Tom Slade on Overlook MountainFitzhugh, Percy Keese
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Tom Slade on Overlook Mountain
Fitzhugh, Percy Keese
Catskill Mountains Region (N.Y.) -- Juvenile fiction; Mystery fiction
To Tom poor old Caleb seemed like a last, faint echo of the upheaval
which had changed the face of nature and spelled sorrow in so many
lives. He was like a floating timber tossed by the wind and sea, the
last stray memento of some ship long since swallowed up in angry waves.
Tom was resolved old Caleb should not know that the offer of a reward
for his grandson’s capture was still open. He had hated but he had not
killed nor sanctioned killing. Tom had no doubt now of the grandson’s
guilt but his better knowledge of the whole affair only strengthened his
sympathy and liking for the little old man.
“Poor old codger,” Brent mused as they started back. “I never knew his
past history. I suppose a lot of folks lost their homes when the land
was cleared for the reservoir.”
“They were paid for them,” said Tom. “I guess a lot of them were glad to
get the money.”
“You can’t pay a person for his home,” said Brent. “You can pay him for
his _house_. Some of them tore their houses down, I heard, and carried
them off and put them up again in the new village near the shore. That’s
some idea, moving a village.
“Do you know,” he added, sprawling one of his legs against the
windshield and the other outside the car, “I believe it’s a good idea
for a village or a city to move; it gets into a rut sort of and needs a
change. It’s bad to stay too long in one place. Now you take Brooklyn
for instance, or Jersey City—”
“I often feel as if I’d like to get away and do something else for a
while,” said Tom, taking a serious view of Brent’s talk. “I don’t mean
give up my job at camp, of course, but just get off on a kind of a—you
know.”
“Restless kind of—I know,” said Brent. “Be nice to get off in that boat,
huh? The one you were shouting about? Just flop around. I suppose you
could bang down south in a boat like that. Start about, oh say in
October, and hit Palm Beach for the cold weather. I’d like to go down to
Dixie so as to get away from the Dixie songs we have up here. There’s
nothing like the water, Slady old boy. If I ever get rich I’m going to
have a yacht.”
Tom mused, his thoughts returning fondly to the _Goodfellow_. “She’s
some boat all right,” he said. “Hang it all, now you’ve got me thinking
of it again.” Then, after a pause he said, “Like to take a little ride
over to the Reservoir and pike around? It would only take an hour or so.
I feel kind of restless to-day; I don’t want to go straight back. I’ll
show you the boat, too, if you care to see it, when we get back to
Catskill. It doesn’t cost anything to look at it,” he added wistfully.
“Anywhere you want to go, Tommy,” drawled Brent. “I’ll look at anything
you want to show me.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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