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TUr* • ,
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'"'ErTS COLLCCJir,,.
When the night-bird’s song at even
Cheers the gloom,
May soft dews descend from heaven
On thy tomb.
May sweet peace her vigil keeping
Wnile years wane,
Guard thee till thou cease from sleeping,
.Dear Se Jane.
But the grass is o’er thee springing,
Dear Se Jane;
Plaintive winds for thee are singing
O’er the plain;
And my soul shall dwell forever
On the strain.
Would that thou hadst left us never,
Oh! Se Jane.
Pakkottville, tens.
Mad all Her Days.
By MKS. AMELIA T. PURDY.
CHAPTER I.
‘Trnc fiction bath in itablgber end
Than fact; it is thepossit.it compared
With what is merely positive, and gives
To the Conceptive soul an inner world,
A higher, ampler, Beayen than that wherein
The nations sun themselves.”
Proem—Fertus
Beene, a school-room in a great Western city,
in May; npon the platform a woman, the exact
counterpart of ’Miss Bally Brass a woman who
carried her ideds of economy into speech and
thought, bnt who. nevertheless. ported & *t
vials of her wrath on t.ie luckless child who
did not understand her. The recitation bench
es are thronged with girls from eight to thir
teen. Directly back of the stove is seated a girl
of nine, with proud, frankeyes of chestnut, fine,
dark brows and beautiful gold threaded chest
nut curls. The odo aristocrat in the room that
contains a hundred children. She has the
brow of a thinker, and the fearless eyes of the
moral hero, and her face indicates self-reliance
and pride.
Her geography is open and she is answering
questions from it with the coolest effrontery;
Miss Jones rises and calls out, sharply:
‘All the girls who have had their books open
in the class, will step out on the floor.’
The child I have partially described walks
out with haughty head erect, and a disdainful
smile on the red lips. Miss Jones regards her
silently, and says in a low tone:
‘I did not see you,’
The child makes no reply, but seats herself
on the platform.
‘One more chance for the cowards who do
wrong and lie to conceal it,’ Miss Jones calls
shrilly. ‘All the girls who have opened their
books since they came to the recitation bench,
will step out on the floor.’
There is no response; she smiles firmly and
takes out her rattan, and calls;
‘Grace Wilmot, Eannie Lawyer, Annie Grice,
Laura Hilton.’
‘One by one the small culprits pile out and
she whips them, lingers over it with an intense
sense of enjoyment, born of a disappointed,
worlde-mbittered heart, expatiating the while
in her ludicrous economy of words, in her ab
surd economy of dress, that made her shoes too
small and her skirts too narrow, and her hair
too thin—on the sin of Saphira and the low
ness ol lying. Then she turned to the child
on the platform, and said with a sardonic
smile—her mouth was the one thing she could
not economise so that it would occupy small
er space, and this mouth was quite as terrify
ing to the younger children, as the wolfs mouth
in Red Riding Hood;
‘You thought I saw you, Salome Gordon.’
‘I did not.’
Salome’s face flushes with wounded feeling.
•I'd cut my tongue out before I would tell a lie.’
‘Gome here, ’ is the sharp answer and the child
obe} s.
She is some mother’s darling you can see that.
She is dressed in opera flannel and a black
apron with bretelles. The ruffles at the throat
and wrists are of linen cambric, the daintily
arched feet are encased in high kid buttoned
boots and the round comb in the luxurious gold
glintiDg curls is silver. There is not a freckle
on the marble whiteness of the skin, and she is
lovely to look upon; ‘not in the roll of the com
mon’ though but a child; but the grand eyes are
resolute as she confronts her teacher and the
Bweet arched mouth shuts like a vice.
‘Yon have perverted ideas of honor’ Miss
Jones jerks out, ‘wrong is wrong', when you
coolly and deliberately set the rules of the school
at defiance it is a mystery to mo why you should
hesitate to lie.’
‘It is a sin to tell lies,’ Salome answers, ‘and
the rules of the Principle are not like God’s
rules.’
Miss Jones is half a century old and until now,
no child has ever had the temerity to reason
with her; but she finds the novelty of the situ
ation refreshing.
‘Indeed’ icily, ‘I suppose you will admit then,
that it is not exactly honorable since it is no
sin ? A girl of higher conscientiousness would
not open her book in the class. Don’t you
think so?’
The child’s neck and face floods with scarlet,
she feels and is deeply humiliated.
•It is more shame for you to do wrong than
it is for others,’ the pitiless woman goes on.
'You stand upon a higher round than any girl
in this room. I do not mean socially—I know
1 nothing about your parent's financial standing
Mme. Demorest's Pavilion at the Paris Exhibition.
—I mean intellectually. With your capacity
yon Bhould enter the high school at fourteen.
Yon read too much and study too little. Go to
your desk and bring me the book you brought
to school to-day. I dare say it is a love story—
one of Mrs. Southwoit Ys absurdities,’
The book the little girl hands her is bound
in substantial calf, and is Plutarch. She stares
at Salome in utter amazement.
‘Plutarch! I dare say you are also familiar
with Gibbon, Rollin and Josephus ?’
‘My parents encourage me to read history,’
Salome replies, with the utmost dignity, ‘and
I make a written synopsis of what I read. They
consider it the best mind trainer; but you are
too hard on me, I seldom miss my lessons, and
I am sorry I opened my book, it is dishonorable.'
Her eyes filled with tears that dropped one
by one to the floor. ‘If I had only thought, I
wouldn't have done it, but you mustn’t ask me
to give up reading, for I cannot do it.’
‘Very well, then; you must make rapid prog
ress in your studies, or I will expel you. It
is a pleasure to teach bright children.’ She
glares around and the little ones shrink in their
seats. ‘And all I have to say is that if a cer
tain number of the girls do not purchase capac
ity before Monday morning, I will put them in
the C grade. Tluy shall not keep the brighter
pupils back any longer. Salome, go to your
seat and take ten demerits for looking on your
book.’
Crying in a helpless, heart-broken fashion
Salome goes to her seat.
At noon she relates the circumstance to her
mother, who asks;
‘What would you have done, had she whip
ped you, pet?’
‘I think I richly deserved the whipping I
didn’t get,’Salome replies. ‘It was so mean to
look on my book. I ought to have missed out
right before doing it. Mama, what is the mat
ter with Miss Jones ? she puts one in mind of
Tom Hoods vixen who
“ Drank the liquor as preserved the viper.”
‘She was happy and wealthy once,dear,' Mrs.
Gordon remarks.
‘Adversity destroys every vestige of heart-
grace in s ime natures, others it exalts and
aggrandizes.’
The child’s face is serious and thoughtful, as
she replies.
‘Yes, mama, but it was in her to scold and
snap, and cut, or she wouldn’t do anything of
the kind now. I’d think a heap of trouble
would crush a woman, instead of making her
a fury. I think it would kill me.’
Mrs. Gordon drew the child on her lap and
hugged her close to her breast.
•I can’t bear to think, darling, that yon may
have trouble after 1 am gone. I pray God to
grant that you may have smooth sailing over
life’s sea. Dear, if yon were in sorrow, I be
lieve I could hardly stay in the grave, but if
sorrow ever comes to my daughter, I know it
will make her nobler and purer, and that she
will bear it strongly, as women should bear
trouble, doing her plain duty to the end, no
matter where it leads.’
As ‘ Madame Roland did,” Salome answers,
“ Mama, I think I could.”
The conversation has saddened Mrs. Gordon,
she is delicate and Mr. Gordon is not a healthy
man. It is not at all probable that either will
| live to see their only child grown, bnt she puts
] this unpleasant thought from her as far as possi-
’ ble, and lives as all clear headed people do—for
the present—forgetting the past and speculating
not as to the future, their one thought to live
the present nobly and wisely and leave the rest
to God. So she takes the little girl with her, and
they drive out of the dust, and turmoil, where
God’s fragrant children bloom, and where the
green peace of the forests is an unspoken prayer.
A week later Salome is monitress. Miss Jane’s
edicts were as unalterable as the laws of the
Medes and Persians, and although Salome
begged hard to have another girl appointed, it
was of no avail. Miss Jones has gone up to in-
treview the principal, and as soon as she is out
of hearing, mischief is rampant, and the rules
are set at defiance. The monitress ascends to
the platform and calls out.
‘ I don’t like to report you girls but I will.’
‘I’ll give you a cake of maple sugar if you
won’t put my name down,’ says a tom-boy of
eleven.
‘ Salome, I’ll give you a book called Fruits
and Flowers, if you won't report me,’ says an
other.
‘I’ll give yon a big piece of silk scrap for your
new quilt, if yon won’t put my name down,'
said the third, whose mother was a milliner.
The monitress is superior to bribes.
‘If you offered me ali this town I wouldn’t
take it; how mean you all must think me!’
She writes their names down and ‘when Miss
Jones returns, hands it to her, and regrets that
she was placed in the position to inform upon
them.
So the years pass. She becomes known in
every school for her inflexible integerity. She
goes into paroxysms of rage at any lack of
principle in her school mates, finding it, she
trusts them no longer, refuses to associate with
them, and satarizes with unchildish lips. She
is clever now, and a hard student, and in a
higher grade. The class of thirty-five girls are
on the recitation bench, and the teacher is cal
ling the role, and the girls answer ‘perfect,’ or
‘imperfect,’ as the case may be.
‘Salome Gordon,’ Miss Jones calls out
pleasently,
‘ Perfect,’ is the quiet response.
‘ She missed the ‘battle of Guildford Court
House,’ Miss James,’ said Mary Brown, a girl
who did not possess one noble or generous at
tribute.
sc 1 She tells a lie,' Salome exclaims passionately.
‘I did not miss.’
‘Oh, we can easily settle that.’
Miss James is a girl of eighteen, and is more
of a priest than warrior.
‘All yon will have to do is to recite it over
again.’
There is a world of rage in the brown luster
of Salome’s eyes as she answers
‘ I decline to do it, and I will settle with
Miss Brown after school.'
‘Go to your 3eat.’.
Sun has set; with her arms folded over her
breast, and the dark eyes fixed on her desk, Sa
lome sits in angry silence.
‘Say it like a nice child,’ Miss James says
coaxingly.
She is tired and wants to go home.
‘I’ll die first,’ is the response, and she laughs
behind her fan.
Twilight deepens, here and there a ‘star pins
the shadows back.’
‘It will soon be dangerous out on the lonely
streets after night, especially if youth and
beauty be without an escort, and she has far to
walk.’
‘Are you going to repeat the ‘Battle’,’ she says,
after another half an hour has fled forever,
‘Never !’ is the disdainful rejoinder.
Miss James sees that the lamp lighter is
around with hislaider, and will not contest the
point further.
‘ You can go Salome’ she says gently. ‘ You
have a bad disposition, and I am sorry for you,
only the gentle and yielding achieve happiness
in life.’ Salome runs home under the vague
star light and it is a good thing for Mary Brown
that sh9 did not run across her. Next morn
ing they meet; Salome waits till the taunt ‘So
I got you kept in last night’ and several others
are uttered and then whips her soundly. Mary
has no desire to apply to Miss James for redress,
but her antagonist walks to the platform and
makes a clean breast of it; and Mary upon interro
gation declares that she told the falsehood for
fun and Miss James reprimands her sharply and
demerits her.
A day later Mary Brown is crying. She has
lost her pencil and can not write her grammar
exercises and the grammar teacher is our old
friend Miss Jones, who rules still with a rod of
iron. Miss James askes some of the girls to
loan Mary a pencil and they do not like her
enough to comply. Salome glances down at her
pencil—anew one; then a knife is brought into
requisition and she cats the pencil and hands
half of it to the girl she holds in high contempt. |
A few days later there is a furious rain storm.
Salome is wet through and through when she I
reaches home and her mother is amazed.
‘Why didn’t you use your umbrella pet? Mama !
dosen’t like to have her little daughter get wet.' I
‘Mary Brown had on her best dress, I hat6d j
to have it spoiled, so I loaned her half of my j
umbrella, and she took her half on both sides of
it and I walked in the rain; but it won’t hurt me
mama, I am not either sugar or salt.’
Salome laughs as she concludes.
‘I thought you didn’t like her’the mother says j
wonderingly.
‘I despise her; I think she puts her wits to j
work to be mean and tricky,’ Salome replies, ‘but 1
that is no reason why I wouldn’t let her have
my end of my umbrella 1 ’
• It is a very good reason why you shouldn’t
give her both ends of your umbrella neverthe
less,’laughs Mrs. Gordon, as she draws the little
girl on her lap and kisses her shining eyes and
forehead calm and sweet as sleep.
‘Salome’s future gives me great uneasiness
Mrs. Gordon observes to her husband one day.
‘I dread to have the child learn what the people
are: that the ratio of honor to dishonor is one to
ten thousand. She has a fiery, bitter, scathing
scorn for every phase of trifling and untruth.
She will end a Tirnon or Diogones. She will
loathe the people when she knows them. Think
of her married to a ‘Carker;’ and their name is
legion. If she marries a bad man the conse
quences will be terrible.’
Mr. Gordon looks troubled.
‘I am afraid there is much suffering in store
for our little girl. She has a warm heart and
will love and trust. Boor child ! She will be
forever disappointed. Who ever had a friend
yet, in whom they were not-disappointed often
I face is snow fair. You recollect that Cleopatra
informs Charmion that round faces are feclx-d.
hut with all due deference to such disteguiuheci
| authority, round faces will always be the sweet-
| est and fairest. Salome is an English beauty
her regal head is crowned with extraordinary
length and thickness of gold threaded chestnut
I hair, and while the great eyes flashed dowti
their radiance, she would attract universal acren*-
tion, and the ordinary belles of society would go
down into endless eclipse. With men she was
not a favorite—her fearless denunciation, of
wrong, her demand for finer quality of the genav-
homo than the market would afford, made her
disliked and avoided. She was stigmatized af
a strong minded women. A strong mind
is the greatest boon a good God could confer,
for women need net only a strong mind, but.'in
finite forbearance, and infinite wisdom when
they open the gate, that leads from the cool,
snady, clover.scented meadows of girlhood., and
enter the fiery desert (with oases at wide inter
vals), of married life. It is seldom that any
man, no matter how ignorant and degraded, and
dissipated he may be, looks upon any woman.
as his superior, and daily we hear that a man
pays a woman a high compliment, when he
offers her his hand—a high compliment to be
offered—neglect, coarse life, hardship, povertyl Yen-
ily women are at a high entimate in the laid,
( But there are women of whom this is neves
i said; who compel, worship and reverence, who
j awe men, and unconsciously assert their supe-
j riority in the presence of lower natures, and
| therefore this crowning insult to spotless wo-
! manhood was never offered her.
I want tc introduce you to Mr, Camber, Sa-
| lome,” said a lady one day. ‘You’ve seen him
I —handsomest man in town ; looks like Byroc>
vcivki 1 -ud.tr,h. t>ar excellence. ic-
him around?’
i ‘I prefer not to make his acquaintance. ‘ &er-
lome answers. ‘He is immoral. I will as-
, sociate with no man who does not hold his hon-
j or as high as I hold mine.’
! The lady is nettled.
‘How can any girl know a man is immoral ?
Girls are not to think of such things, men ars
expected to be immoral.’
‘And they always will be,’ Salome retorts in
dignantly. ‘So long as women refuse to recog
nize it ; bnt goodness is so seldom called for in
the matrimonial market that it has gone out o£
fashion.’
‘Yon will be called eccentric,’ the lady replied,
‘Their morals are none of your business till yon
marry them. It is not a month since yon de
clined an introduction to Judge James, because
he drank, and he is the greatest legal authority
in the State.
‘ I will not associate with drunkards and im
moral men, Mrs. Holmes; if I have to stay in
the house forever I will not be seen in public
with any man, or countenance any man, whe-
does not keep the line as I keep it; and if I
could get every girl in town to make the stand
against vice that I make, society would soon
improve. I scorn any girl who will accept*
attention from intoxicated men, or dance with
them; and the girls who marry them deserve the
treatment they will be very apt to receive.’
Mrs. Holmes laughs. ‘ I don’t know where
you are going to find the men you want; you
cannot endure tobacco; you want brain, heart,
unblemished character and fine personal ap
pearance. My dear child ! Don Quixote was a
Soloman to you,’ and Mrs. Holmes, with her
heart full of compassion for the wrongly educa
ted girl, whom she fancies more than any othex
girl of her acquaintance, goes home to her ele
gant mansion and walks by the room where her
* lord and master ’ is sleeping off the effeots of a
champagne supper, oblivious of his existence,
and dispensing with his companionship, con
tent with the wealth and power an alliance with
him gives.
Said a tall, handsome fop, named Hardwick,
to Leon Camber, a few days later : ‘ So the beau
ty didn't want to know you. By Jove, that’s
rough on you, Camber ! you who oould marry
any other girl in society in twenty-four hours-,
and Salome Gordon is not even rich.
‘ I don’t know a richer girl, returns Camber,
She is beautiful, brilliant, witty, the most regei
looking girl that walks our streets; first-class
blood, too, and has taken a degree. I fe*t that,
she was right, but it humiliated me. I suppose
she would work early and late to save the soul
of some Patagonian or Hottentot, but my soul
isn’t worth a moment’s thought.’
‘What reason did she assign?’ asks HarcL
wick.
‘ Said I was immoral—that she had it from
good authority, (I know her authority—that
long-tongued Mrs. Sprague), some men condone
their own offences by making all other men tbs
incarnation of depravity. Sprague is one of
that sort.’
‘ Where is she going to find a Bayard or Sid
ney in these demoralized times ?’ said Hard
wick, lazily.
‘Bah !’ there are plenty of sound men; or sho
will love one who seems to be virgin gold, and
that amounts to the same thing; but, By Georg s
I’d hate to dnpe her, unless I had craft enough
to keep it up to the end of the chapter, Slu*’>
right about this thing morality, and - wish
every woman in the nation would unite with
her. I honestly do, and I agree with her, aiac>
about tobacco; nothing disgusts me more than
the odor of tobacco, old pipes and spittoons,
and if I could have my way, I'd make every
man who uses a spittoon clean it, and let «h£
liquor guzzlers keep to themselves; how
any refined woman put up with the odor o4
liquor on her husband’s breath ? No man with
the instincts of a gentleman will make himsel- ^
‘Tthink Horton would suit her, said Hoid-
iContinued on 8th page.)