The Girl From Tim's Place   By: Charles Clark Munn (1848-1917)

THE GIRL FROM TIM'S PLACE

THE GIRL FROM TIM'S PLACE

BY CHARLES CLARK MUNN

Author of "Pocket Island," "Uncle Terry," "The Hermit," "Rockhaven."

ILLUSTRATED BY FRANK T. MERRILL

New York

GROSSET & DUNLAP

PUBLISHERS

Published, March, 1906.

Copyright, 1906, by LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO.

All rights reserved.

The Girl from Tim's Place.

INTRODUCTION

When we leave the world's busy haunts and penetrate the primal solitude of a vast wilderness, a new realm peopled by mystic genii opens to us. Each sombre gorge, where twisted roots clasp the moss coated walls, discloses fabled gnomes and dryads. Nymphs and naiads outline their shadowy forms in the mist of every cascade. Elfin sprites dance in the ripples of a laughing brook, and brownies scamper away over the leaf swept hilltops.

A wondrous Presence, multiform, omnipresent, and ever fascinating, meets us on every hand, and there in those magic aisles and sombre glades, where man seems far away and God very near, Nature sits enthroned.

It is with the hope that a few of my readers may feel this forest born mood, and in its poetic spirit forget worldly cares, that I have written the story of "The Girl from Tim's Place."

THE AUTHOR.

ILLUSTRATIONS

"For God's sake give me suthin' to eat" ( Frontispiece ) 23 All the goblin forms and hideous shapes of Old Tomah's fancy were rushing and leaping about 21 Nearer and nearer that unconscious girl it crept! 123 He grasped and struck at this enemy in a blind instinct of self preservation 195 "Won't you please give me a lift an' a chance to earn my vittles for a day or two?" 260 "Thank God, little gal, I've found what belongs to ye" 272 "Quit takin' on so, girlie," he said 325 "I did mean to hate you, but I I can't" 416

PART I

CHIP MCGUIRE

CHAPTER I

Chip was very tired. All that long June day, since Tim's harsh, "Come, out wid ye," had roused her to daily toil, until now, wearied and disconsolate, she had crept, barefoot, up the back stairs to her room, not one moment's rest or one kindly word had been hers.

Below, in the one living room of Tim's Place, the men were grouped playing cards, and the medley of their oaths, their laughter, the thump of knuckles on the bare table, and the pungent odor of pipes, reached her through the floor cracks. Outside the fireflies twinkled above the slow running river and along the stump dotted hillside. Close by, a few pigs dozed contentedly in their rudely constructed sty.

A servant to those scarce fit for servants, a menial at the beck and call of all Tim's Place, and laboring with the men in the fields, Chip, a girl of almost sixteen, felt her soul revolt at the filth, the brutality, the coarse existence of those whose slave she was.

And what a group they were!

First, Tim Connor, the owner and master of this oasis in the wilderness, sixty miles from the nearest settlement; his brother Mike, as coarse; their wives and a half a dozen children who played with the pigs, squealed as often for food, and were left to grow up the same way; and Pierre Lubec, the hired man, completed the score.

There was another transient resident here, an old Indian named Tomah, who came with the snow, and deserted his hut below on the river bank when spring unlocked that stream.