mo now.” Like a flash tho dog leaped to tho door, whining, ears up. The man turned away. “No use, pup. You can’t find him. No use to run your self footsore all over these woods. You can’t find him." But the dog persisted, yelping, clawing at the planks. “AH right. All right. If you’re bound to he a fool, go to it.” He opened the door, letting in a gusf ol wind heavy with stinging snow. Instantly the dog was gone, flashing snow puffs marking his floundering leaps. Lucion watched till tiio tawny flurry vanished Into the pines. He prepared his supper indifferently and ate it reluc tantly. Tea boiled in a tin basin, bread scorched tx fore tiie stove, sausage sawed from a frozen muslin-covered billet and badly cooked. Lueten picked it with a fork and shoved away the plate. "No use—I can’t get used to it. I'll.be loony directly, like Chinook—running around in circles in tho woods. As soon as 1 hear from her I'll sell out and go back to Sagi naw. I can't get used to lhis.” He crossed the room, carrying the l.uop and uncon sciously tiptoeing, as though he feared to waken a sleeper. 11,1 ;i shelf a picture was propped against a tobacco tin. a very new, very evpensivo photograph in a hcavV brown 1 older. The face In the picture was that of a girl with In-avy, fair hair pinned above tier brows, a luce unsmiling, but strong and sweet, with mothering eyes and a small, j cm mouth, 'lie- face Was repeated a dozen times in small kodak pictures pasted upon the wall above the wooden bed. in a group framed beside a window, in a little water color framed with wall paper. •‘.She’ll get my letter tomorrow, l-ige took it down Sat urday and the train likely ran on Tuesday Jf the snow plows got through. 1 guess l ought to have written sooner ' l'otir weeks lay on his conscience, the tour weeks during which tho letter liad l.eeii delayed The Ink had frozen and lie could never remember ty get any mere at Muhopu Thi n hail ootne the snow and tlie temporary hloeking ei house Even the dog had learned it from Ely’s joyously babbling bps. * Pamela Drook* *' l.ueien said it over softly, as be had done sometime^! in the barn dr in the woods, wla it the name lmd Urn to him a shadow a troubling, < lusive shadow, reluc tantly recognized, but coldly intungibl- a shadow between himself and Ely. Sw * at came out on hi1’ ,brovv now, as it did whenever ho thought cf that shadow, lie wiped it away, tensely grateful for the- nar row margin hv which that shadow had re mained a shatjpw, had no\«r grown into a barrier. \\ half dozen times I came near telling him A half dozen times l almost blurt* d out something. Ho w;vs glad glad. For now ih* s hade-w lirtween himself and Ely was e\* > ■••ing. a darkness umch would not Hit. Al-r. { ra w wan falling outside, sifting led. a;.a.n i the sin-1' v. lul -w. The wind c am* i.i| tih d a \ tin* d« *•> , thrusting cold* £UKi ; bp4 against - v< • crack. ■ c >1.1 i-iie.w wauls t" . »< ici and wni.fi hi:', !*■ .’ Ki\ had said »v he never tho wind mon -I* i out -i«l«■ Tie »**»g h nl not co • ! ok l.ueien Went • • * H«» do* ’ , held H a»;.i nst the gale*, rhout in; 1 ■ lie .1, j - . Hut his v* ice died, oft hi h;*s lik» [ inol.r If. mode the ch or fast and look to pad on tic room. Outside the pines swish, d and liti r Clod-four w**» ks. It’s breaking me. I can feel it. And now a 1 ig snow coining!" Against the foot of lie he d stood a guitar He picked it up, turned the keys idly, plu< ing at the strings. Strange minor intervals Bounded from the untuned Instrument, dis count, ted fragments of melody ns mourn ful nnf* lone as the harping of tho whim, l.ueien lingered and experimented and then set the thing back against th»* bed. , "C imT even dig up n tune, Ely." D s sigdle was rueful. "That had been Ely’s Job, always—dig ging tip a tune "Dig up a tune, Eo«*>h," lie hud *-A. n sc led when the t*.lU broke cluun in thi* middle of a pattern or the rabbits came out of the woods and cleaned off the flux. »*i i parching summer laid their com low • I *jg up some kind of a tune She might he worse.” A' .v.v» that way. Klv even now. "I>’g up u tune, Ijoosli." tin* neutly, almost solemnly made 1 . d seemed to give forth n voice, very weal;, hut undaunted. “Can't be done. Hi;,. Can't bo done, boy!” That was the way they began—talking to themselve “I'm getting if." thought Lueien. ' I'm getting loony." He sat up suddenly There's that blame fool dog. Won der how long before I'll lie out, baying in the snow?" Far down the road through the pine slashing he eontd hear the bay of Chinook, sharp as a shot, even against the trumpeting of the wind. "He's got something. Somebody naught in the blow. Man—the way Chinook iclps. I.ige Walker, ma; I* — la e getting luick.” He stoked the stove and opened the drafts so that tiie Pl|»e glowed. The dog name nearer, his bugling 'Han on' Ifau-oo!” marking his progress as di lii dely as thotvlilstle of an engine, l-tuinn went close to the door and listen- • i “Horse! A plug, l.ord. wliat a fool." I In dragged i hia heavy boots. A horse meant a stranger. Mo man v. .m know the country would start out in a sleigh on a nigh; like this. He could bear the creak of the runners, the t ad yelp of tfie dog bounding alongside, th plunging ot a wind >d horse. He saw a lantern. He wt udnred how they bad held it against the v inl until lie noted that it was an tlei trie ail'air, with a white concave eye rearfliing th v te wilderness about tin nods •. I.ueieti . "inod tlie door. “Hey, yon'" Tie v tul tore down bis throat as h’ rhou1. ... Chinook came p ug, coat caked with hard drivi; : snow, leaping with’dd four feet off th> ground. “What you brought in out of tie wood**. boy? Tho horse stopped, floundering do en \ unis front tin house. A man ea ■ ■ luge Walker, luge Walker driving a pung. Crazy- phi: t i razj’! Igjcieit s.-rumbled into I eoat and dragged ti - coney cap o\u :• his ours. “Get inside, you want to freeze to d. itlf. be derm ad ed, as he shoved the dog irtside the ilcor. He strode don’t the drifting path "I,lc< you damn fool, what you tryin' do? Kill a good hot. I.ige Walker, the garrulous and prot'atjc teamster, did hot answer fur a m. then he elm ed bis throat vously. “LoohIi. I got .< I d. here—-—” I.ucien froze in i - tracks. ' A ! “She's came alt r . ay from 1 .i11.■ 't tu ois to r . I Just brought hm > > it lion u|u v :u.e It vn* cot"'