The New Bloomfield, Pa. times. (New Bloomfield, Pa.) 1877-188?, April 24, 1877, Image 1
(TV vv VOL. XI. NEW BLOOMFIELD, PA., TUESDAY, APRIL 1877. . NO. 17. THE. TIMES. Ad Independent Family Kewspapcr, 18 PUBLISHED BVERT TUESDAY BT F. MORTIMER & (XV Subscription Price. Within the County II 25 Blx month 75 Out af the Comity, Including postage. 160 " " " six months " 85 Invariably in Advanoe I Advertising rates furnished upon appli cation, i geledt Poetty. THE ANGEL OF SLEEP. , . i . , i When twilight toll from earth has faded, And round me darkuess thickly falls, A spirit from some mystic regiou My soul away most sweetly calls Away from toll, from rain and sorrow, Away where all distractions cease, To scenes of bliss, of hope and pleasure, Where all Is pence. Xjnconsclous of the Ills that gather When fall the cheerless Bbades of night, I drop Into a realm of glory O'er flowing with a sea of light A matchless sea of Joy and beauty, Whose radiant waves with light increase, While o'er me stands an angel watcher, My guard of peace. Bo let we sleep while thus around me Remains my unseen guard so true,; Life's varying scenes may fly or linger, Approaching ills becloud my view, Bat when this sleep of life shall vanleh, And death my weary soul release, Q, let some other Bplrit waft me Where all is peace I JUDGE LANE'S STORY. THE JUDGE knocked the ashes from hi9 cigar, and rose with an em phatic "hem !" All the others drew a long breath, and brought their chairs down from their tilted positions. Graham had been telling a Btory to while away the long hours of the Christmas night, and Graham was a magnificent story teller. "Your turn, Judge," said Graham, with a Blight laugh, the flush slowly dying out of his face. " Beat Graham's, if you can," said Fenner, rubbing his hands together with great glee. " You don't know the Judge, Fen ner," said Williams. "He used to equal Air. Midshipman Easy in the number of his adventures, and his grace in relating them." The young lawyer, whose sobriquet of " Judge" had been bestowed upon him in the early days of college life, from his superannuated gravity and his senten tious way of deciding questions that bored him, drew back a chair with a ' flourish, and then pushed it toward the fire and sat down. . , i ' " I'll tell you what it is, boys, you needn't think I'm going to be beat by Graham. I have a story to tell which is just as good as his, but then it may lose something in the telling. Since we part ed, five years ago, I have interviewed Blackstone, Chitty and others of that ilk, and a good deal of the romance has faded out in that way, you perceive. ' But then, as we agreed to meet in five years, and compare experiences, it was merely to have something to tell, so I did my best to have an adventure. Hem! ... . . . " Perhaps you all remember what my college days were.' You do V Humph! Then it will save me the trouble of tell ing you, though I had studied up a fine bit of path oa ' about them. . However, it don't matter much ; let It go now. One fact, though I must speak of, and that is the financial condition of your present orator in those college days. I never Bald anything about it then, because I was a deal too proud ; but to tell you the truth, boys, it required some twisting and some pretty close calculations to make my allowance cover in. modest wants. I remember I used to be not a little envious of Fenner and Graham when I Baw them scattering money around with such a lavish liand, and I with my fine natural ablllties.good looks and extraordinary Block of common sense," and the Judge straightened hlm elf back, and laughed in bl rare, ge nial way, without finishing the sen tence. , ; " However, to pass over , that, and come to the time when we all left college with young honors thick upon us. Weren't we . proud of our diplomas, though? Boys, I want you to tell me truly whether you ever took your sheep skin out of its case after the first six mouths V" , , ,., ' "Haven't seen mine since two weeks after commencement," murmured Gra ham. , , ' "Don't know where mine is," said Fenton, and the others intimated that their experience entirely coincided with his. ' "That's Just it, boys," pursued the Judge. " I tried to get a situation by exhibiting that imposing document, but after a good many trials and as many ignominious failures I put the pious fraud away and left off being a college graduate. I went in on my merits then, resolved to win or perish in the at tempt. It seemed as If I would have to accept the latter alternative. I had neither money nor friends, and there were plenty of young men with wealth and position ready to fill every vacancy. I was pretty hard up for money, you know, and It was about this time I fell in with Steve Ranald who was in about the same condition with respect to funds. I believe none of you ever saw him, did you V I wish you had known him. He was half French, and that accounts for some peculiar trait9 in his character. A magnificent looking fellow, with a cer tain kind of fascination about him that you could not resist. I could not, I know. He led me into all kinds of scrapes that I never would havethought of going into, and it was impossible to blame him. He had such a merry, light-hearted way with him, when he chose, that took me quite by storm. " Well, as I said, our condition was about the same financially, so we joined together and rented a room in a very cheap but respectable neighborhood. We kept bachelor's hall there very comfort ably for awhile, while I hunted employ ment, and he compounded wonderful French dishes out of nothing. " I suppose in my search for employ ment, I had started out with the vague idea of becoming minister to some for eign power, or postmaster-general, or something of that kind. My aspirations after declining for several Meeks, like a decreasing series of geometrical progres sionsthe bete noir of my boyhood at last pointed to an ordinary clerkship in some mercantile establishment as hap piness beyond comparison. Even here I was doomed to disappointment, and then I gave up the struggle, I hud spent my last dollar that morning. All day I had walked from street to street, from square to square. ' My limbs were aching with the unaccustomed exercise, my orain was in a wniri. l knew one man whom my father had befriended years ago in the days of his prosperity, when the man was . in great distress Since then fortune's wheel had turned, and my father had died in poverty ,whlle Mr. Laclade was one of the money kings of the city. Can you understand why I would not go to him until every other resource had failed i Even then I went slowly and reluctantly. I stood before the door in the gaslight, watching the crowds as they came and went, thinking some very bitter things, it may be. But at last I went in, knowing that they would soon close up for the night ' and asked to speak with Mr. Laclade. " He received me in his private office, where he was looking over and filing pa pers; and he left me standing near the door, and went on with his work, after once looking up and saying, 'good eve ning.' There was something repulsive about him, I thought, and I determined to try for the situation first, without saying anything about who I was. So I stated my business very conciseW. He raised his spectacles on his glistening forehead, referred from me to a paper he held in his hand, and from the paper back to me, and then said : "Young man, there is no vacancy and even if there were, for the past two weeks there have been on an average twenty applications like this per diem. You had better apply somewhere else.' " My hand was on the door-knob, but I turned around and looked at him. Without knowing cleverly how the words came, I said slowly : " I am Kenneth Lane, sir. My father helped you once,ln thegreatestextremity of your life.' , 1 Ills face Hushed a little, find he in terrupted testily :i ',;!;:! " Ah, certainly 1 But you Bee, Mr. Kenneth Lane, I can't make situations.' " I do not know what clso lie was go ing to say. I shut the door, and passed out, through the long minis, past smil ing clerks who no doubt read my er rand and its failure in my face, and out into the street. I do tint remember any thing else very distinctly, except that I seemed plunged suddenly Into un alloy, and from that into ail kinds , of No Thoroughfares desperate places, that I would have shrank from at any other time, I was conscious of rushing along at times, and then blindly groping my way, drugging myself along slowly and painfully. I was in one of these latter moods, when I was seized and brought to a halt by two ill-favored villains, who proceeded to go through my pockets In gallant style. Apparently disgusted with the general emptiness of those re ceptacles, they turned around to the light. " ' Drunk,' said one of them, ' or else a fool, I don't know which.' " 1 Come, my covey,' said the other, you are Innocent, you are, and you'd better skin out o' this afore you get a tup on the head.' " I skinned out o' thls,und soon found myself leaving the city behind,and com ing out on the broad fields, lying white and still bcnctith the light of the moon. Then my sense began returning, and I sat down by the side of the road, bared my head, and tried to look calmly at my situation or rather at my want of one. " It was gloomy enough, boys, I can tell you. The sense of failure is a hor rid thing, and It had full possession of me then. I was young, and had fitted myself for some of tho higher, nobler work of llfe,Just to be thrust back and told that there were no vacancies. Bight then and there I felt that there were powers in my brain which could win me a name and place among men if they were only given an opportunity. Oh, boys, there was the bitterness of it 1 'I might as well be a highway robber,' I said aloud, despairingly. "'That's Just what I think !" said a voice close beside me,and when I started and turned, there was Steve Kan aid, sit ting there as coolly as if we had walked to the place arm in arm. I never had quite liked his cat-like way of watehlng and coming on me unawares, but it had never startled rue before as it did then. " Why, Steve I ' 1 ' exclaimed, ' how came you here V" ".' Oh, I've kept you in sight all the evening. I thought you did not seem quite right, so I followed you. Devilish cool, that, on old Laclade,' wasn't it V Tho question brought me back to my grievances.' It was terrible,' I said. ' My father started him in business when he hud not a friend or a dollar in the world. When I think of that, could almost mankind for tude.' swear Vengeance on all that man's base ingratl- " ' Yes,' said Ranald, ' but remember your American proverb the world owes you a living.' ; i - ' "' I'll never ' be able to collect the debt,' I returned bitterly.' "' But you wouldn't make a good highway robber, you' know,' said Ban- aid, mechanically, plowing up the earth at his feet with a short Btlck. 'You haven't the right kind of pluck " What kind does' it take V I asked with a short laugh. : 1 1,1 Well, . suppose a carriage comes along, your first Job is to i wring tho driver, after which you can talk with the iusido passengers at your leisure. In case its a rider or a foot passenger, you can deal with him easily enough. But then you've got to have a quick hand on the trigger, and you haven't, got the pluck, you know.' ' " Haven't I ' I cried, with a kind of reckless daring. 'If I was armed I would show you ' before to-morrow. I don't owe the world much gratitude, and I had as well do something des perate and get hanged, and done with it all.' - . ' "'Oh,isfor armB, I could let you have mine,' said Ranald, not looking at me at all, but back toward the city. ' But I don't like much to da it. You'd never use them. ' , " I need not go on to tell you, boys, how It all enme about, but In lees than half an hour Ranald was on his way back to the elty.whlle I, with his pistols in my pocket, was striding along the green lanes that led farther and farther out into the country. I was desperate, of course, and a burning fevsr was bounding In my pulses, confusing all that I did. It must certainly have been that, combined with Ranald's influence, that set me, Kenneth Lane,' behind a hedge, with a pistol in my hand, and a murderous1 intent !n my heart ; while the moon shone whllely over the broad fields and the long ribbons of road that lay between them. " The first that passed was a man whose face I could not see. 1 had my finger on the trigger. I was Just ready to spring out upon him when suddenly well, Graham, he-began whistling that same little foolish love tune you used to bejil ways whistling, singing and play ing at college. That made me grow very weak, and I couldn't move. It brought back all you fellows so distinct ly. By the way, I wonder if ho will ever know how near that little love tune saved his life V Talk about the value of little things, the star. might all have fallen from their spheres, and never have affected me as did the few simple bars whistled by that traveler along the moonlit road. ' " I recovered myself after, a little or rather lost myself again and began to wonder at my weakness ; and then, just as I had straightened . myself up and taken a new hold on my resolution to do something desperate, I heard the rattle of carriage wheels far away on the moonlit, white-ribbon road. Instantly I was on the alert, with every faculty quickened. I raised my pistol and ex amined the loek, wondering at the same time whether my sentence , would be hanging, or transportation, or imprison ment for life, with jhard labor. Before I had Bettled the matter in my own mind, the carriage had come nearer. The wheels were rattling furiously. Who could it be driving at such a break-neck speed V Then suddenly it came In sight and at the same moment I heard the tcr- rlfio screams of women, saw that the driver was missing from his place, and that the horses were running away. "In an instant, forgetting everything else at those cries of distress, I dropped my pistol and sprang into the road. Just for a moment the startled horses paused, and in that moment I seized the bits. Then commenced a fierce battle with the frantic, plunging steeds. I was thrown down, trampled upon, but I clung to them with despairing energy, Ten minutes ago, my only thought had been to take life ; now, my only desire was to save it. So it was ; I clung to the horses and kept them there, until I felt stronger hands assisting mine, and then the wild struggle, the broad fields, and the white road all faded away, and left nothing but darkness and silence. " When I awoke well, boys,I thought Aladdin's lamp had certainly ceme back upon the earth, and somebody had been using it for my ben fit. If I had come back to life in our own room, Ranald's and mine, I might have concluded that the whole affair hod been a horrible dream, and so said nothing more about it. But it certainly was surprising to find myself in a strange room, on Btrange bed, with a rosy old gentleman leaning over me on the other side, and a rosy old lady on the other, their faces expressing the most lively solicitude, while a grave medical gentleman first felt my pulse and the rubbed the palms of his hands together with great satis faction. ' Nor was my astonishment de creased when the rosy old gentleman said: i " ' The dear boy has come through. Allow me to take your hand, doctor. We owe so much to you.' "Whereupon he shool hands very heartily with the doctor, and then with the old ludy, and they all seemed ex travagantly glad of my recovery. , " It was astonishing, too, in the days that followed, while I was lying there too wean to move, to Bee how 1 was waited on and made much of by the whole family, They told me after while how I bad saved the lives of the rosy old lady and her daughter, who were in the carriage that nlght.and how I .was dragged out from under the horses' feet, bruised and bleeding, and with my left arm broken ; how I was brought there and never recovered con BclouBness, but went off Into a raging fever, and lay next to death's door for weeks. They told me how I had talked in my delirium now arraigning Mr. Laclade for bas-ihgraUtude,thett'fancy-ing that Ranald was upon my track wherever I went, and that he was go ing to make me commit murder, lhen I was waiting behind the hedge with my finger upon the trigger of the pis tol, listening to the rattle of carriage wheels far away on the road, and the ifext moment I was prying that there were women Inside, and that I must save them ; and I would strive to rise, and would fall back, exhausted) only to begin all over again. " Do you picture, boys, how I had fallen upon Paradise ?: After all, there Is a ' divinity that shapes our emls, rough hew them as we may.' They had gathered ' the whole story from my ravings They knew what had been in my heart, that night beside the hedge, and yet-they could be kind and tender. They, restored strength and manhood in. rue. They, made me feel that I was worthy of beiag honored and trusted. When I w-as- able to work the old gentleman found me- a splendid position, and I continued-my law studies in my leisure moments. Mir. Lyndray gave me a most cordial invitation to make his houe my home-, and treated me with such confidence tfest I must, have made myself worthy of it, how ever Ignoble and unworthy I might have been. So it was thai when Mr. Laclede came and offered me a position. as bookkeeper in his establishment,. I was enabled to decline the- honor, with t he old speech .a little more proudly ut tered : ' I am Kenneth Isme, sir.' And it was that every holiday took me back to the home of my preserver, where Mr. and Mrs. Lyndray treated me like a son and their fair dauglvter smiled on me at rare intervals.' M last I was ad mitted to the bar, sinee- which I have become well; boys, you know the rest." ' " The most prom'rsktg young lawyer in the State," said, F(iiner, empbatical- iy. " But, what abotrt the daughter, Judge?" said Graham. "You surely are not going to leave us in the lurch, after, we had all concluded that there was going to be a spvre of romance about it." "Oh, yes the daughter V" said Ken neth Lane, with, a blush. Then the rising young lawyer drew himself up with the grace ajil pride of a young god. " My friends," he said, with un mistakable sweetness, "if you will go dow.n to Mr. Lyndray's on the firsi day of the new year, you will gee me waited to Miss Ethel Lyndray, my queen among women." " Miirra.h ! Three cheer fo the judge and his-bride !" shouted Graham, springing to. nis leet anu waviag ms cap, and the cheers were given with a vim that buought back their college days afrefeh. ' Cutting out a Coy's Tonpe. A few weeks ago a man presented his son, a boy of abont twelve years, to our surgeons for treatment. The ease was a novel oo, the child being a3.Ueted with enlargement of the tongue. His father hailed from Williamson evunty, and stated that he came to Saa. Antonio to consult our surgeons, as tVone of Austin, Galveston and New Orleans, to whom he hadapplied,had deimjuled exorbitant fees. Dr. Herif inforoiM the troubled father that he would endeavor to cure his son of the excrescence, and sympa thizing with him in bi trouble, and the child in his pain, the father being a poor man, he offered to. perform the operation at a most reasonable charge. Thecitizens of Williamson, county charitably raised the means to pay for the operation. It was executed Wednesday under Dr. Kerff 's care, others aiding him. About four inches of tongue were taken of The extreme end, which has been pre served in alcohol, would .weigh about a quarter of a pound, and about as much more'was cut off in small bits. It la thick, much wider than the child's mouth from which it was taken, la very rough, and resembles very much the tongue of a young calf. The patient U now doing well, and will no doubt be greatly benefited by theopersitiooi, which called Uto requisition tho most perfect care, and the ablest surgioal knowledge. The aflllctlon was one in which there , has probably been less room for surgical experience than lu any other, and is the find, oiue of the kind we ever heard, of in. IvMSw Mtmft Pm,