The Normal Record. September 1900

              THE NORMAL RECORD.
place his thumb to his ear and after slightly
rubbing it, would again gaze earnestly at the
knot-hole.
It was one rainy afternoon, when all the
men had gathered in the general gossip-
room, to talk over anything that happened
to stray into their miuds, that Jim first made
an effort to entertain. Such an effort was
prompted by the tale of a heinous murder
case which evoluted out of the story of Lincoln's funeral that the old man with tobacco
stained whiskers had just been telling.
Jim drew his eyes from the floor, puffed a
gust of breath from his cheeks, slapped his
knee and said:
"Speaking of murders: I'll tell you a story
of one which I can never forget.
"My brother owned a small  plantation  in
southern Virginia.    He had worked on it for
years, developed it from almost  nothing, and
was  just about  to  take  life easy when the,
tragedy occured."
Here he paused and looked at the floor.
The listeners glanced at each other, struck
with the contrast of his personal appearance
and his language.
"One night," he continued, "after Frank
(that's my brother), had returned from the
town with a sack of money, for the purpose
of making improvements about the houses
and gardens, he was murdered.
"This is the way it was: He was the only
one in the house at the time. As it was
rather a warm night, all the men had hunted
the coolest places out of doors. My brother
said he had some business to look after, so we
left him.
"Next morning Frank did not appear, so I
went into the little room they called the
office to find him. There, with his head resting on! his left shoulders, one arm .on the
table and the other dangling at his side, he
sat with a bullet hole through the back of his
head.
"Before calling any one I thought it best
to discover what I could alone. He had evidently been dead forsome time. The murderer
must have entered by way of the kitchen,
through the "little hall and then into the office,
tip-toed up behind my brother and then fired
the shot. There had been no struggle because
he stilljield his pen.
"After  being  sure  he   was dead the mur
derer went forward to the table, for all valuables were gone and three blood prints of
the ball of the foot pointed in the direction of
the kitchen.
"Other tiny drops could be traced from
the pool at his side to the upper roam over
his head, where I had been in the habit of
sleeping. After getting the situation clearly
and to my satisfaction, I notified all the men
but Billy, the trusted old slave, who could
not be found. Three days after he 'showed '
up,' and grieved more over the death of his
master than any of the others. Although it .
was known that he left the night of my
brother's death, we could prove nothing
against him. But somehow, everyone suspected that he was the criminal.
"After this awful tragedy, someway I
couldn't stay there, sol just mosied off one
night and have been traveling ever since.
His death left me alone in the world, and I
tell you, men—" With this he slapped his
knee, put his right hand to his ear, sighed
again and looked steadily at the zinc under
the stove, "—someway I can't get over it.
It's as vivid to me now as it was eight years
ago to-day, when it happened."
"How about the tracks upstairs?" asked
one.
"Oh, they proved to be the old house cats."
"And what became of the   property?" was
queried.
"Oh, hang the property. I don't care—I
don't know anything about it."
It was now dusk. The fire crackeled and
flickered a light over Jim Crogan's features.
All the listeners looked at him and felt in
their generous hearts a pity for the poor
fellow.
The rain pelted on the roof and trickeled
through with a measured drip—drip—drip—'
and every man shuddered as he thought of
the blood of the murdered brother.
Jim brought his chair forward with a click
as the front legs hit the floor, rose and
walked steadily to the door.
"Did they ever ' ketch ' the sneakin' scoundrel who done it, Crogan?" asked the man as
he screwed the stem from his pipe, and went
behind the door for a broom straw.
"Only one man knows who the fiend is that
did it and that man is Jim Crogan."