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fflw 'jnuimnnli (tribune.
Published by the Tannnni Pnblishiß* 00. |
J. H. DKVEAUX. MxirioaM >
VOL HI.
•‘Clear the Way.”
The city lies in hushed repose,
The wintry night wind freshly blows,
As if to rock the cradle host
In slumber’s sweet oblivion lost.
But hark! a sound, and lo! a sight
That wakes the town in dead of night,
A shriek and a glare,
A cry of despair,
At the flames in their ire,
For the one word is “Firel”
The people rush out,
And, with hurry and shout,
Press on to the light
As it brightens the night,
I And spreads like a banner unfurled upon
high,
A sign and a terror against the dark sky!
But hark to the clatter, then music more
sweet,
Os the rolling wheels and the horses’ feet!
“Out of the way—out of the way!
They come to save—now clear the wayl”
ft A sea of faces upward turned,
KOne fear by every heart inurned;
ijb|'By ruddy light is clearly read
j : On every brow the anxious dread.
A mother ’mid the bright light stands,
J* Her neck tight clasped by baby hands,
And through roar and hiss,
Not quite they miss
Her piteous frenzied cry;
But mounting quick on hi
A hero springs,
His helm a star
Os hope, that flings
A halo far
’Mid the lurid light;
For a moment lost then dimly seen
As it gleams on the sight,
The curling wreathes of smoke between !
Up the ladder One rushed, but Three come
down,
And the shining helm is a hero’s crown!
Yet heeds not he what people say,
He only bids them “clear the way!”
IN A BARREL.
“A farm! seventy acres! All of my
own? Is thee sure, Patience, that thee
isn’t dreaming?'’
Little Patience Plumb winked her
bright blue eyes again and again, to
make sure that she was certainly and
indubitably -wide awake.
“No, Aunt Ruth,” said she, “I am
not dreaming. Read the letter for thee
self.”
And Aunt Ruth, settling her specta
cles across the bridge of her nose, took
the folded paper from Patience’s hand
and slowly spelled out the words which,
heard from other lips, had such a fabu
lous sound.
Yes, it was true. Guarded about
with legal phrases, there was the intel
ligence that she, Ruth Plumb, who
wove rag carpets for a livelihood, and
contentedly ate mush and milk when
she could not get beef and potatoes, was
a landed proprietress now of a farm up
in Rhode Island, which had belonged
to one Ezra Nuttiag, a third or fourth
cousin whom she had never seen.
Little Patience looked eagerly at the
cider woman.
“Aunt Ruth,” said she, “isn’t thee
going out to sec it?--and mayn’t I go
• with thee?”
“Thee may go with me, little Pay,”
said Miss Plumb, smiling; “but as for
going out to see it, railway journeys
cost money, and when we go we shall
stay,”
“Will thee live there, Aunt Ruth?”
cried Patience, with sparkling eyes.
Miss Plumb looked pathetically
| around the little chamber, whose one
window was bedimmed by a monster
L back-wall.
v “I have always longed for a country
home, Pay,” she said. “Theo has al
ways lived in the city; thee does not
know how a person feels who has once
stood on the hills and hear! the free
wind roaring through the pine trees.”
So the loom was stopped, and the
little cupboard door locked, and the
two women went to Nebasset, near
which rocky promontory, on the edge
of the sound, was situate 1 the Nutting
estate.
Not much of an estate, after all. A
queer little brown house, like a dis
colored mushroom, a huddle of barn’,
and a stone cellar hewn into the rocky
side of a beetling hill, in which were
arranged rows of barrels on a sort of
stone shelf.
Miss Plumb peered inquiringly at
these barrels, as, escorted by one David
Lorn, a handsome, sun-burned’young
giant who occupied the next farm, she
went over the property for the first
time.
“What arc those, Friend David?” she
asked, a little doubtfully.
“Guess likely they’re cider,” said
David Lorn. “Old Nutting, ho made
the best cider for twenty miles around.”
“Cider!” repeated Miss Plumb.
“Didn't you know that this was a fa
mous cider farm?" said David. “Didn’t
you see the orchards of apple-trees up
on the hill?”
“Yes, I saw them,” said Miss Plumb,
“but I did not realize their meaning.
I think, Friend David, thee may pull
out the corks —”
“Bungs, we call ’em,” gently cor
rected Lorn.
“Bungs, if thee prefers that title, and
let the baleful fluid flow away. I am
prejudiced with an exceeding prejudice
against intoxicating liquors!”
“There ain’t no harm in cider,”
pleaded David Lorn.
“ ‘Touch not-—taste not-—handle
not!’” said Miss Plumb, firmly. “As
to the apple-orchard, it is not for me to
criticise the kindly fruits of the earth,
but I could wish that they had been pas
ture fields or potato patches, or some
thing less deleterious than they are.”
She walked quietly on.
David Lorn was just opening his
mouth to remonstrate, when Patience
gently beckoned him to desist.
“My Grandfather Plumb died of de
lirium tremens,” she whispered. “Aunt
Ruth cannot forget that. Thee will
have to let her have her own way.”
David Lorn whistled a low whistle.
“But anyhow,” said he, “there’ll bo
a deal of good vinegar lost if all this
runs to waste. I say, Miss Plumb-—”
“I -would prefer thee to call me Friend
Ruth,” said the old lady, mildly.
“It sounds pretty familiar, don’t it?”
apprehensively observed David. “But
if you say so, so it shall be. I say,
Friend Ruth, if I’ll go bail thii ’ere
shan’t none of it be used for nothin’ but
vinegar to be sold by the gallon, would
you let me hev it at market price? It’s
a wicked sin to waste the Lord’s good
gifts.
“Thee is not so far wrong, Friend
David,” said Miss Plumb. “Yes, 1
think I may trust thee.”
“It’ll make first-chop vinegar,” ob
served David, scientifically testing it
with a straw.
Little Patience was delighted with
the poultry yard and cow-house—a stur
dy, shaggy pony, who shook his head
at them over the railing of his stall, was
duly admired—and then David lighted
a fire in the big, black-throated chim
ney of the old farm house and blew it
into a blaze.
“It's ct Id weather, even es the fust
hard frosts haven’t come yet,” said he.
“And the house needs airin’ up. An’ I
i guess Miss Plumb —Friend Ruth, I
| mean—you and Friend Patience hev
had better come over and sleep at our
house tonight if you don't want to catch
cold. Tomorrer the hous’ll be in better
livin’ order. And my sister Calphur
nia’ll be proper glad to see you.”
It chanced that between repairs, air
ing and ad ling to the arrears of furni
ture, Friend Ruth and her niece re
mained at the Lorn homestead for a
week during which time Miss Calphur
nia began, under Friend Ruth’s direc
tion, to weave a new rag-carpet and
mapped out a crazy-quilt as designed
Ly little P diene-.
David Lorn, who, in his way, was no
contemptible carpenter, made a strong
kitchen-table for the strangers, put a
i corner cupboard in the living-room and
■ screwed up hooks, shelves and brackets
‘ innumerable, here, there and cvery
where, to suit Patience’s fancy in the
! old house.
“But after all,” sail the little Qua
’ keress, “it isn’t :s pleasant at Nutting
Farm, shut in by all those crooked old
apple trees, us it is here. I wish we
were going to live here.”
“I wish so, too, withall my heart!”
cried hospitable Calphurnia. “Don’t
you, David?”
“Don’t 1, though!’ sail David.
And Patience, chancing to look sud-
SAVANNAH, GA.. SATURDAY. MAY 5.1888.
denly up, caught the sparkle of his
frank brown eyes fixed full on her face.
She turned pink all over, her own
eyes fell, and she did not speak again
all the evening. Not that her silence
was noticed, however.
The two Quakeresses had been nearly
a month at the Nutting Farm, and the
dreary place had gradually begun to as
sume something of a home-like look,
when one evening David Lorn came
over across the sere stretches of meadow
land.
“Calphnrnia’s sent you a dried-peach
pic,” said he, carefully setting down
something wrapped in a napkin. “As
for me, I moved them barrels of cider
today.”
“Did thqe?” said Friend Ruth, knit
ting composedly away at a gray
yarn stocking, while Patience made
haste to set away the pie.
“But there’s one I calculate you
wouldn’t hev sold if you had known
what was in in it,” went on David.
“I sold them all to thee,” said Miss
Plumb, in her gentle, decided way—
“all nine of them, at a dollar and a half
a barrel. With me, Friend David, a
bargain means a bargain.”
“But one of ’em hadn't no cider in
it.”
“Then,” said Miss Plumb, “we will
deduct that from the rest, and thee can
give me the change. I think wo need
not differ as to that.”
“There wasn’t no cider in it!" dog
gedly persisted the young farmer.
“But there was something else —there
was money in it!”
“Money!” repeated Miss Ruth, let
ting the knitting-needles drop into her
lap.
“Yes, money,’’ nodded David Lorn—
“fourteen rolls of gold half-eagles,
twenty in a roll, all wrapped up in old
woolen stocking-legs and packed in
cotton batting, so Xhey shouldn’t clink
nor rattle, with salt-hay wedged in
around ’em, and the cask headed up
exactly like the eight others. And now
1 know why old Ezra Nutting used to
be so cranky about keeping his cider
barrels locked up, and why he went out
to look to it himself every night,
long arter ho wasn’t fit to cross the
threshold. That was his bank; that
■was where he kept his savings—-four
teen hundred dollars.”
“Fourteen hundred dollars!” repeated
Miss Ruth, her healthy color paling a
little. “But Friend David, I sold the
barrels and contents to thee!”
“Hang it ali!” shouted David, rising
to his feet, “do you suppose I would
swindle you and Patience fn this sort of
way? Here is the money,” diving into
his pockets, and flinging down the
packets on the table, with a resounding
clink. “I am no thief, Miss Ruth! I
never coveted ray neighbor’s goods until
now!”
Friend Ruth’s eyes, faded yet still
bright, sought his agitated face with
gentle questioning.
“Keep the money, Friend David,”
said she. “Poor though I am, I would
forfeit more than *that sooner than
cause a fellow-creature to offend!”
“It ain’t the money that I covet,”
sail David, in desperation. “It’s—
Patience! No, little girl, don’t
run away!” as Patience’s eyes in
stinctively turned toward the door.
“I think you must have suspicioncd it
long ago. The house is that lonesome
since you went away, that I can’t stand
it no longer. If I can’t have you for
my wife, Patience, I’ll sell the old place
and go to sea. There!”
Patience’s long-lashed eyes drooped.
“It—-it would be a pity that you
should do that,” said she.
And then she hid her face on Aunt
Ruth's plump shoulder.
So Patience went to live at the Lorn
farm-house, an I Friend Ruth stayed
where she was, an 1 the money was
equally divided between aunt and
niece. And Mi s plumb makes a com
fortable livelihood out of tho sale of the
“Newtown pippins, “gilliflower” and
“Northern Spy” apples from the or
chards planted by Ezra Nutting.
“But I sell them by the barrel, only,”
said she. “Never for cider-making. I
have a prejudice against that sort of
thing.”---[Saturday night.
PEARLS OF THOUGHT.
Tho heart has ears.
Honor is better than wealth.
Everything that is exquisite hides it
self.
A bad peace is better than a good
quarrel.
A tree with lofty head has less shade
nt its foot.
Advice should fall as tho dew, not
overwhelm as tho torrent.
As every thread of gold is valuable,
so is every moment of time.
The brave man is an inspiration to the
weak, and compels a following.
Curses arc like processions; they re
turn to the place whence they came.
What we believe is right is more often
so because it grinds our axe than other
wise.
Never did any soul do good but it
came readier to do the same again with
more enjoyment.
There is nothing like settling with
ourselves, as there is a deal wo must do
without in this life.
Nothing is so contagious as example;
we are never either much good or much
evil without imitators.
To smile at tho jest which plants a
thorn in another’s breast is to become a
principal in tho mischief.
What maintains one vice would bring
ap two children. Remember, many a
little makes a mickle; and further, be
ware of little expenses. A small leak
will sink a great ship.
Effect of Glare upon Eyesight
It appears that Professor Plateau, of
the University of Ghent, while trying to
observe the effects of tho irritation of
the retina gazed steadily at tho sun for
twenty second*, the result being that
chronic irldo-choroiditis develop’d,
ending eventually in total blindness. A
number of cases arc known in which
chferoiditis and retinitis occurred in
persons who had observed an eclipse of
tho sun. The single flash of a sun-rc
flector has been known to cause retinitis,
and other temporary visual disturbance
of a functional character have been fre
quently noted. M. Reich has described
a curious epidemic of snow blindness,
which occurred among a body of la
borers engaged in clearing
away through the masses of snow
which obstructed the road between Pas
sanaur and Mteti in the Caucasus; the
rays of the sun reflected from the vast
stretches of snow on every side, pro
duced an intense glare of light, which
the unaccustomed eye could not support
without the protection of dark glasses.
A few of tho sturdiest among the labor
ers were able to work with impunity,
but the majority suffered so much that
among seventy strongly marked cases
thirty were so severe that the men were
absolutely unable to continue work or to
find their way home and lay
prone on their faces, striving to bide
their faces from the light and crying
out from pain. Recovery was gradual
but complete.
Pet Names.
Names that are easily “petted,” or
that are naturally sweetish, are tho
most popular with tho ladies. Plain
John or George or Jacob do not com
pare in favor with Jack or Harry or
Frank. There is something romantic
about these, and they almost invariably
suggest nice fellows. Charles is also a
favorite name for boys, but is usually
changed to Chawlic or Chat, according
to the build and disposition of its
owner. It is not always so changed.
Did you ev<r hear of Ch rlie Dickens or
Charlie Sumner?—[ Pittsburg G zette.
The First.
Youth (who has just received a letter
from the postofficer) -Come under this
light a moment, Jim.
Jim—What are you going to do?
Y. I want to read this letter.
J.—Read the letter? Why, can’t you
wait until you get home?
Y.—Wait till 1 get home? Why,
goo 1 gracious, man, it’s my first love
letter?—(Boston Courier.
(t 1.75 Per Annum; 75 cents lor Six Months;
< 60 cents Three Months; Single Copies
( 6 cents--In Adv&noe.
The Heroic Sacrifice of a Child.
In the Bodleian library at Oxford, Eng
land, is a most touching record of hero
ism, and self-sacrifice on tho part of a
child —a record to touch one’s heart
with its pathos. The tower door of St,
Leonard s church, Bridgewater, Eng
land, was loft open and two young boys,
wandering in, were tempted to mount
to tho upper part and scramble from
beam to beam.
All at once a joist gave way. Tho
beam on which they were standing be
came displaced. The elder had just
time to grasp it when falling, while tho
younger, slipping over his body, caught
hold of his comrade's legs. In this
fearful position the poor lads hung, cry
ing vainly for help, for no one was near.
At length tho boy clinging to tho
beam became exhausted. Ho could no
longer support the weight, lie called
I out to the lad below that they wero both
done for.
“Could you save yourself if I wore to
loose you?” replied tho I ittlo lad.
“I think I could,” returned tho
older.
“Then good-bye, and God bless you,”
replied tho little fellow loosing his
hold.
Another second and he was dashed to
pieces on the stono floor below. His
companion clambered to a placo of safo
j ty-—(Baptist Weekly.
Mexican Mummies,
A family of mummies recently un
earthed in Mexico havo just boon
brought to San Francisco and placed in
the State Mining Bureau. They worn
found in a stratum of limo several feet
below the surface of the earth, not far
from the Arizona border. Tho group,
consisting of a man, woman, and two
children, were close together. Tho
two adult figures have on a scanty cloth
ing of coarse netting composed of gras,
and bark of trees, wide ono of tho
children appears to have been clad in
fur. They all have the knees drawn up
to the chins, while the hands clasp tho
heads, as if they had died in great
agony. Tho general appearance, in
this respect, is much like that of tho
casts of the Pompeiian victims. Tho
woman has long black hair, and in tho
lobes of hereari arc small tubes for or
namer.t. The man has but I ittlo hair. His
features arc distorted—another evidence
of pain—but are seen very distinctly,
and his open mouth shows his tongue.
Near the bodies wero also found curious
ly formed beads, and the perfect form
of a cat, which seems to have shared
their burial place. From tho appear
ance of th': bodici and their surround
ings it is thought that they must havo
been dead at least 800 years.
A Newspaper in a Loaf of Bread.
During the American Revolutionary
war sonic Ameiican prisoners were con
fined in Mill I’risor, E igland. Tho
prisoners had no way of obtaining any
news from tin ou'.si le world, tint a
friendly baker placed a newspaper in a
loaf of bread th it was carried into tho
prison, and on reading it tho Americans
' learned of the surrender of Cornwallis.
The news of course delighted them, and
; being unable to express their joy in any
other way they made a British uniform
for a dog belonging to the keeper of
I the prison and nt him out among tho
soldiers.—-I St. A ban M ssenger,
■ '
Her Experience.
“Yes,” said Algernon T.-acy to tho
i young lady with whom he was chatting,
“It is useless to complain at what can't
be helped. Man proposes and God du-
i poses.
“As to the latter part of the remark,”
she replied, “I’m not prepared to speak;
I but as to the firft part I can only say
that some do tn 1 some don’t.”—(Mer-
I chant Traveler.
Force;! Economy.
George: “Sha'l 1 put some more coal
■ on the fire, dear?”
Clara (with a little shiver): “N—no,
I th- think not, George.”
George: “ But you aro shivering, my
I love.”
Clara: “I know I am, George; but I
< am afraid that papa might hear you.”
NO. 29.