———
Democrat Mat,
Bellefonte, Pa., May 10, 1907.
_—
SPRING
A Snowdrop lay in the sweet dark ground.
“Come out,” said the Sun, “Come out?"
But she lay quite still and she heard no sound;
“Asleep,” said the Sun. “No doubt 7’
The Snowdrop heard, for she raised her head,
“Look spry,” said the Sun, “look spry I"
“It's warm," said the Snowdrop, “here in bed.
“0, fie I" said the San, “0, fie!"
“You call too soon, Mr. San, you do!"
“No, no," said the San, “0, no!"
“There's something above and I can't see
through.”
“It's snow,” said the Sun, “just snow.”
“Bat 1 say, Mr. Sun, are the Robins here?’
“Maybe,” said the Sun, “Maybe,”
“There wasn't a bird when you called last
year."
“Come out,” said the Sun, ‘and see !I"
The Spowdrop sighed, for she liked her nap
And there wasn't a bird in sight,
But she popped out of bed in her white night-
CAp ;
“That's right,”
right I"
said the San, “That's
And, soon as that small night-cap was seen,
A Robin began to sing,
The air grew warm, and the grass turned
green.
“Tis Spring!"
Spring I
— Isabel Ecclestone Mackay, in 8! Nicholas.
laughed the San, *'Tis
THE HERE DOCTOR.
Hetty Griswold lived in the little house
beyond the pine woods on the Fairfax road.
It was a bleak-looking house in winter,but
when summer came the taogled front yard
bloomed out gloriously. Over the front
door was a sign in rude lettering, rather
faded: ‘Herb Doctor and Eclectic Physi-
cian.”” The air in that pars of the town had
odors of its own. There was the smell of
pine and the crisp tang of the upland
breeze. People who came to Hetty's door
for herbs always felt irrationally helped by
the air itself. No wonder, they told her,
she looked so brown and well. To-night
she was cooking her supper over the kitch-
en stove. It was bright autumn weather,
and the early dusk was falling, with a
touch of cold. Hetty stirred briskiy about
seasoning and tasting, and, as she always
did, eating balf her supper while it was in
process. She was very little, and tanned
brown by her outdoor life. Her bright
eyes looked as if they were fitted for exacs-
ly the use she put them to: peering under
forest shadows for herbs, and separating
healing roots. There was a knock at the
front door. Hetty was in the act of tarn-
ing out ber browned hash upon a plate.
‘The land!" she breathed; and while she
was setting the bash on the table the knock
came again. She hurried through the for-
mal sitting-room, half office, where bettles
of tonic were ranged in the corner cup-
board and a smell of herbs arose, to the
listle front entry. She dragged at the sag-
giog door and, when it opeued, almost fell
back with the weight of it aud her surprise
at what she saw. It was an eag:r woman
as small as herself, with a faded fair skin,
and blond hair that had once been beanti-
ful pulled back from her face and wound
intoa knot. Hetty regarded her almost
with terror.
“What is it?"’ she hreathed, and then
added tumoultuously, as il she must:
“Anybody sick?”
The other woman faced her with a look
as eager. She seemed much moved, but
in a fashion that wade her cold rather than
hot. Her bare bands, "bard aud uncared
for, were clasped outsule ber shawl, and
once she set her rusty town hat straight,
with a kind of scorn of any such pretense
at palliation.
‘*Mebbe you don't kuow who [ am?”
she began in an eager plunge, upun the
heels of which Hetty’s voice came carly:
“I guess I know’s much as anybody
could tell me. You was Mattie Green, an’
you married my hasbaud after he was di-
vorced Irom me s0’t you conld.”
The statement souuded, not harsh, but
merely blant and true. Hetty seemed to
bave been constrained to make it, chiefly
by the surprise of the moment. [tshook
out of her a classification she had often
dwelt on io solitude, for the enlightenment
of her own brooding mind. It did not
sting. It scarcely made a ripple upon the
other woman's great disquiet.
‘‘He’s sick,” she said, with simple
pathos,
“Who's sick?'’ Hetty asked it with the
vague obstinacy of one who could assume
vo knowledge of the household that bad
once been hers.
“Enoch. He wants you should do
suthin’ for him.”
Hetty's tanned face looked suddenly
stricken, though perhaps only with won-
der. Bat immediately she seemed older,
and a distinet anxiety overspread her.
“You come in,”" she said. “I ain't had
my supper yet." She led the way into the
kitchen, and the other woman unhesitat-
ingly followed her. Hetty drew a low
rocking chair to the stove and opened the
oven door. ‘‘You can put your feet in, if
you're cold,’’ she said abruptly, and Mat-
tie immediately took the chair and lifted
her pathetically ill-shod feet to the flood-
ing warmth. Hetty gave a glance at her
table, and, finding it needed butter, bronght
it from the cellarway. She placed her own
chair, and then she hesitated.
‘‘Won’t you draw up?’’ she asked.
But the woman shook her head.
“I had me a cap o’ tea afore I started,”
she exclaimed. “I ain’t had much appetite
for some time. Where was 1? Oh! I told
you he’s sick. Well, he’s been up an’
down goin’ on ten months now, fuss eci-
atica an’ then kinder beat out all over.
Now he’s took to his bed, an’ if sothin’
don’t rouse him it’s my belief he never’ll
leave it.”” She paused to wipe away a tear
with the corner of her shawl. Yes it bad
bardly the dignity of a tear lying in the
meagre hollow about her eyes; it might
have been brought by the cold and not
through griel.
Meantime Hetty had been eating steadi-
ly, helping herself to the hash and her cup
of steaming tea, like one who sees some-
thing difficult before "her and kno
through custom, that the body must
heartened by good food. The other wom-
an, in her dry despair, looked as if she had
long given upall thought of such aids to
life, as if she spent her strength eclesslys
knowing the outcome was sure to be the
same. She held her hands to the stove and
went on again:
‘‘“He’s bore it pretty well ap to now, but
ay fore oy kinder give out.
‘Mattie, says he to me then—'twas as if be
couldn’t help it—'‘if Hetty was only here
she'd see what was the matter o’ me. She'd i
know weat to do.”
Hetty looked steadily into ber plate, and
continued to eat as if she had vo other
thought. Bat once she glanced up, and
ber eyes were brimming.
“I knew you was a kind of a doctor,”
said the wile. “Oncel rode by here an’
I see your sign over the door—'"’
“That was uncle's sign,’”’ said Hetty, in
a steady voice. ‘‘He lived bere a good
many year, an’ when he died I les the sign
be, same’s it was. I keep up the herb
trade, but I ain’s eclectic. I couldn’t hold
a candle to him.
But the woman bad not beard.
“I saye to him,’ she continued, ** ‘Why,
I'll go right over an’ see. Mebbe she'd
know in a minute. Mebbe she’s got some
trade on hand.’ So I gos Sally Dwighs to
set with him this arternoon, an’ I clipped
it right through the woods. Youn got any-
thing put up?’’ she added anxiously, ‘‘any
kind of a tonic you'd recommend?’’
“No,”’ said Hetty, “I don’t know'sI
bave.”
The coldness of ber denial seemed to
rouse the woman like a new rebufl from
hostile destiny. She rose hastily.
‘Se’ down, said Hetty, roughly.
Mattie rank into her chair, and Hetty
leaned back in hers, regarding her plate
with uneeeing eyes. Hall an hour before
she had been a woman of middle age, in
assured and vigorous health. Her face had
crumbled into lines. Her mouth shut bit-
terly and dropped at the corners. She look-
ed old.
“Wait a minute,” she said. ‘Yon
wait.”
The woman waited, as it seemed to her
for a long time. Then she stole a glance
at the window aod at the deepening shad-
ows, and felt constrained to speak;
‘‘Mebbe if you could send him suthin’,”’
she suggested timidly, ‘‘whetber or no yon
thought 'twould do much good, it might
cheer bim up a mite.
Hetty got u her feet with the haste
of a quick resolve.
“You set a spell,’’ she said.
along with ye.”
While she made her swift preparations,
the wife continued to stare at her with eyes
of wonder. They followed her about the
room in a dull interrogation until once
Hetty, confronted as she turned from mak-
ing up her little bundle, was on the point
of orying, “Don’t!” adding, in her mind,
‘‘youn make me so nervous as a witch.”
But instead ¢he announced, and not un-
kindly:
“Now we'll be gettin’ along. You step
ous, an’ 1'll lock up.”
Mattie scurried over the doorstep with
the haste of running water, and began
climbing the boundary wall between
Hetty's little garden and the woods.
“You know the way ’acrost?’’ she call-
ed.
Hetty was tying her key in her bandker-
chief, aud now she throst both into the
bottom of a long pocket. She nodded, put
her steady foot upon a stone she knew of
old, and stepped over.
“Lemuel Dwight, be kinder marked out
the path for me,’’ Mattie explained,as they
wens on through the narrow way. “I
dunno what he thought I wanted on’t, bat
I'd made up my mind to come.”’
Hetty made no answer. She went steadily
ahead, down the knoll and over the step-
ping stones of the hurrying brook. As the
path widened, so that they walked fora
womens ahreass, she said abruptly:
‘‘He used to have sick spells.”
‘‘He said so,” returned Mattie, eager for
communion, ‘‘He said sometimes he laid
for months all beat out, an’ nobody knew
what ailed him nor he didn’t himself.”
“Twice,” confirmed Hetty, in her un-
moved voice. ** ‘T'was twice in all.”
Half an hour later, as they were cross-
ing the brown stubble of a field, she spoke
again. ‘‘His heart ain't right. It npever
bas he'n.”’
“So he said,’’ avowed Mattie, in wonder
at their agreement. ‘I'm wortied to
death.”
Thereafier Hetty's mind dwelt upon
Mattie herself with a kind of wondering
scoru. She bad vever seen anybody with
#0 little brain, or a brain xo feebly adapted
to work. Mattie bad always been a wys-
tery to lier, first in the power of her blonde
prestiness when she came to visit a neigh-
bor, and Enoch bad followed her. Hetty
wondered why. There was scarcely a night
now, alter all the years of separation, when
she did not go to sleep askivg herself why
Enoch bad been carried away by Mattie
James. But she never guessed. She knew
Enoch well, and it wonld not have sarpris-
ed her if he bad been bewitched by certain
women soe had seen. He had wild moods
and wandaring blood in him. He wasa
farmer by force of circumstance, and yet at
heart a man horn as least to hunger for
adventure if he might not share it. And
from the moment of her quitting his house,
to leave it for avother tenant, until to:
night, she had vever been able to see any-
thing hat a meagre foolishness in the affair
that lured Lim from the track.
It was dark when they walked np to the
great weather-worn house they knew.
“Take care,” said Mattie at the door,
‘‘there’s a kind of a holler there.”
“I know it,” said Hetty, with an invol-
uuntary sharpness; bat she followed meekly
in, and while Mattie horried through into
the west room where Enoch lay, he stood
taking off her bonnet in the entry. She
folded her shawl with firm bande, placed
it with the bonnet on the tahle, and then
smoothed her hair and waited, her face un-
moved. Mattie returned in a moment,
tremulous with haste.
“‘He can’t badly sense it,’’ she explain-
ed. ‘‘I'vesent Sally Dwight home t’other
way. Mebbe you better come right in an’
see him.”
Hetty gave a sound of commonplace as-
sent, but, at the threshold her foot halted ;
she steadied herself by a band upon the
casing of tho door. When she crossed the
sitting-room her eyes were blurred, not, in-
deed, by tears, but through some inward
wavering. She covld not have told wheth-
er the room had stayed unchanged. Only
the ticking of the clock drew her eyes for
a swift, recognizing look. It was the old
eight-day, and the moon was in the last
quarter. In the bedroom a lamp was burn-
ing, and a fire blazed upon the hearth.
Enoch lay high upon his pillows and
watched the door. He was an old man,
older in looks than his years warranted,
through the nervous whiriwinds that had
driven him on difficult roads. His red bair
had po gray in it, and his red brown eyes
were fall of a hungry light ; yet he was
worn ont. Within sight of him, Hetty in-
stantly lost her immobility and relaxed
into a sane and kind humanity. She ad-
vanced to the bedside and sat down in the
chair. There she regarded him pleasantly,
though she did not touch the that
had stirred feebly for an instant, as if to
meet her own.
“How be you ?'’ she asked soothingly.
He was studying her face, as if his eyes
would never leave it.
“Don’t it seem strange ?”’ he said, half
to himself.
forward a step into the
“I'm goin’
Mattie pressed
1 light, not as if to share the moment, but
with a candid wish to do him service. He
did oot look at her.
*‘1 could count the times I've seen you,”
he went ou, ‘‘all these years.”
““You feel any appetite?’ Hetty asked
him, from the same resolute calm.
He langhed.
“*That’s like you for all the wotld,’” he
said. This time he did include the other
woman in a confidential glance. *‘I shonld
know who "twas among a thousand. Al-
ways fixin’ folks up with suthin’ to eat!”
Hetty, too, laoghed as women humor
men. She rose,
**Well,"” she eaid, *‘if you ain’t had any
milk porridge. I'm goin’ to make you a
mite.”” She looked at Mattie and the wife
nodded.
**No,"”” Enoch was murmariog. ‘No.
Don's you go. You set here by me.”
“Bymeby,”’ called Hetty cheerfully from
the doorway. ‘‘We'll both on us be back
in a minute.”
Mattie, after a word with him, had fol-
lowed her into the sitting-room, where
Hetty stood by the window now, gripping
the sash with both bands and looking ont
into the night. The wife came up behind
her and waited.
“Well,” she said timidly. after a mo-
ment, ‘‘how’s he seem to you ?"’
Hetty answered, without turning. Her
voice was dry and bard.
“He'll never see another spring.’
Mattie sank into the chair heside her and
began a noiseless crying into ber apron.
Hetty, tarning, looked at her a moment as
if she were a part of the furnishing of the
room that might bave to be moved else-
where. Then she laid a band on her shoul-
| der and shook it lightly.
‘Stop that,’’ she said. ‘‘He'll hear ye.
Besides, there's things to do.”
Mattie rose, her face a blur of tears and
the waste of them dripping down unheed-
| ed, and went into the pautry with a step
from which the force of the last hour had
gone away. ‘‘Here,”” she called. “Yon
goin’ to stir up a mite o’ porridge? Here's
the floar.”
Hetty also had risen, to open her little
bnudle and take an apron from it. She
tied on the apron as il it were a panoply of
war, and, £0 equipped. she might enter up-
on the service she understood. Mattie left
her quite free, with a bright fire, and with-
drew into Evoch's room ; and Hetty found
herself busy in her own kitchen, as it had
used to be, cooking at the old stove, whose
faults and crankiness she remembered as if
the other life had been of yesterday. When
she went into the bed-room again Enoch
regarded her eagerly, as il his eyes bad
long heen watching for her.
“Yon wou't think o' goin’ back to-
night 2’ he said timidly, as one proffering
a petition.
Mattie spoke at onoe, with an air of
wishing to do her utmost, yet not knowing
how it would be taken.
“I'll be terrible dark goin’ acrest them
woods."
“I'll stretch out on the aittin’-room
lounge,”” sai! Hetty casoally. *'I can
sleep ‘most anywheres.”’
Then Evoch took his broth and was con-
tent. That night Hetty kept watch in the
sitting-room, stealing ons from time to
time to feed the fire, and twice when Mat-
tie appeared, like a tired ghost, heating a
cup of something, and waving her away
with it to the sick man. In the morning
¢he had breakfast ready, and looked, in her
healthy endurance, as if she had slept pro-
foundly. The other woman, worn with
work, plucked up a little courage, seeing
her. She felt in a vague way not only that
Enoch bad somebody to stand by him, has
thatshe had somebody to stand by her.
The right thivg would be done. Later in
the afternoon, when Mattie had gouve into
the sitting-room to sleep, and a broad track
of sunlight lay across the bedroom floor,
Hetty sat by the window, a stocking in
her band, and knit apd talked. By day,
Enoch’s face, in its ravaged state, was
dreadfal to her. He was painfully thin,
and the lonesome look of bis eyes betrayed
an apprehensive mind. Bus they lighted a
little now in their devastated hollows. Het-
‘ty was telling him some story of her ped.
dling herbs across the river, and coming
upon a man in the ssme business, who pro-
posed to buy the recipe for her tonic, and
who yet hardly knew pennyroyal from
dock. Her eves gleamed over the satire of
a situation she appreciated, and a littie
color came into her cheeks. Enoch smiled,
too ; hut presently he said wonderingly :
‘‘You ain’t changed so much as any-
body’d think. Seems as if yon wan't bard-
Iy a day older than when I see you last.
Hetty laughed again, not mirthfully,
but as one evades a moment she must not
consider.
*‘I was always as old as the hills,” she
said ruthlessly. “If I ain't changed, it's
because there's nothin’ about me wath
cbaugiv’, I guess. When I wan't more’n
sixteen, they used to call me old Gra’'moth-
er Thurston.”
Enoch laughed at that, and Mattie, com-
ing in from her pap, but just begun, as she
had an uneasy way of doing, looked at him
in wonder.
Thereafter the days went on in an even
course.
Hetty did not propose going nor did the
other woman dream she would. Euoch
retitled into a placid acceptance of his sick
state, aud seemed to gain some strength
from acquiescence. One day Hetty came
oat of lus room with something new, some-
thivg alert and bright, shiniug from her
eyes. She followed Mattie into the shed
where the listle futile, painstaking creature
was picking up kindling.
“I dunno’s I was right,” Hetty began
abruptly. ‘When I see him that fost
night I thought he was struck o’ death,
Now seems if mebbe he'd pall through.”
Mattie dropped the basket and sank
down beside it. Two tears gathered and
rolled over ber wan face. But what she
said was amazing to Hetty.
‘Don’t you go away the minute he
seems a mite better. Yon see’l you can
pull him through.”
“I ain’t goin’ away,” said Hetty brisk.
ly. “Not yet, leastways.” Vhen it came
to her that if he did ges well, they would
not be living half in another world and halt
in this, as it bad been of late, and she add-
ed, with a hasty resolution: *‘I ain't
goin’ to spend the winter anyways. I'm
goin to shet up my house. Mebbe I shall
a in ber face had
ut the n her face changed it,
and when she went in to carry Enoch the
big applea neighbor had seut him, he
caught at a new brightness,
*‘Seems if you never’d bad a day’s sick-
ness in your life,” he mused. ‘‘Mebbe
that’s how yon’ve kep’ so young.”
“‘Mebbe it's because I'm oaidoors so
much,”’ said Hetty practically. “I'm a
kind of a woodsman, that's what I be.”
But she went out into the kitchen where
Mattie sat rocking by the window, aleo
cherishing a fragment of hope. ‘‘Look
here,” said Hetty, not unkindly, *‘you stir
yourself an’ git up an’ crimp your hair.”
Mattie put one bewildered hand to pale
Sails she had twisted back in her comb-
ng.
“Why, Iain’t goin’ anywheres,” she
demurred.
‘Besides, I don’t ever crimp it.”
“You git up av’ do it,” said Hetty un-
flinchingly.
“There was suthin’ you used to do to is,
slate pencils or suthin’. I never done it
wy=elf. I hadu’t no faculty that way: but
one time "twas all the go. You elip it up
chamber an’ fix yourself up.”
Mattie gazed at her. *“‘Come!” urged
Hetty.
“Come! You've got nothin’ else to do,
for I'm goin’ to set the dinner on the table.
You bunt up a piece o' blue ribbon, too,
from the tightening grasp. She rose noise-
lessly and met Mattie at the door.
“You go an’ set down au’ take hold of
bis hand,’ she whispered to her. ‘‘Hold it
real warm an’ close. ‘Twon’t be long.’
A look of terror flitted over the wom-
an’s face.
‘‘Don’t you go away,” she breathed.
“I'm kinder "raid."
Hetty spoke tenderly, almost with the
brooding note she had used to the dying
man.
“I'll stay right by.
afraid.”
Mattie sank into the chair and placed a
Don’t you be
an’ pio it on some’eres. I’m tired an’ sick | timid hand upon the one pathetically wait-
o' seenin’ you look as if you's sent for.’
{
i
ing. Then Hetty sat down on the other
Mattie rose like au uncomplaining little | side of the hed. At twelve she rose again.
drudge and went upstairs, as she had fol-
lowed all Hetty’s commands in their
strange relation. She patiently adorned
herself, and even discovered, in ber bureau
drawer, some lace and 1ibbon for her neck.
There was no vestige of old coquetry alive
io her. She bad dressed years ago from
the instinct thas bids the mating animal
preen iwsell, and, still the slave of nature,
she bad lost the desire when it would no
longer serve. Sbe cawe timidly inio the
kitchen, seeking Hetty’s eye for approval
or dissent. Hetty regarded her with a
brief dissatisfaction. She had, she found,
expected the old radians vision, of wilk-
white youth.
Well,” she said, “that’s suthin’. Now,
you go in an’ read the paper out loud.”
Mattie, siding into the room with the
paper, did vot look at Euceh until he iu-
terrogated her with a lavguid interest:
“What you dressed up for?”
‘She's goin’ to play lady now.’ said
Hetty, coming in on the heels of his speech.
“She got kinder beat out fore I come, an’
now I'm goin’ tc cleau house an’ let her
set by.”
“I w’'pose she did," said Enoch, **I«'pose
she did git beatout. Well, mebbe 'swon’s
last long. Seems il I was inchio’ along.”
Then Hetty, a little at a time, hegan to
clean house. Mattie was an indifferent
housekeeper. There was no ‘‘passion for
petfection” within her: only the acquies-
cent babit of makivg things do, Hetty
flew at the house she bad ounce so loved
with the ardor of the heart returned to a
possession long withheld. There were ob-
seoure corners vow, all clutter and dis-
array, and she éxposed them unflinchingly
to the light. One by one, heginningat the
top, the rooms were made to shine with
neatness, and the air smelled of soap. She
even picked over the rags in readiness for
the pedler, and made sundry rolls for
braiding and drawiog in. Enoch, hearing
the bustle and stir outside his room, and
learning from the two women the hourly
accomplishment, grew wholesomely inter-
ested, and presently ventured:
‘*‘Mebbe I can git up fore long an’ see
how things seem.”
The three had settled into a life of their
own, as sell-bounded as if it were on a
lonely island. At first, when the news
went aboat that Enoch’s wile had come
back, the neighbors flocked in to assure
themselves, and one or two acquaintances
drove from a distance hecause they could
not believe their ears. But Mattie came
out from the bedroom to receive them, and
Hetty was always hard at work, either in
the kitchen or coming in from another
room to exchange a commonplace word,
and they went away to accept the situa-
tion, perplexed, and yet pleased, in a kind-
ly way, because Mattie had some one to
stand by her iu her straits. The doctor
came and mused a little, as he left, over
the wholesomeness of human nature, and
the minister called to inquire and merely
prayed instead, a good general prayer cal-
culated to hurt no one. The two women
and the man had found themselves reduced
to the simplest possible state of being
where, help needed, it was given and ac-
cepted with no admixture of passion or
hot blood. Every day Enoch gnined a lit-
tle, though whether in contentment or in
bodily stiength not even the doctor knew.
And one night when the cold bad begun to
strengthen, though the days were short,
Hetty remarked to the wile:
“You needn’t say anything to bim; but
I guess this week I'll be pickin’ up my
things.”
Mattie looked the terror of a child aboat
to he left alone in the dark.
“Where you goin’?"’ she demanded.
Hetty answered briskly:
“I've got to go home an’ tend to things
for I go away.”
“You goin’ away?’ faltered the woman.
‘‘Yes. Iain’ sayin’ much about it, but
I've got a kind of a plan. One o' these
nights I'll slipous an’ nobody needn't know
it till I'm gone.”
‘“‘He never’d ba’ got well in this world
ifit hadn't been for you,” said Mattie.
Her eyes were wet, and she looked as if,
hat for her timidity, she would have said
things further to the purpose.
‘That tonic’s the heateree, '’ said Hetty.
*‘I guess il the doctors knew all uncle
could ha’ told 'ew, they’d do better'n what
they do.”
That night Enoch had the mysterious
chill that cansed the two women to rouse
the next neighbor and send for the doctor.
Then there were three days of pain and
terror, and on the night of the third he
was very weak. Mattie was sleeping a
moment, in the sitting-room, and Hett
sat beside his bed. Suddenly from bh
doze, be fixed clear eyes upon her.
*I didn’t do the right thing by yon,”
he said.
She bent over him and gave the sheet a
tender touch she could not give to him.
“You try av’ drap off & minute now,”
she said, in a tone not even he bad heard
from her.
“I ain’t done the right thing by youn,”
he repeated, as if it were a confession he
wae bonod to make. ‘‘I knew it at the
time. I said to myself I should be sorry
for it, the longest day I lived—an’ I have
been.
‘“Them things are past an’ gone,”’ said
Hetty calmly. *‘I guess there's good come
out of em, leastways if we make up our
minds to have it so. There ain't nothin’
yeocan’t git good out of, if ye try.” She
spoke soothingly, not #0 much to convince
bim, as with the hope that the words
would bear him into sleep. His eyes were
fixed upon her solemnly. She bad seen it
in many eyes about to close,
“‘Seems strange we never come acrost
ong another all this time,”” he went on.
‘‘Mebbe we tried not to. I know I never
took that road. Mebby you kep’ away
from me.”
Hetty laughed in what seemed a passing
lightness.
“Law,” she said, ‘I've kinder lived in
the woods. I have to, gettin’ herls an’
80. It’s made me real tough, bus it's kep’
me away fiom folks. Now you lay still a
minute an’ eee if you can’t drop off.”
He moved his hand slightly.
‘‘You—yon take hold o’ me,” he said,
aod Hetty laid her hand firmly npon his.
Then heshut his eyes and seemed to rest,
In cn hour or more she heard Mattie
stirring in the kitchen, and watching his
face meantime, she gently took her hand
oe
{
i
i
“There!” she said. *“There! it's over,” — |
By Alice Brown, in Collier's.
Why Do We Wish to be Young. |
The arsertion that middle age mighs be
a bappier time than youth has aroused
doubts in the minds of certain readers.
‘Is it possible that any other period of
life can be compared with ‘halcyon youth’?
Are vot the poets forever yearniug for it?
Is it not the great universal truism that
youth is the happiest time? Is not anyone
who says the contrary, simply trying to
be a ‘sulphite’—to say ‘‘the unusual
thing'?"’
It way be pretty confidently affirmed
that the chief reason for the prevalent prej-
udice against old age ia on account of its
infirmities. If the old age of everyhody
could be like that of certain hale and
hearty octogenarians such as we olicu meet
we should hear little of its terrors.
Bat is not one pretty sure to hecome
deaf or blind, or to be knotted up with
rheumatism, or choking with asthma, by
the time one reaches threescore and ten?
One surely is, but if people were taught
how to take care of themselves, or even
lived up to what they know, they would
probably, harring accidents, bave a healthy
and normal old age.
Thus a distinguished Brooklyn woman
long a victim of neuralgia, confesses that
she first acquired it from getting up at
night to read, usually becoming chilled
through and through, after her parents
thought shz was in bed.
Another of our most prominent women
hecame a wreck from nervous prostration.
She bad a passion for sitting up at
night. I! she wished to finish a gown
or a book she would simply sit up ‘‘ontil
she was ready to drop’ with fatigue. She
deserved the fate which came to ber.
The profoundest philosophers insist that
we were meant to grow happier and hap-
pier, until the end of lif, and would so
develop, except that we have ‘‘sought out
many inventions.” The human machine,
intelligently cared for, should move on
comfortably, accidents aside, until itis
quite worn out, and fails at last, as many
actoally do, from sheer old age. Good
health and some sort of sound religion
should support a brave soul from one de-
cade to another, ever-increasing calmness
avd thankfolness, vo the very end, with
never a wish to return to the foolish gayety
of raw and undisciplined youth.
There are two questions which pertain
to this snbject. One is, **‘Wbat ought we
to most desire in life?’ The other is,
“What do we really most desirein life?”
Of course, what we really ought to want
is what is considered now a “*hanal” and
*‘obvions’’ thing—namely, constant prog-
ress in virtne (which Plato and Aristotloe
did not mind talking aboutin plain terms,
though the famous Henry James does;)
and the greatest amonns of wisdom.
What most of ns women really do want
is a pink and a white complexion, a syiph-
like form, the care-free thoughtlessness,
and all the other surface attractions and
volatile emotions of youth.
Now, everyone who has lived an honest
aud faithful life issure to be far better at
sixty than at twenty, and infinitely wiser.
Therefore, is not this absurd desire for
youth simply a bald confession that we
wonld rather be not so good than better,
and would rather be idiots than wise?
Which is a pretty silly and shamefal
condition.
Bat good health is the main preparation
for the gaining of wisdom and goodness—
and all the other lofty joys of old age.—
[Kate Upson Clark, in Brooklyn Eagle.
I am asked for my opinion as to whether
the small farmer can live. I answer by
saying that many small farmers are living
in comfort and ‘peace of mind. 1 bave re-
cently visited a truck farmer near New
York City. He owns thirty acres of land
and rents ten acres more. Eighteen years
ago he moved on this land with a capital of
$140, renting the place. Now the land has
paid for itself, and the net proceeds of the
place run from $1,500 to $1,900 a year,
counting only cash sales. Aside from this
return thould be counted free rent and a
good part of the daily living. This case
may be nnusaal, but it is not remarkable.
At all events, it shows what can be done.
But I suppose my questioner had in mind
to ask whether the farming of the future is
to be large-area capitalized farming or smal)
area specialized farming. [tis to be both.
Where markets are quick avd near-by,
small area farming will increase. The pro-
ceeds from fifty acres will be sufficient to
provide comfortable support. But the limit
of profit will soon be reached on these farms,
unless they are devoted to very high-class
specialties. The man who is ambitious for
large affairs, will go farther back to the
open country, assemble several farms, em-
ploy much labor, organize the business,and
apply the kind of generalship that is ap-
plied to manufacturing or large merchan-
dizing. More and more, the type of man
who now runs a small farm will find it to
his advantage to work under the direction
of a man of larger executive ability. It
‘will soon be demonstrated that capital can
be made to yield a profit when put into
well-farmed land. Young men with good
technical education and first-class execn-
tive ability will take the handling of such
lands. Small farwers who have technical
skill and knowledge, but who lack busi-
nese ability, will be drawn under the leader-
ship of such men, to the betterment of
. At present every farmer is at the
same time a specialist and a business man.
Division of labor must come in farming as
it long ago came in commerce.
Rather Mixed.
In the course of her first call upon one of
her husband’s parishioners young Mrs.
Suny spoke feeling!ly of his noble, generous
“‘He is as nearly an altroist as man may
'’ ghe said proudly and affectiovately.
‘Is be an altroist 2’ said her hostess,
with mild surprise. *‘I thought from the
tone of his v that be probably was a
bass.”
——If this world is not God’s world no
other will be.
-—Faith for the futare is the undying
hope of man.
WHEN SHALL WE ALL MEET
AGAIN.
When shall we all meet again *
When shall we all meet again ?
Oft shall glowing hope expire,
Oft shall wearied love retire.
Oft shall death and sorrow reign,
Ere we three «hall meet again,
Though in distant lands we hie,
Parched beneath a burning sky ;
| Though the deep between us rolls,
{ Friendship still unites our souls,
Still in Faney's rich domain
Oft shall we three meet again.
When around this youthful pine,
Moss shall creep aud ivy twine ;
When our burnished locks sre gray,
Thiuned by many a toil-spent day —
May this long-lov'd bower remain,
"Tilt we three shall meet again,
When the dreams of life are fled,
{ When its wasted lamp is dead ;
When in cold oblivion's shade,
Beauty, power and fame are laid ;
When immortal spirits reign,
There shall we three meet again,
A Chance to be American.
We like to be thought patriotic; we boast
of being Americans. Bot sometimes it
would seems as if the European idea of our
patriotism being superfizial is only too true.
Take, for example, the present fashion of
giving names to our country homes. How
often will you find a truly American name?
{ Or, let us name a new street, a new town,
| a new building, or rename any of these,
and what name do we give ? For the moss
part, a name either lamentably silly (whieh
is especially true of onr country homes), or
some name that is either meaningless or of
foreign derivation. Why can we not be
| more American in these names? How far
| more suitable, how infinitely more Ameri-
| can would it be if we used the Indian
| names, which are so heautifolly melodious
| in themselves and so fall of poetic meaning
{in their signifiernce.
| Take such names as these for country
homes :
Tekenink, meaning ‘In the woods.’
Wompanand, meaning ‘God of the
Dawn.”
Munnohannit, meaning *‘On an island.”
Egwanalti, meaning *‘By the river.”
Udabli, meaning ‘Married.’
Nunokomuk, meaning “A
place.”
Wadchukontu, meaning ‘‘Among the
mountains.’
Wosumonk, meaning “Brightness.”
Sowania, meaning “Southerners.”
Wastena, meaning “Pretty.”
Neboshshon, meaning **Beud of a river.”
Ishpiming, meaning ‘‘Abhove all.”
Ggeedankee, meaning ‘Up the hill.”
Kemah, meaning “In the face of the
wind."
Muoshkoday, meaning ‘‘Meadowland.”
Pahata, meaning **Blue bills.”
Or these for a hotel or inn :
Wehpsttituck, meaning ‘Let ns eat to-
gether.”
Waiku, meaning ‘‘Invitation to a feast.”
Would it not mean a little more to the
American people, and at the same time be
an unconscious educative influence to the
public and to the children, if more Indian
names were used wherever names are need-
ed in a public way, for cars, towns, streets,
squares, huildiogs, city blocks or homes ?
Let us do what we can to preserve the In-
dian names. We have nothing more dis-
tinotively American, and as we have so lit-
tle that is distinctively American let us
perpetuate what we have— Ladies’ Home
Journal.
landing
One Uniimeiy Holliday,
Thanksgiving and Christians are the (uly
real festivals that, as a peonie. wv celebrate.
Thanksgiving, which bas spread from the
Puritans pretty generally throughout the
country, comes atu poor gens 1 of the vear
for festival purposes. It is 100 near to
Christmas, and the end of November is one
of the lesst lovely periods of the 1welve
months. It shounld be moved toan ea: lier
date, not later than the last week of QOc-
tober, and take the place of the old harvess
home and of Hallowe'en.
Schools and colleges find it convenient to
observe Easter hy granting a short vaca-
tion. A spring festival, such as Easter was
in its crigin,is most appropriate,and should
be secular as well as religious. For that
end it wounld be well to have it fixed, rath-
er than movable, somewhere about the first
of April.
There is good reason for holding a sum-
mer festival which could have somethin
more of the season in it than the Fourth
July. Perhaps the custom of ‘“‘old home
week''—which has been successfully tried
in New England and elsewhere—to he held
between ‘‘hay and harvest,” might be
made into a real festival over the whole
breadth of the country.
Four festival seasons each year are none
too many for a strenuous people that needs
to relax and cultivate the joy of living.
For the festival should be something more
than a holiday like the Fourth or Labor
day. It should be an occasion for city folk
to get back to the country, for renewing
old asscciations, for enjoying the changing
gifts of the seasons, There should he cheer
and jollity, games and special customs.
The oftener avd the nearer man gets to the
gan that feeds him the better he will be
or it.
EE —— ’
Old Clothes and Old Farnlture.
We change our clothes so often; we wear
them out so soon; we cannot bear to look
at our old photographs because they picture
us in such righteous ents. We turn
from them with a fear of being old-fash-
ioned, or woree—unfashionable. With
furniture the older it is the better. The
clothes of princes go at last to deck a scare-
crow, but the cottage dresser decorates a
ball in villadom and grows in dignity with
age. Our neighbors do not despise us be-
cause we inherited our chairs, hut what
would they say if for a moment they sus-
that we wore second-hand clothes ?
e poor may covet the furbelows and frills
of the rich, they may envy the gloss of the
black coat and the gleam of the white lin-
en; but even they would prefer new clothes
if they could get them, and they are not
very grateful for cast-off apparel.
S————
An Ingenious Burglar.
An ingenious burglar in Berlin found a
new and original way of adding to the
ordinary roi of his profession. After
each bu he sent a full account of it
to the daily newspapers and received -
ment for the report in the usual way. ny
and by the editcrs became sospicious, and
the police were communicated with. They
soon discovered how the amateur reporter
obtained his information and speedily
placed him out of further temptation.
~The best way to talk of love to God
is by labor for man.
—Sabsoribe for the WATOHMAN.