Page:J Allan Dunn--The Girl of Ghost Mountain.djvu/112

94 "My daddy was born there. And so was I. Daddy was like his father. He wrote about the insects of New England and dreamed until the Spanish War came. Then his fighting blood woke up and he went and came back wounded. Poor daddy. We had very little money, you see.

"Then Thora came, when I was thirteen. She crossed from the Old Country to join her brother. He had a wood-chopping contract near Hannal. He had a terrible accident. His axe slipped and slashed his foot. He was in the woods and he had lost a lot of blood before Thora found him, after dark, carried him home, and he was almost as heavy as she is. There was no doctor for two days. Blood poisoning set in and help came too late. Father had done what he could but he died. And Thora came to live with us.

"When my mother died she was everything to me—except daddy. He lost all interest in things. He buried his heart with mother. A year ago—we lost him. And there was nothing. Thora wanted to go to work and keep me idle. I wanted to go to work and there was nothing I could do. Daddy had taught me and my education was loving—and not practical. I could only have gone to work in one of the mills. Thora would not hear of that.

"Then the great idea came. Grandfather's holding on Ghost Mountain. He had told me all about it. How to get here from Pioche. We looked it up. Thora thought it possible and I loved the plan. There was a tourist who had wanted to buy some of old old furniture. We had her address in New