Page:Hugh Pendexter--Tiberius Smith.djvu/37

 and you can brush up your history. I shall issue once a week.' The last very firmly.

"And it's the blessed truth that those Alexander Selkirks had been cast away with dim memories of the Civil War for nearly fifty years: the curtain had rung down for them when the North talked of drafting soldiers. The children and grandchildren had been taught to read from old hymnals and Webster's spelling-book. Their literature consisted of a few ragged volumes of the vintage of the first half of the nineteenth century. They feared the outside world. Every child had been marked with an abnormal dread of the menace that crouched beyond the narrow horizon. And yet they hungered for news!

"Well, Tib told old Deacon Durgin—that was the aged's name—that we were annexed, and would abide the summer in their midst and furnish real news. In private life Tiberius was a most exact and honorable man, but when it came to business he carefully locked up the Golden Rule and never allowed his vocal chords to vibrate harshly at the rough touch of truth.

"Finally we were shown to a house of logs in the centre of the settlement where the old hand-press and some rolls of paper were stored. The owner had left his property in fair condition, and the paper, some of it quite fresh, some yellow with age,