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. NORTH GEORGIA TIMES. 0 W. J MaRThU Edltor » »*"«Froprtetor.. • VERSIFICATION. As bright as the golden Jane weather Came Rose with her prayer-book and fan Through the church door, and homeward to¬ gether We walked, and my wooing began. She chatted of anthem and sermon— I thought of her lips and blue eyes— Of her light dainty step in the German Till vaguer became my replies. As I vainly endeavored to fashion Some phrase that should fitly express, Or Hat of, that burden of passion Which she, alas l seemed not to guess. Bat we paused on the bridge, whose gray arches " Look down on the bridge in the brook, And there in the shade of the larches Her little gloved fingers I took. And said; ,- Kose, you’ve been kissed in a sonnet In which I my emotions rehearse,” When a voice ’neath the pretty pink bonnet Mnrmured; “Barling, I am not a-verse.” —Life. The Letter. “Any letters?” asked the Widow Wadsworth, turning from the grocery counter of the “store” of Komhill to the corner by the window over which swung a placard bearing the legend “Post of¬ fice” upon it, and glancing through her spectacles at the small row of candy jars which were made to do duly as letter holders. “Any letters for our house Mr. Bristol?” Mr. Bristol, the senior of that name— who was too rheumatic to weigh grocer¬ ies or measure calico, was as deaf as a post, had, perhaps, the least natural talent for the reading of dubious script that could be found in the person of any living man; and, besides this, could never find his spectacles—roused himself from a nap in whioh he had been in¬ dulging, looked bewildered, and seemed ter a moment dubious as to what he should do next; but seeing that Mrs. Wadsworth’s eyes were fixed upon the' candy jars, decided that she wanted a ' slowly.took delibera¬ two ' tSTheSTTowh and, wifh much tion, spread them before her like a pack of cards. “I’ve put my spooks some’rs,” he said, “but where I dunno. Look ’em over and sort ont what’s youra, Mrs. Wads f worth.” This was old Mr. Bristol’s usual style of performing the business of postmaster. ” And as it was an honest place, little harm eame of it. Often people oarriea their neighbors’ letters to them when they happened to pass their gates, and the only registered letter that ever yet has been sent to Komhill was consid¬ ered an insult to the community at large. “They might ha’ known no one would ha’ meddled with it,” said the post¬ master. And the farmers talked the matter over as they jogged home side by side in their wagons, and the snmmer boarder who did the strange thing was made to feel the indignation of her hostess. But that was long after the evening on which Mrs. Wadsworth asked if there were any letters for “her house.” Peering over the little row spread be¬ fore her, she saw that there was one—a small envelope—addressed in a delioate lady’s hand to “James Wadsworth. Esq.” “That’s Jim,” said the old lady “Who can have writ to him ?” There were no more. She pnt hex single epistle in her pooket, pushed the rest toward Mr. Bristol and nodded at him. Mr. Bristol nodded in reply, re¬ jarred the letters, perched himself npon a stool and went to sleep again. Then the younger Bristol helped the old lady into her wagon, handed in her basket of groceries, and she drove away, with the letter in her pooket, and a queer feeling, half fear and half anger, at her heart as she said over and over again, talking alond to herself, as the old white horse plodded along the lonely road: “Who has writ to Jim, I wonder?” Maggie, tbe “help,” oame out to carry to the basket, when Mrs. Wads¬ worth stopped at her own gate, and she herself walked into the kitohen. There was a great stove there, and on it the kettle was boiling, steam rushing from its spout in one Jong stream, and creep¬ ing in a flat sheet from under the cover. Before this stove Mrs. Wadsworth stood and warmed her hands. “I wonder who has writ to Jim,” Bhe said. “If I thought it was that girl I’d throw it into the fire.” Then a story she had beard of some one who had feloniously opened an en¬ velope by holding it over the steam of a tea-kettle occurred to her mind. “I wonder whether it would.open that way,” she said. “It couldn’t lie any great harm just to satisfy myself that it isn't from her. Jim is bnt a boy, and I am his mother. I guess, according to l»Sx I’d ht”8 a right. X ought to, any- SPRING PLACE* GEORGIA. THURSDAY, APRIL 2, 1885. how.” Then the hand which held the letter nntstretehed itself. The stream of steam beat against the flap of the envelope. In a moment or so, it hung loose and limp and wet in her hands.” "I’ll go and- pnt my bonnet away,” she said, to an unnatural sort of tone, and hurried upstairs. “I am his mother,” she said again, as she sat down in her roektog-ohair and drew the letter from the envelope. ‘ ‘It’s right I should know.” Then she oast her eye over the writ¬ ing. There was not much of it. Just this: “Deab James: I know, after my oon dnot, it is my plaoe to write first. I was naughty. humble Please forgive me. Isn’t that enough? And if yon do, come and take me to the pionie to-morrow, “Your own “Nelly.” “It is from that girl,”,y«id Mrs. Wadsworth. “It’s from-; ner. And things have gone so far, and h*e hasn’t told his mother a word! Oh, how hard it is to bear! That girl I don’t want Jim to marry; bnt of all girls, that one 1” and she rocked herself to and fro. “There’s been a quarrel,” she said at last, “and she’s written this to make up. If he never got it, he’d [never speak. 1 know his pride. She come of a pool lot. I hate her; she’s a bad wife lot Jim. I think it’s my duty not to give it to him. I’ll think it over.” Then she opened the draVer'of her bnrean in which she kept valuables and money and thrust the letter in and locked itnp. She had time to think the matter over before Jim eame in a for he was late, and “that girl” grew more distasteful to her every moment. “Going to the picnio, Jim?” she asked, as they sat over their tea. And Jim answered that he hadn’t thought of ‘Td go if I was yon, and take yonr Cousin Miranda,” said the old lady. "She expects it, I guess.” And Jim, only moved by the remembrance of Nel¬ lie Harlow, and a wish to make her jeal¬ ous, agreed to the proposition. He took Miranda to the pionio next day, and Nob¬ ile was there, and saw them together; and remembering her note, written to a moment of softness, when the wish to re¬ call certain angry words she had said to Jim, was strong upon her, she grew sick with shame. She had-held ont her hand in reconciliation, and he had not taken it. Coaid anything make a woman more indignant? After that she never even looked at him. Old Mrs. Wadsworth having kept Jim’s letter a few days, felt that too much explanation would be necessary were she to give it to him after so long a delay. Besides it would be well for her son that he should not see it. He would, of course, marry his cousin Mi¬ randa-only a second cousin—a girl she liked, and who would never set herself np above her mother-in-law—a girl who did not, like poor Nellie, look aggrava tingly stylish. But Jim did not marry Miranda. No one will ever know now whether Miranda would have accepted him or not. After awhile she married a Mr. Wiseman, who was better off than Jim, and old enough to be his father; and Nelly, too, mar¬ ried. While her heart burnt with re¬ sentment against her old lover, she chose a new one, a dark, moody, silent sort of man, who oarried her away to the city, whence there came rumors now and then that she was not happy, that her husband led a wild life. Onoe some one declared that he was a very madman to his jealousy, and locked her in her room at times. But no one knew whether it was true or not. Her parents would never say anything about her. As for James Wadsworth, he had gone to ohurch to see her married and had gone home with a headache. The next day he was deliriotls; a brain fever had set in and the do6tors shook their heads over him. What he said to his delirium only his mother understood: ont if she could have undone the deed that she had done, she would have thanked Heaven. For weeks he lay at death’s door, and then a pale shadow orept abont the honse—the wreck of bright, handsome Jim Wadsworth. His beauty was gone, and no one felt quite sure about his mind. He answered sensibly enough when he was spoken to, bnt voluntarily he never spoke. After awhile he grew strong enough to do farm work, and did what his mother suggested, and she grew need to his al¬ tered ways. And so matters rested when, ten years from her wedding-day, Nelly oame back to her father’s home in a widow’s eap. And the people of Kornhill learnt that her husband was dead, and began to wonder whether he bad left her money. Jim, plowing in the adjoining field, saw her as she sat npon the old home¬ stead Doreh, and stood, for a moment, staring at net. Kies no Jsft his plow in in the farrow, his horses standing where they were, and went home. His mother saw him coming. He tramped over the beds of vegetables, and trod down thb yonng com. He sought no path. As the bee flies he sought the doorway at which his mother stood staring at him, and walked into the kitchen past her without a look. “Jim, my boy,” said the old woman, “what is it?” He made her no answer; but went to his room and straight to bed. For hoars be never spoke to her. Then he began to babble. He uttered Nelly’s name; he reproaohed her with incon¬ stancy; he called her tender names in one breath and cursed her in the next. Then he gave one wild ory and sprang up in his bed and dropped baok again, with his eyes staring toward heaven. He was dead; the mother knew that be¬ fore they told her se. The next day a coffin stood in the tow-ceiled parlor, and in it lay a pale statue with olosed eyes—-all that was left of Jim Wadsworth. One by one the friends and neighbors eame softly in to look at him, and went away more softly, often in tears. At last oame one woman—a fair woman, in a widow’s cap and veil who stood longer than the rest looking at the still, white faoe, and at her own request was left alone with it, while curious people in the other room wondered whether it was true that Nelly and Jim were once engaged and had quarreled. For this was Nelly, in her widow’s weeds, who had come to look at Jim for the last time. As she stood there, with thoughts for which there was no words trooping through her mind, an inner door opened and an old woman crept in. It was Mrs. Wadsworth, broken down at last^ . and with the strange, restless light of an unsettled intellect in her light bine eyes. She held an old letter in her hand, and it rustled as she slowly crossed the room and stood beside the coffin, "Jim," said she, "here’s your letter. I’ve been thinking it over, and sinoe you take it so hard, yon’d better have it. I only kep’ it for your own good, Jim. She ain’t the girl for you; but yon take it so hard. Wake up, Jim; here’s your letter.” But the white, frozen hands lay still upon the breast, and other small, living woman’s hands grasped it instead. Nelly knew all the story now. “Here is your letter, Jim,” she whis¬ pered. “Oh, Jim, Jim,” and she laid it softly under the white flowers npon the bosom, and, stooping, kissed the waxen hands and brow.. “Oh, Jim, Jim!” she said again, and let her blaok veil down over her faoe, and went her way; and the gossips who stared after her as she passed down the village street, wondered again if she had ever been engaged to Jim Wadsworth, but none of them ever knew. The grave keeps its seoret, so also does a woman’s heart, The Physical Year. There eonttones to be a great deal of uneasiness among the department peo¬ ple about changes, says a Washington letter writer. Perhaps there is no class of employees in the departments who are more disturbed than the colored people. The colored employees of the Government are the aristocrats of theii society. Some of them have accumu¬ lated fine properties. I know of on colored messenger who has four or fiv sons in the departments. The family all live together in one honse. Their aggregate salaries must reaoh ove $6,000 a year. The ancient cook o Gen. Sheridan well illustrates this pan¬ icky feeling among the members of her race, “Aunt Mary” has been Sheri¬ dan’s cook for a long period. When he left Chicago he set her up to a small shop there. Her daughter married one of the messengers in the War Depart¬ ment. She reoentiy eame on to visit hei married daughter. She has been in Washington now about two weeks. The other day she expressed opinion oq the situation to a lady nd of Gen. Sheridan’s. Aunt Mary said : “Gen, Sheridan, he is all right and I was pow¬ erful glad of it. Dese yer Democrat* can’t get him ont no how, bnt all d< odder niggers will have to go by de end of de physical year.” A Level Head.—A California paper tells this story: Said an Indian to a whiteman: “Yon go to party at Inde pendence ?” “No,” said the white man; “I am broke and can’t go,” “What for you talk so ?” said the Indian; “you work all time, earn money; what for you no keep him? Some time I broke too, buy whisky, drink him up, money all gone. Now no drink long time, work, plenty money, no broke; you do all same, j no broke to*” I W7 A REAL LIFE NOVEL. ■ HE BAS NEITHER MURDERED NOR A ^ MURDERER. A • Mratery at the Pennsylvania Lumber Woods Unexpectedly Solved. Cfept. 0. Cutler, of Clarion Mills, Pa., “purchased a ticket for Omaha, and as he Sfbso said: t ticket,” said he, “is for a man ? for twenty years has believed him [ 'to be a murderer fleeing from jus tie,'. and whose friends, on the other hand, have for twenty years thought he was ihe viotim of the man whom he him¬ self believed he had murdered. His name is Alexander Baer, and it was only a few weeks ago that he found out thai he-was not a murderer. TffBaer worked for me in 1863. He was paying attention to a girl named Hathaway, and I think they were en¬ gaged to be married. She was a ser* vaatat the lumbermen’s boarding-house. * fall of that good-looking year a |tg Scotchman by the name of Cray aeron ,Y>elonged oame to my mills to work. somewhere in Steuben Sty, New York. He soon cut Aleok Baer out with the Hathaway girl, and the result was that the two became bitter enemies. They worked in the same logging camp. “|>ne^day in the the winter of 1864 Cam¬ eron. came to settlement with a bloody face. He said that he and Baer had got into a quarrel over the Hatha¬ way girl and had come to blows. Baer and had^nooked iihen he him senseless to he with unable a club, to caqie was find his rival. Baer had not appeared in the settlement, and was not seen again about any of the camps. As Baer had nearly 8200 due him from our company, and hod left $100 in his trunk at the boarding house, his disappearance had an i ms of mystery about it that puzzled il»£t.$ji us, The^suspicion the'fight was pretty general between him and Oam -Si#* e Scotchman had killed bis rival secreted his body, leron was aware of these suspicions, and offered to pay for the fullest investigation of the affair and all the expenses of a search for the whereabouts at the missing lumberman. He employed an officer to follow every possible olne he eonld find that might lead to the olearing up of the mystery, but nothing could be learned. “When the ice broke up in the spring, some boys who were fishing for snokers in the north branch of the river were at traoted by a peculiar-looking object that came along with some ioe, and they drew it into the shore with a pike pole. On dragging it ont they saw that it was the half-clothed body of a man. They hurried to the lumber camp and told the men at work there what they had found. The flesh was entirely missing from the face and head of the dead man, and rec¬ ognition of the features was impossible. There were remnants of a plaid ooat, or jacket, on the body. Alexander Baer was the only one in the region who had worn such a coat. The plaid was made by broad stripes of green and blaok. An inquest was held, at whioh the re¬ mains were declared to be those of the missing lumberman. The finding of the dead body aroused anew the suspi¬ cions that he had been killed by Cam¬ eron. The verdict of the Coroner’s jury was that the man had come to his death in a manner unknown. “Baer’s friends demanded the arrest of Cameron. A warrant was issued, and Cameron ran away. Every one then be¬ lieved he was guilty of Baer’s murder. He was pursued and captured, but while he waS being taken to the county seat he escaped from the officer and was never recaptured. It was believed that he en¬ listed in the army, and a soldier in the Sixty-seventh Pennsylvania Begiment sent home the news in 1865 that he had seen the dead body of Cameron among those who had died in Libby prison. At ail events, nothing else was ever heard of the alleged murderer, and the inci¬ dents connected with the tragedy were gradually forgotten. “A few days ago a stranger appeared at the Clarion Mills and asked for me. To my great surprise he told me he was the missing Alexander Baer, and he suc¬ ceeded in establishing his identity be¬ yond a doubt. He told a singular story. He said that Cameron’s version of their fight was true. When he knocked Cam¬ eron senseless with the dab, he became Mghtened and tried to revive him. JFail “8 to this, he believed he had killed his rivs1, and > wiUlont » thought of any tMn 8 else > fled from the plaoe to escape 4110 of his crime. He met on the of the oam P » man named ^ >0n 3 r » w ko was in the habit of making oocafiional visits to the lumber regions t°r the purpose of baying np waste and r * BS of 011 fcto&i- The man was very ^ tisedhis run ^- Knowing conspicuous that if he was adver plaid ooat would VOL. V. Series. No. 8. lead to his detection, Baer traded it ofl to Perry for a cast-off ooat he was wear ng. Perry had told Baer that ho was going to cross the ice at the eddy above on his way to Crotty’s Mills. He had undoubtedly broken through or stepped into an air-hole and was drowned, and his body, with the remnants of Baer’s plaid coat on, was the one the boys found the next spring. “Baer went to Pittsburgh, where he enlisted in the army, nnder an assumed name. After the war he went to California and other Western States, never having heard a word from the mills or settle¬ ment since he fled until the latter part of last December. Then he met, in Den¬ ver, a man named Philip Craig, who was working for me at the time of the sup¬ posed murder. They recognized one an¬ other, and Craig told Baer the story of the affair, greatly to his astonishment and relief. Baer worked his way gradu¬ ally East, to revisit the old scene and set things right. The Hathaway girl, over whom the two men quarreled, was married in 1867, and died last year. Her son, a strapping chopper, seventeen years old, works for me at the mills now. Baer worked a day in the old place, but concluded he preferred to go baok West, and he’s going on this ticket.” Mr. Evarts and the Elocutionist Evarts is a jolly old fellow, very sportive at times when it will do to re¬ lax his dignity, and much given to joking when safe from publio observa¬ tion. It was Evarts’s habit of main¬ taining a sedate visage that made his treatment of an audacious and self-com¬ placent young woman effectively crush¬ ing. “I have made bold to call on you, Mr. Evarts,” she said, “because I felt surh you could appreciate the services which I could render to your children.” As he has eleven of them, he felt bound to listen to any proposition that purported to be benefioial to them, “I Would like an engagement to in istweVand entertain < the younger mem¬ bers of your family,” the caller oon tinned. “I an very olever, indeed, and am accustomed to recite for hours every day.” “It may be said to have become obronio,” the lawyer interposed. “Oh, I suppose so,” and the elocu¬ tionist was radiant. “Weil, now,” and here he became ap¬ parently introspective, as he does when formulating his long sentences, “the theories and practices of my household, in so far as they seem to be pertinent to the employment of an entertaining in¬ structor, or we may say—I assume with¬ out any misooneeption of your proposi¬ tion or offense to your self-esteem—a governess for the ohildren, are based on the utmost feasible degree of tolerance and charity. It is in my memory that we once had a lame nursemaid whose limp, though it may have been as rhyth¬ mic as a cradle to the infant in her arms, was certainly not pleasing to the observer less intimately related to it. And I recall a coaohman of ours who ocoupied years of service in dying of a deformity distressing to the view. Bpt in both oases the misfortune overtook these individuals while in our employ, as they had come to us in normal and healthy conditions, and we felt bouud to endure them to the end; but I hardly think that we should be called upon to hire a governess already in an advanoed state of elocution, who to doubtless in¬ curable, and with whom the most ideal charity would not demand that wo should jointly suffer .”—Chicago Inter Ocean. Colonna-Mackay. THE WEDDING CELEBRATED WITH PON¬ TIFICAL HIGH MASS. Miss Eva Maokay was married to Paris to Don Ferdinand Julien Oolonna, Pii.ice of Galatro. The ceremony was private and was performed with pontif¬ ical high mass by Mgr. de Rende, the Papal Nunoio, in the Nunoio’s Chapel to Paris. The nuptial benediction was ad¬ ministered by Mrg. de Rende, who also delivered the me iage address. The civil ceremony of marriage, which is re¬ quired by the Frenoh law, was pter formed the day before. The witnesses to this were Prince Oolonna Doria, Prince Oolonna, United States Minister Morton and Duke Decazes. After the celebration of the religions rite Mrs, Maokay, the mother of the bride, gave a grand bridal reception, which in every respect must rank with the most magnificent festival of Frenoh history. The reception was especially distinguished by the quality of the guests, among whom were inolnded about every person of distinction and worth in Frenoh society. Conspicuous among these were General the Comte Menabrea, Italian Ambassador to France; Count Oamondo and Mme, Wyse ■ Bonaparte. STRAY BITS OF HUMOR FOUND IN THE HUMOROUS COLUMNS OF OUR EXCHANGES. A Present tor Jimmie—A Miscount—Ne«. leeted Work—It Was Time to Got Away A Handy Husband. Etc., Etc. A PRESENT FOB JIMMIE, “Oh, Jimm-mee-ee-ee t” / “Wotcher want?" • “Yer comes yer daddy t” “Wat’s be doin’ ?” “Lookin’ for yon 1” “Wot’s he want?” “He’s got somethin’ nice fur ye!” “Wot is it ?” “Bunno 1 Looks like somethin’ tc ride on. Kind o’ long and slim and slick-like, like as ef he’d peeled the bark ofPn it. » • Jimmie dives into the oreek with his clothes on and strikes ont for yondei point accoutered as he was. He was playing “hookey,” and he “had rode” on one of them things before. It would be a raw and gusty day when Jimmie got left.— Burdette. A MJSCdUNT. “Mamma,” cries little Edith, “dive me anudder date, p’ease.” “Well,” says mamma, “you go and ask Bridget for one—only one, remem¬ ber—and you may get two for Mamie” (an older sister). Presently Edith comes baok. “Mamma,” she says, “I think Bridget made a mistake and dave me two dates for myself and o’ly one for Mamie.”— Boston Transcript. TIME TO GET AWAY. “Hello, baok from New Orleans so quick?” “Yes.” “Couldn’t yon find any quarters there?” “No; and the quarters I took with me went so fast that I wouldn’t have had one left to pay the Pullman porter if I hadn’t left when I did .”—Arkamaw Traveller. a Sandy Soene in the boudoir of a Hartford belle: Thoughtful Mamma — “Well, dear, whioh gentleman have yon selected foi yonr husband ?” Dutiful Daughter—“Oh, I think PI) take Mr. Fatboy.” dear, “But, Mr, Littleman is very rich, while your ohoice is very poor.” "Yeq, my ohoioe is very poor, it is true; but he is so big and stout he will be just splendid to sit on the Bible and press winter leaves.” * “Oh, I see. Yon will not be infln enoed by a monetary consideration.” “No; I marry for love alone.”— Hart¬ ford Sunday Journal. FELT BORfiD WITH IT,’ A lady was singing at a concert, and her voice was, to say the least, very thin in places, “Ah,” said her husband, who after the manner of husbands who have musioal wives, thought her vocal powers were ,grea\ “what a fine voioo she has I” “Very fine,” replied a strange man at his side. “What timbre continued the hus¬ band. “Considerable timber,” responded.the stranger again, “but too many cracks in it for weather-boarding, and not quite enough for a paling fence.” The husband remained silent during the concluding portions of the entertain¬ ment .—Cincinnati Merchant Traveler. THE EXPBESSAOE. “I would bo obliged to you,” said a olosefisted old fellow to a country editor, “if you will express my thanks, through your excellent paper, to the many oitizens whose timely aid last night saved my house from being destroyed by fire.” “Certainly,” replied the editor, “I will express your thanks, but it will be neces¬ sary for you to advance about a dollar and a half to prepay the express acre.” DIDN’T LIKE TO HAVE HER WAY. “I tell you I shall do as I please 1’ shouted Mrs. Miff. “Well, well, my dear. I didn’t saj you couldn’t,” replied Mr. Miff. “And you can’t stop me !!” "I didn’t say I could, my dear.” “You’d better not try 1! I" "Indeed, indeed, my dear, I won’t’ “That’s just all such a brute caret about his wife lit 1” and Mrs. Miff pre pared to ory her eves out. OTBCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE. “Charley has an awful long arm,” saia Bertha, in a musing mood at the break¬ fast table. “How do you know ?” asked her father, in man like simplicity. “Why,” replied Bertha, “my waist belt to a—” And then she oaught a glimpse of her mamma’s horrified face glaring over the coffee urn, and she thought she would die, sure enough. But she didn't She only said Charley told her bo.