Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

A. M. 0. RUSSELL. Editor and Proprietor. VOLUME 11 Select Miscellany. CORTEZ. I. The ImUaus came to the Sjmnaird; Am! wondrous tales they told eities whose streets were silver, And ))iiluces paved with gold. And the .Spaniard burned his ships At anchor on the strand. And he and the sun together Marched on to the Unknown Land; On, to the unknown inland; All turning hack they spurned ; Hope and lies pair pointed onward, And the keels oi returning were burned. It. So, i stake my life on my loving. At a word from your stately lips I give up home, friends and fortune, And burn my dearest ships. Thus onward and hopefully march Into the Unknown Land; Onward to die, or to win you— This you and I understand Never again need my steps come To the Burned Shins on the strand ! THE YEARS Why do we heap huge mountains of years Before ns and behind, And scorn the little days that pass Like angels on the wind ? Each, turning round a small, sweet face As beautiful us near, Because it i- so small a face AV’e will not see it clear. And so it turns from us and goes Away iu sad disdain; Though v. c could give our lives for it, It never comes again. —Mum ihdoch. The Gambler’s Wife. Can a woman hinder fate ? And eould I hinder or stop the tide of love which came into my heart for Mian Starr? Did I not know the man sis well, better than those who warned me against him ? If he was in the wrong, then so much the more need of a love > t rong as death to set him right. How eould I throw down that which had been sent to crown my life; and above all, how could 1 turn from him, since every step but increased the distance which might lie between us for all eter nity? Once, just once, he doubted me. lie had heard that friends were trying to influence me against him, and in the heat of his mad passion he came to see me. Anger, intense anger and desper ation were in his blazing eyes, and the fiercest reproach upon his haughty lips, as he faced me, the first time he ever frowned upon me in all my life. “ So you have given me.over, like the rest of them ? I thank you,” he said, in freezing tones. “I? what do you mean, Allan?” 1 asked; “ I mean that the one who dares to speak words which shall take you away from me, must be brave enough to face death itself; lor I will ” I sprang up and covered his quiver ing lips with both my hands. “Don’t say it, Allen,” I cried. “I am yotirs always. Oh, do keep back the wicked words ! ” He caught me in his arm, and burst into tears. I believe I never saw a man break down wholly before, aud I never want to again. It was frightful to see my handsome, brave lover so shaken with stormy sobs. But I knew then how he loved me; ah, I knew then. When he was quiet, he made me go upon my knees, and with my hand lifted towards heaven, swear that 1 would be his forever, in spite of all (hat the world might say. I was glad enough to do it; and when afterwards he added, with his hand clasping mine and both raised, “as I do by thee, so may Divine justice do by me hence forth ; ” though his terrible earnest ness made me shiver a little, I was thankful to feel that we trusted eaeh other at last, and were past all doubt ing forever. We were "married soon after, and our life began together. I knew well enough what mine would be. I had not clime to a path full of soft, fragrant flowers. It was to be a fearful, if not a long struggle—likely both ; for, eith er I must turn the current of my darl ing'.- life, or we should go down together. No earthly power could separate us now. But I was strong in the great love I bore him, and my heart never once faltered. For a month after our marriage he came home regularly —his apparent occupation was head clerk in a well known (jrm ; but I knew, oh, pity! i that his real employment was far! enough removed from anything as hon orable as that—but then he began to return later, until one, two, three, and sometimes lour o’clock would strike without bringing him. I had resolved at first that 1 would always remain up until he came, think ing that I might thus have more hold upon him. My business was to save him. Nothing w r as too hard to be •done if I might but reach that goal at aat. As I said, he began to return later now, and there grew to be a haggard BUENA VISTA. MARION CO., GEORGIA, FRIDAY MORNING, NOV. IT, 18TB. look upon his face which it was dread to see, since I knew, only too well, what brought it there. But I tried to be patient and whenever he came was careful not to make the slightest allu sion to the lateness of the hour. It would not do with him. We sat down to supper, for I persisted in having it invariably at his return ; and though I have seen his eyes fill many and many a time when ho looked at me steadily as ho had a way of doing, he did not tell me his thoughts, and I pretended not to notice them while T attended to his wants. It is an awful thing for a woman to sec the husband of her love going down steadily, but surely, before her frightened eyes, and she powerless to ■save. 1 had wondered once how miser able, ill-treated wives, whose husbands were scarcely fit to live, could still cling to them ; but though Allan was tender and kind when with me, I could under stand now, by my own heart, how it was that they bore everything rather than separation. A year went by and no visible change came; but the constant anxiety told upon my face. I wanted to keep the signs back, hut I could not. Friends noticed it, and among them the aunt who had taken my dead mother’s place. She had never liked my hus band ; and at the anniversary of our marriage she came, in solemn state, “to inquire into matters,” its she termed it. “You are looking poorly, my child,” she said, opening the subject at once. “Your marriage, is perhaps, un happy?” “ There could’not be a kinder hus band, than Allan,” my fa?e flushing in a moment. “He has never spoken a harsh word to me.” “But something has worn you to a shadow,” she went on, ignoring my in dignation : “and we all know that Mr. Starr is not what he ought to he.” That was more than any wife should bear tamely. I rose at once. “ Such words must neither be ad dressed to his wife, nor spoken under his roof,” I aaid angrily. “ My home is open to you neverthe less, she urged with her keen eyes, which I hated, because I feared them, upon my face. “ My home is here where my heart is, I retorted, I desire no other; ” and with that our interview closed. Allan heard in some way that my aunt had called ; and he would not be satisfied until I had told him her exact words. “ She is right,” he said bitterly, “ You would be far better off under her roof than under mine.” I know he did it only to try me, for be had not the ghost of a lear that I should choose my home away from him. “ I did not think fit to tell her so.” L replied. “ But you believed it ? You believed it, then?” His breath seemed to stop with the intensity of his desire to read what was really in my heart, and he would have wormed the truth from me whatever it had been. “ No, L d : d not believe it, Allan,” I responded quietly, meeting and answer ing the questioning doubt which for the moment had leaped into his eyes. “ Wherever you are taking me to, your own soul tells you I am powerless, and must from choice follow. “ You are a good, true angel,” he said, with a strange tenderness upon his lips, but though 1 was certain he loved me with a strongman’s strength, he did not, alas! love me well enough to leave the gambler’s den which was fast drawing him on to ruin. Another year went by, another year of anxious "dread and sorrow, and still afiother year was added to it, and all that love could suggest or ingenuity in vent, had failed in accomplishing my purpose. I was forced to acknowledge this, and the admission made me trem jblc. Was I indeed, then, to go down j with this man to whom I was bound by all the ties which can bind a human heart to that of another, down to an endless perdition ? Or could I break the chord, and let him drift on alone ? Drift on, out in the lonesome, boundless sea which swallows up its victims so pitiously, and leaves no sign? “No, no,”I cried, with my hrnds clasped over my horror-stricken eyes, to shut out the picture which rny im agination so wildly portrayed. The fourth year after my marriage —four years seems like an eternity to travel such a road as 1 had been trav eling —Allan came home at dusk ; and while I wondered what had come over him to bring up the new and astonish ing exultation which I saw upon his face, he led me into the library and stepped before a painting of myself, which had been one of my wedding presents flora him. “ Four years ago that was an exact A I )emoeratic* Family Newspaper. likeness of my wife,” he said. S‘ She has changed since then.” “ But little, I trust,” I answered. “She became my wife freely,” he went on ; “knowing well that! was what the world calls, truly enough, a wicked man.” “ Always good to me,”l said, through my tears, laying my hand trustingly in his. “Always cruel to you, iny love, since' he thought more of his own chosen sins, than of you peace and pleasure. But the wife who loved me, thank heaven, and who has stood bravely by me, has conquered at last. For a year I have been a tree man, free and hon est ; and this is my new year’s present to you, best and truest of all women.” I was sobbing in his arms, so thank ful and happy, I thought heaven itself must have fallen to my feet. Our lit tle child, who is fast getting towards his teens, would never believe his father had ever been other than the best of men, ns, indeed, I hardly would myself. I am thankful, every day of my life, that I listened to my own heart’s promptings, instead of the coun sel of those who meant, I know, to help me, but who would have ruined us both, had their wishes been fulfilled. Married Politeness. “ Will you ?” asked a pleasant voice And the husband answered : “ Yes my dear, with pleasure.” It was quietly hut heartily said ; the tone, the manner, the look, were per fectly natural and very affectionate. We thought: How pleasant the courteous reply! How gratifying it must be to the wife! Many husbands of ten years’ experience are ready enough with the courtesies of polite ness to the young ladies of their ac quaintance, while they speak with ab ruptness to the wife, and do many rude little things without considering them worth an apology. The stranger whom they may have seen but yester day, is listened to with deference, and although the subject may not be one of the pleasantest nature, with a ready smile; while the poor wife, if she re lates a domestic grievance, is snubbed or listened to with ill-concealed impa tience. Oh! how wrong this is—all wrong. Does she urge some request — “Oh! don’t bother me,” cries her gracious lord and master. Does she ask lor necessary funds for Busy’s shoes or Tommy’s hat— “ Seems to me you’re always want ing money!’” is the handsome retort. Is any little extra demanded by his masculine appetite, it is ordered, not requested: “ Look here, I want you to do so andso —just see that it’s done and off marches Mr. Boor, with a bow and a smile of gentlemanly polish for every casual acquaintance he may chance to recognize. When we meet with such thought lessness and coarseness, our thoughts revert to (he kind voice and gentle manner of the friend who said: “Yes, my dear, with pleasure.” “ I beg your pardon” comes as readily to his lips, when by any little accident he has dis concerted her as it would in the pres ence of the most fashionable sticklers for etiquette. This is because lie is a thorough gentleman, who thinks his wife.in all things entitled to precedence. He- loves her best. Why should he hesitate to show it? not in sickly maudlin attentions, but in preferring her pleasure, honoring her in public as well as in private. He knows her worth. Why should he hesitate to at test it? “ And her husband he praised her,” saith holy writ, not by fulsome adulation, not by pushing her charms into notice, but by speaking as opportunity occurs, in many ways of her virtues Though words seem little things,and slight attention almost valueless, yet, depend upon it they keep the flame bright, especially if they are natural. The children grow up in a better moral atmosphere and learn to respect their parents ao they see them respecting each other. Many a boy takes ad vantage of the mother he loves,because he sees often the rudeness of his father. Insensibly he gathers to his bosom the same habits and the thoughts and feelings they engender and in his turn becomes the petty tyrant. Only his mother ! Why should he thank her? Father never does. Thus the home becomes the seat of disorder and unhappiness. Only for strangers are kind words expressed, and hypocrites go out from the hearthstones fully pre pared to render justice, benevolence and politeness to every one and any one but those who have the justest claims. Ah! give us the kind glance, the happy homestead, the smiling wife and courteous children of the friend who said so pleasantly:- “Yes, my dear, with pleasure.” Our Young Folks. REMEMBER THY MOTHER. Lend thy mother tenderly Down life’s steep decline ; Once her arm was thy support, Now she leans on thine. Sice upon her loving face Those deep lines of care"; Think—it was her toil for thee Left that, record there. Ne’er forget her tireless watch Kept by day and night, Tnking from her step the grace, From her eye the light. Cherish well her faithful heart, Which through weary years Echoed with its sympathy All thy smiles and tears. Thank God for thy mother’s love, Guard the priceless’boon; For the bitter parting hour Cometh all too soon. When thy grateful tenderness Losses power to save, Earth will hold no dearer spot Than thy mother’s grave. Philip’s Secret. Very happy seemed a dozen bright faced boys, who with skates and lunch baskets, were speeding away over the crusty meadows toward the river. The ice was smooth,and in the best possible condition for skating. “ I’ll be with you, boys, by the time you fairly get agoing," shouted Philip Raymond, as he suddenly left the rest, and turning to the rigid, hastened off in the direction of a little cross-road leading from the main village to the hill beyond the river. < “What’s up now?” asked Dick Dahill. But Philip was off; and no reply came back. “He means to strike the bend and skate down to the ‘Spread,’ and scare us from the willow hedge, i’ll bet a guinea,” Dick continued. “ He’s only going over by the Van* derver’s new house to see if he can’t get a chance to bow to pretty Mabel at the window,” suggested Tom Russel. He’s polite to the girls, you know,” he added sneeringly. “ Goin’ to count the chickens in Stephen Dublin’s hen-house, more like ly! ” put in Bill Barton. Perhaps the boys were quite uncon scious that the coward, the fop, and pilferer were all interpreting Philip’s motives from standards of their own. Carroll Mackay was Philip’s best friend among the boys, and was quite worthy to be. He could not bear to hear low motives attributed to one whom he loved so much. He spoke up at length. “You all know better. Every one of you’d be surprised to have Phil do a mean thing; you know yon would. If we don’t find out some time that there’s some good at the bot tom of this freak, as you call it, I shall lose my guess.” “ Yes, yes! ” said Dick with a sneer. “He’s a saint, and you’re another. A II ready for the kingdom, ain’t you! How soon ye goin’ up ? ” There was no reply from Carroll, and the subject dropped. The condition of the river was be yond their brightest expectation. The last skater was mounted, and careering about, cutting circles backward and forward, when a prolonged whistle was heard up the river,and Phil came glid ing down. “Look out for the locomotive!” shouted he. He was drawing a sled, on which sat a sad-faced little boy, carefully wrapped in a faded shawl and tippet. “Boys, this is little Connie Weeks. He lives in'the house the Kellys left. He wants a little fun as well as we ; and what’s more, he can’t help himself to it, as we can, poor boy! ” “ How do you like it, little one ? ” continued he in a kind tone, as he tucked up a trailing corner of the blanket and prepared lor a freffi start. “ Oh, so much.” But a glance at the little one’s bright eyes replied sufficiently, without the faint voice. Carroll came up, speaking kindly to the little one, and took hold of the rope with Philip. “Here’s a whip for you, Connie,” said he, breaking off a long slender willow, and hand bur it to him. We’re your horses now'. If we don’t go fast enough you must whip us.” But poor bewildered little Conrad thought there would be no use for the whip, as he glided over the ice behind his steel-shod horses. The other boys kept; aloof from Philip; only shouting, as they passed him, — “How’s your babv auntie? Who takes care of the rest of ’em? ” and de claring to themselves in an undertone, “Never could understand that Phil Raymond, never! ” “I-low’d you happen to think of this ? ” asked Carroll. “ Well, I’ll toll you, Carl. His father saws wood at our house ; and, the other day, he was sawing out a little slick, just the right curve and timber “to mend a sled beam with,” he said. And so I found out about this little crippled boy. I made up my mind then, there was a good chance for some great, strong fellow like me to make the little one happy. And it’s what I call ray secret; but I’ll tell you about it. I’ve found, ever since I began to try to be a —well, for a year past, you know —that, whenever I do a thing to make somebody else happy, it’s the surest way of being happy my self.” “ Phil, you’re a noble fellow. This would be a different world, if we all possessed your secret, and lived up to its teachings as you do.” The Boys’ Bed-Time Stories. “ It’s the ‘ childrens’ hour,’ papa,” said the elder of the little span of boys, who never forget the customs that please them, however forgetful they maybe about coming “straight home from school,” and being prompt at meals, and going to bed when the hour comes. It’s wonderful how boys re member what they want, and what a “good forgetery” they have about things that are not so pleasant. “A story?” —says the father —“ let me read you one from Chatterbox.” “No!” said both the waiting little chaps at once —“ printed stories ain’t half so good. Tell us one your make ups.” “Well, what shall it be about?” “ Oh—-about, a hear and a hunter lor a lion and a rhinoceros. Only have 'it kind o’funny, and have the hunter lick, or the lion.” Well, once there was an old hunter, who lived, all alone in the woods, in a snug little log house that he had built. And he spent all his time shooting deer and bears and things, and catch ing beavers and minks in his traps. ()ne day in the summer he got very tired of eating nothing but meat and pancakes, and he thought he’d go and get some honey. So he took down a little vial of sweet-smelling stuff, and rubbed some on a log; and the bees liked the smell, and came down to get some, as he knew they would. Then he chased and chased them until he saw them crawl into a great big dead tree, where there home was. So he climbed the tree and drove some plugs into holes, so the bees couldn’t get out, and then he took his sharp hatchet and cut a big hole farther up, and reached in his arm and took out five or six cakes of honey, and put ’em in a pail he brought with him on purpose. Then he crawled down, and covered up his honey with a cloth, and put his pail by his gun, and went back to a brook to get some water. When he came back, what do you suppose he saw? (Two. “ I-don’t-knows.”) Well, he saw a big brown bear sit ting on his hind legs, and just going for that honey ! He had the second cake in his fore paw’s, and was eating as fast as he could, with the honey all streaming down his breast, and all over him. That made the hunter awful mad, because he couldn’t get his gun. So he thought a minute, and then just climbed tiiat tree in a hurry, and pulled the plugs out, and the bees came a buzzing and swarming out madder than hop-toads. And they smelled the honey quick, and knew it was theirs, and they just went for that bear lively. More’n a thousand of them lit on his head and back all over him, and begun to sting. And the way he dropped that honey and com menced to howl and paw his head and roll over just made the hunter laugh till he cried. The more he pawed the more they stung, and tlio more they stung the more he howled: “ E-r-r-a-h!” “ Y-o-w!” And the bear’s head swelled up so he couldn’t see, and the hunter got his rifle and shot him dead ; and at night when the bees had gone to bed he came hack and got all the bear’s meat and more’n twenty pounds of honey. And the next morning when he was eating honey on his pancakes he j laughed all’to himself as he said; “Guess I’ll get a swarm of bees and take ’em along with me to hunt bears with.” “Good night.” —Golden Rule. Not a thousand miles from Rich mond a wife lay in a dying condition. Having brought up a clever orphan girl, who was grown, the dying woman called the young woman to her and said: “ I will soon leave you my lit tle children, motherless. They know you and love you, and after I am gone I want you and my husband to marry.” The young woman, bursting into tears, said : “We were just talking about that.’ Ax unmarried but not young woman in Chicago has a father who will not allow her to change “1845” to “ 1855” in the record of her birth in the bible; and she turns pale with fright every time her lover goes near the sacred volume as it lies on the parlor table. TERMS, $2 00 Per Annum. NUMBER 8. Fun and Folly. A brave and good little Ohio boy sat on the fence two hours in the freer,- ing cold of dead winter, watching a broken rail on the railroad track, so as to carry the latest news of the impend ing accident to his father, who was local editor. A young local poet is very indig nant with us because his latest con tribution, a tender monody on “ Van ished Hopes," came out as “ Vanished Hogs.” He needn’t come here to porklaim his grief. This office never listens to any complaints. — Hawk-Eye. Ike has had an irritating skin dis ease. Mrs. Partington says “ the Charolotte Russe broke out all over him, and if he hadn’t wore the Injun beads as an omelet, it would doubtless have caused calumniated fatally.” A maiden lady said to her little nephew: “ Now, Johnny, you go to bed early, and always do so, and you’ll be rosy cheeked and handsome when you grow up.” Johnny thought over this a few minutes, and then observed: “ Well, aunty, you must have sat up a good deal when you were young.” A correspondent who signs him self “Apiarist,” asks us, “hew to smoke bees.” We can’t tell him. We never smoked bees—nor tobacco either. But we should think a good way, if not the best, would be to dr/ the bees and grind ’em up like fine-cut before put ting ’em in a pipe. —Norristown Herald. One of the “ respectable citizens ” of an Indiana town wa3 recently found frozen to death with a jug of whisky within his reach. A man who will deliberately freeze to death within reach of a jug of whisky may be able to palm himself off as a respectable citizen in benighted Indiana, but there are other states in the union. Opjginai< G. W. item from the San Francisco News letter: On a certain occasion, when Mr. Washington was at dinner at Mt. Vernon, Mr. Ran dolph, who sat opposite, pressed the general to partake of the turnips. “ Sir,” said the Father of his Country, impressively, “sir, I do not eat tur nips, because they disagree with me!” There was not a dry eye in the room. A group of one man and two women halted in front of “The Bridal of Neptune,” sorely perplexed to make it out. But one of the women was a smart Massachusetts girl and she soon solved the difficulty. “It’s either,” said she, with some lingering doubt, “ it’s either the Delooge —or the burst ing of the Worcester dam ! ” “ Taint the Delooge,” replied the male yank, “ cause that ain’t the costoom of the period! ” “ Then it’s the Worcester dam sure! ” voted the trio, and glode peacefully on their way. It was at the second battle of Bull Run that a cannon ball carried off a poor soldier’s leg. “ Carry me to the rear!” he cried to a tall companion who had been fighting by his side — “My leg is shot off.” The comrade caught the wounded soldier up, and as he was about to put him across his shoulders another cannan ball car ried away the poor fellow’s head. His friend, however, in the confusion, did not notice this, but proceeded with his burden toward the rear. “ What are you carrying that thing for?” cried an officer. “Thing?” returned he, “It’s a man with his leg shot off.” “ Why, he hasn’t any head! ” cried the officer. The soldier looked at his load, and for the first time saw that what the officer said was true. Throwing down the body, he thundered outi “Confound him! he told me it was his leg! ” Baltimorean. VivieA’, the eccentric Frenchman who has made it the business of his life to worry the custom-house inspec tors of all European countries, has re turned to France. His wont formerly was to pack a huge trunk full of trou sers straps, such as are worn with gaiters, using hydraulic pressure if it were necessary to cram five bushels into a three-bushel space ; then to lure the inspector to open it as a suspicious package, when naturally the contents were overset, and the whole force of the custom-house was occupied for hours in putting them back. A power ful jack in-the-box was another device of his that was very successful. His latest performance at Boulogne is thus recounted: “M. Vivier placed his valise and traveling-sack on the coun ter. ‘ What is in this traveling-sack ?” i‘Two rattlesnakes,’ said M. Viver, meekly. The inspector jumped back, and said it was unnecessary to open it. ‘ And in this valise ? ’ ‘ Three more rattlesnakes,’ softly responded Mr. Vivier. The inspector knitted his brows for a moment, consulted a tariff, and replied in an awful voice, ‘ That makes five rattlesnakes ; there is no duty on rattlesnakes unless there are six or more. Pass this gentleman’s luggage! ”