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JOHN H. SEA LS,' m*H«KTolt.
ATLANTA. GA. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 21. 1877.
'rT7~PA/T< J* 3 PEi{ ANNUM
I rLJlMo, 1 IN ADVANCE.
NO. 1)0.
(For the Sunny Soutji.)
DRIFTING.
!Y FLOY JAY.
Moiain” and evening—early and late
I’ve watched for many a day
The far, far South horizon.
Where my magical island lay.
V as it really a distant island f
Or only a gleam of light;
A sun-lit beach, or a cloud mayhap,
•I nst drifting away from my sight t
II.
So to-day I spread my snowy sails.
And nty boat sailed oil from shore;
The little bay widened out to sea.
And the harbor I'll see no moro.j
One bonnie barque that eiiled with nit
For a while in the morning light
Is llyiug back o’er the darkening wave
And is veiled by the coming night.
III.
I never have heeded alwarning
Called over the waves to me;
My eyes were fixed on the distant isle
That has faded into the sea.
But awhile ago, I had sailed so near
To the lonely and beautiful land,
I could hear the beat of the eager wave
As they broke on the gleaming sand.
IV.
1 could see the green and waving trees
I could tancy their welcoming sigh.
Hut the wind of the ocean swept me on
And the light faded out of the skv;
All the golden glory vanished.
And each tinge ol the crimson light;
While over the ocean gathers
The shade of a eiouaed night.
There is nothing I hear, save the nninr.i.
Of the waves in their ceaseless beat;
Nothing I see. save the purple mist.
Where the sea and the ocean meet.
And now, alone and startled,
I ttirn and call in vain.
For over the blue waves, dark and dee;
No answer comes again.
: nerr * mu star to gviide me,
Ami the ocean is deep and wide;
I will fold my hands and rest content;
I \till drift along with the tide.
Heir of Eliiotston;
—on.—
WHAT TURNED THE S( ALE.
liY S. M. A. C. *
Tilings do happen in this world by tie strang
est sequence. We would be fairly appalled did '
we see the odd possibilities that lie in our
trivialest actions. Certainly Miss Martha Pin-
rose's supper would seem about the unlikeliest :
thing possible to iuiluence in any way the des- j
tinies of some people with whom she had almost I
no sort of connection; but so it was.
Miss I’inrose is a maiden lady of by no means ,
uncertain years—for the good, kindly soul. Lav- j
ing known very little of the charm and glow of •
youth in her laborious springtime, makes no |
regretful concealment of her cheery age—the j
chief milliner of a rather quiet provincial town; j
a city but for lack of people, the capital and j
trading point of a rich region, where a great j
national staple absorbs all productive energy, i
Consequently, the town—Windham is its name—
is not vexed with the hum of machinery, or the
steady din that, comes up when a thousand di
verse industries keep the trade-pulse beating at
fever heat; still, there are streets upon streets—
solid, conservative, even handsome; a moribund
river-front; a depot, that has sapped the life of
the water-way, yet itself seems scarce half-
animate; banks and warehouses, for handling
the staple, and lines of shops and stores where,
for a due consideration, you may supply all rea
sonable human needs, although it is a common
declaration of the gay young bagmen from the
wide world beyond, and ladies in search of the
latest impossible style, that “Windham is the
poorest town. You never can hud anything in
jt.”
All this, however, has nothing to do with
Miss I’inrose, who lives and thrives, the picture
of placid content, save upon those rare occasions
when something goes wrong with her liver.
Generally, this is a superbly equable organ,
troubling its owner, spite of work, late hours
and irregular meals, almost as little as that ad
mirable muscle which has attended to her circu
lation for so many years without ever obtruding
itself otherwise upon her attention, yet for one
or two things the model liver indulges a ca
pricious dislike, and always resents their in
fliction with its direly-ready weapons of nausea,
headache, etc. Miss Pinrose is, I think, freer
than most of us from original sin, yet for one of
these, to her, forbidden things, she had a relish
amounting almost to affection. That one is I
write it in a whisper—fried cabbage; and now
you can guess how it was that one December
morning, after making a hearty meal thereof, at
eleven, r. m., she found herself acquainting Dr.
Warner with all the effects—her symptoms, you
know—while concerning the cause she said less
than nothing, for the old lady was equally
proud of her digestion and of her prudent diet,
and of all people. Dr. Warner was the last she
would choose to let know her laches; for, besides
standing more than head of his profession in
Windham, Dr. Warner was one of the chiefest
men of the good town. How he attained such
eminence without the stimulus of a wife, or
why, having attained it. he did not forthwith
provide for himself that desirable article, I can
not undertake to say. Everybody set bim down
a continued bachelor, and if any pretty caps
were set to himward, it was rather from the in
stinct that leads the sportsman to tire at the bird
known to be beyond range, than with n hope of
h gging the game, whom, nevertheless, the
handsome house, horses and bank-stock there
unto appertaining made tantalizingly eligible.
His age was—well, such that lie bad ceased to
mention it; for the rest, he was not handsome.
If he had not been a successful man, I doubt if
tha‘ most elastic of epithets, “ fine-looking,”
would ever have been tilted to him. Most peo- !
pie had called him “gawky ” and “shambling”
while he was working bis way up by sheer force
\of worth and mother-wit, spite of rusty coats
?arrd polite sneers; hut somehow, of late, they
An Illustration of the Winter through which we have just passed. This fellow thinks it was right cold.
had grown more appreciative, or less critical—
which, I do not know. Certainly he tens rather
tall and slender, with a good head, a strong fore
head beginning to bo somewhat lined and fur
rowed, and eyes that seemed to bold deep shad
ows of the suffering they so often looked upon.
Beyond that, his face was lost in a torrent of
red-brown beard. As to his character, it was
such as made him friends of the staunchest, and
enemies of the heartiest, and to my thinking,
greater praise no man need want. To the ob
servant professional insight that reads our poor
humanity as one reads a thrice-solved riddle, he
added the greater art of seeming to see always
only so much us was consistent with the most
delicate discretion; consequently, he was half-
worshipped by his patients, and whole-envied
by his professional brethren. Miss l’inrose felt
a sort of proprietary interest in him. She had
known Lloyd Warner as a boy, and always
prophesied great things of him; yet since he ;
had reached so near the ladder’s top, a sort of i
odd awe tinged her old-time friendliness. I j
doubt if he would have been called on to set j
right the obstinate liver only he chanced to pass j
that way, and stopped for a word of cordial
greeting, whereupon the old lady left her shop ]
to her pretty assistant, and whisking the doctor
into the back room, whence, through the wide i
glass doors, she could still keep eyes of watch- j
fulness ou “that provoking child,” began, as I
said, to detail her symptoms, which he seemed j
to think it necessary she should state at great !
length; for this was one of those soft, dark,
rainy days that always seem to me the only tit j
weather for holiday preparation, when custom
ers were likely to be few; and he knew that !
young 'Mason, j at the jeweler’s, next door, was |
breakmg his heart for the sight ol Miss Alice, I
who regarded him with such favor as was gall
and wormwood to the elderly Pinrose, and never I
lacked a pretext for running into the establish- j
meDt whereof he was so distinguished an orna- ;
ment. Half an hour was not much to pay for a 1
good deed, and Dr. Warner had a genuine love ]
for love, albeit the world said he had never I
been a lover. Ifo was just smiling behind his !
beard over bis successful strategy, when the
shop-door opened and shut in a lady-like but
decided way, that was just matched by the light,
firm step that came along the lloor, and the voice
which culled:
“Miss Martha! Alice! where is everybody?
I’ve a grout mind to help myself and walk off
without more ado.”
Miss Pinrose caught the situation at a glance,
and the seeming equability with which she went
to attend to lo r customer was a tribute equally
to her own self-con'rol and Dr. Warner’s influ
ence. That gentleman must have been in an
idle mood, for thus left to himself, instead of
writing out the necessary prescription, or im
proving the time with the latest medical pam
phlet his pocket was never without he was re-
prehensibly attentive to the scene in the shop,
of which, himself unseen, he had a most excel
lent view. I oauno' blame him very much, for
in color, figure and character, Florida Rich
mond was a most attractive study, especially
when, as in this c.vse, the soft, gray-misty day
gave her tints the pearl-freshness of earliest
youth, the dark, close-fitting water-proof show
ed to perfection the lithe grace of outline, and
some unusual satisfaction broke up in all man
ner of lights and shadows through the gray,
black-fringed eyes, and gave little undertones
of gladness to the clear, thoroughbred voice.
Like much the larger half of human affairs, Miss
Richmond's happiness on this occasion was
merely the sum of aggregated trifies. It began,
I think, with the pretty pearl-gray silk at home,
lucking hut a touch or two of completion, and
was swelled by a little parcel the express had
just brought her; a pair of handsome, heavy
bracelets, tHe birth-day gift of an old maid
cousin; and took a very definite solidity from so
unromantieally ^real a thing as a publisher’s
letter with a moderate Ireight of greenbacks,
and got its crown of supreme satisfaction trow
tiie sheet of heavily-embossed satin paper that
requested her presence at Mrs. Peyton’s ('luist-
mas-Eve ball.
How the Richmonds kept up appearances was
a mystery that their dear five hundred friends
wasted much time in attempting to solve. They
were bom to fortune—at least their grandfather
left one—but their father had been a hearty,
free-handed soul, who mado all comers royally
welcome, and denied no living thing, lrom him
self to his poorest squatter neighbor, a wish
that Lis time or bis money could gratify. It
goes without telling that he died with Ins affairs
at sixes and sevens; so much so, indeed, that
everybody counted on an insolvent estate, and
his children’* disappearance into some waste
new country, for all agreed they would never
stand to come down where they’d been used to
to going with the first. In this, everybody
was severely disappointed. John Richmond, it
was soou decided, was not much lus father’s
son, but a thorough man of business, who would
pay his father’s debts and make none of his
own. Besides himself, there were Florida and
a widowed sister with twin babies, a helpless
family, every one said, even if John’s pride—
there at least, he was Richmond to the core—
would not keep them from trying to be other
wise.
Mrs. Wayne, the widow, was helpless; one of
those shallow, selfish natures which take as of
right all service from all people, and regard the
good fortune of others as a personal grievance;
but Florida would have drowned herself sooner
than he thus a millstone about the neck of her
struggling brother. She hud a quick and grace
ful fancy, and eyes that saw under the surface
things, and so the bulky envelopes so stealthily
posted sometimes proved merchantable wares,
and were returned to her in the shape of cur
rency of the commonwealth. Only sometimes;
often the mail brought her back missives so
weighty that the postmaster was excusable for
thinking it must be a mighty task to read some
of Miss Richmond’s letters, let alone the answer
ing of them. Beyond a doubt, such packages
are heavy to their size. Hope, living, is lighter
than thistledown;dead or frozen, it is a lump of
granite. Miss Richmond had her cairn of theso
stones, hut she was careful to keep the fact from
all the world, and equally careful to spend her
earnings as unremarkably as though they were
product of the Richmond acres instead of the
Richmond brain. And the spending took a
wider range than her own personal needs.
Thence came a hundred minor household mat
ters, frocks and toys, and bonbons for the babies,
and oftenest of all, novelties in mourning (?)
which alone could dry Mrs. Wayne’s tears over
“•John's stingy ways;” for Mrs. Wayne ranked
economy as the very first of those virtues whose
practice is desirable—in other people, and held
crape and bombazine the only fit and lady-like
expression of grief. To wear a bonnet years
out of style would be disrespect to her dead she
never could be guilty’ of—so there papa gave her
a hundred dollars where now she hadn’t ten—
and John had all the land yet. What if there
were debts; the little she wanted could make no
difference, and she would have it — yes she
would—she had as much right as any of them.
And if Florida made her own dresses and wore
them threadbare, she didn’t make her do it.
Florida never cared how she looked, while
clothes were—well, she did like to look decent.
If Mr. Wayne had only lived, she needn’t be
there to trouble them—she wished she had
stayed with her children in the home he left her.
She would, if she had even dreamed how things
would he, etc., etc., etc. You can imagine the
scenes.
John did not mind them. He had a temper
of steel, and the man’s resource of all outdoors
for escape; hut Florida shrank from their humi
liating pain, and was ready to buy their ab
sence at cost of all she made.
As John Richmond’s friend. Dr. Warner knew
a little and guessed more of all this, and it was
with sympathetic ears he heard Florida say;
“Y’es, I am going to Mrs. Peyton’s, and of
course I want to be very much comme ilfaut, as
it will be the affair of the holidays.” Then,
with a glance at her little heap of purchases:
“Y’ou might have ordered all theso for my
especial benefit; they r are so exactly what I
wanted—and when I get them on I’ll almost
feel myself one of the young ladies that Franky
sings about, mado of
“ 1 Ribbon and lace,
And a kiss in the face.’
! And now let me pay you and he off’, f owe you
twelve dollars, I think.”
“Yes,” said Miss l’inrose, “without Mrs.
Wayne’s bill. That’s eight more -hut never
mind about it to-day,” seeing a-change in the
girl’s face at her words.
“But I do mind,” Florida said; “I did not.
' know she had made one, or I would have named
it. But 1 won’t take these to-day.” handing
, back a pair of handsome gloves: “I have some
that will do” -a sort of hardness over the word
—“that will leave me two and a half of the
twenty dollars I gave you.”
Miss I’inrose fingered her property irreso
lutely.
“ You’d better take them. The money makes
no difference with me,” she said, at last.
Florida smiled, hut shook her head obsti
nately.
“It makes the greatest possible one to me.
Keep my parcels, please, till I can go down to
Seabury’s; and if -John comes for me, tell him
; I’ll be here in five minutes;” and with that van-
1 ished through the shop door.
Dr. Warner cause out of hiding and accosted
his patient:
“ You had a queer customer, Miss Martha. 1
did not know there was a woman whose princi
ples had an inflexible cash basis.”
“ Y ou have a heap co learn about women, well
as you think you know them,” oracularly re
torted Miss i’inrose.
“ Especially this particular woman. I shall
wait and see if she really will ‘be back in five
minutes.’ Ill wager not.”
“ She may; Seabury’s is so near. Have you
heard she is soon to marry Elliot Fane V ’
“Why, no! I thought he was Miss Bertha
Con way’s property. ” »
“They 7 say he can hardly make up his mind
between the two; and if he calls on one to-day,
the other will see him to-morrow.”
“That’s nobly impartial, I must say. But
here’s Miss Florida, and the live minutes are
;• iOV.CUS L..UUIS *'i' ‘ - • ■■■ i UlOM
indescribable parcels, the sign manual ol Christ
ine- and the toy shop, whose wrappers seem ut
terly inadequate to contain the bursting jollity
of their contents.
“.So you are Iiriss Kringle, eh ? Wonder if
the old gentleman knows what a desirable alias
he has in these parts? ” Dr. Warner said, offer
ing to take her burden.
“I wish I were Kriss Kringle. He doesn’t care
for expenses.”
“ Y'on dd not, either, from the looks of this,”
picking up the empty purse, that had dropped
and fallen open in the transfer. -
“ Let me see. I surely haven’t lost my 1 luck
money.’ No”—touching a tiny 'inner clasp—
“ here it is, all,safe—the dime that black mam
my put in my baby hands to ‘keep witches
of’en de chile. 1 I keep it for seed.”
Dr. Warner smiled and put the purse in his
pocket.
“I’ll take care of it for you until planting
time,” he said; “and now, by your leave, I'll
help you in the buggy. John shouldn’t risk
you behind those brown devils. See ! he can't
hold them still with both hands.”
Then as he wrapped the robes about her:
" I know Kriss Kringle never forgets a good
boy, and what shall I get from, him Christmas
day in the morning?”
“ Something you don’t want, I hope,” Florida
said, laughiDg a little at the doctor's unwonted
liveliness; “for you are one of the spoiled chil
dren now, and further indulgence might be fa
tal.”
He held her hand in a lingering good-bye
clasp that the “brown devils.” had no mind to
further tolerate, so took their Leads and dashed
away at such a rate that in less time than I write
of it she was whirled from sight. Marvelous to
tell, he thought of her for at least two hours
thereafter, and even went home to his late din
ner with a sort of spring-time consciousness
j about him; while she, whirling through the soft
j electric air beside her taciturn brother, forgot
i the sight and speech of him ere ten minutes
j went by. It is a case wholly without parallel,
I and one that I know must severely tax credulity;
I but the fact is, Miss Richmond was using this
| hour of freedom from her sister’s tongue to do
j the steady thinking imperatively required of
any wise woman by a clearly impending crisis.
When the rich man of the country-side, Mr.
Elliot, of Eliiotston, lay dying, people won
dered no little as to whether he would leave all
that money— quite enough for a dozen—to his
grandson, and felt proportionally indignant
when the will proved that he had done it; for
that document, ignoring equally churches,
charities and poor kinsmen, gave and bequeath
ed all whereof its maker was seized and pos
sessed to his beloved and only grandson, Elliot
Fane, upon condition (here the anger was swal
lowed in marvel) that the said Fane shall at no
time within the ten years next succeeding testa
tor's demise absent himself for a space of above
two weeks from the house of Eliiotston and
further, that within three years from said event
he shall show, to the satisfaction of the herein
after named executors, that he is duly joined in
honorable wedlock; failure of conditions to
work forfeiture to the next of kin.
When they came to think it over, all agreed
that it wasn't so strange atter all. Elliot Fane’s
was a roving nature—a little wild, too and a
home and wife that you must stay with are just
the ballast needed to steady sneh a craft; be
sides. the old man had family pride, and wanted
to make sure that his own blood should keep
his money. Conditions to the contrary, the
heir was a lucky fellow, and then the interest
centred upon whither he would perforce a-woo-
ing go. It couldn't be far; that was insured by
j the limited leave of absence from Elliotstofi,
and straightway most neighboring damsels of
bis own walk and way of life became, as was
due their own modesty in presence of a man to
whom marriage was a necessity, so consciously
unobservant of him that the poor fellow, whilom
the pet of all womankind, was fain publicly to
declare that he would enjoy his freedom to its
latest limit, and that even then he might give up
bis fortune instead. That part of the young
sybarite’s speech found few believers. His want
| of backbone was too conspicuous for that. They
! did believe, though, ere many months were(
