Newspaper Page Text
Jn rss»^3s*—
THE WIFE’S
LETTER
SPRINGS.
FROM THE
BY KATE WAKELEE.
Dear Willie—My husband, my darling,
If love to tlie heart could give wings—
I'd ily to you swift as an arrow
Speeds home to the treasure it brings.
‘There Felice, a dash more of Carmine,
‘Tlie eye-brow a tritie more jet.'
I wonder if time drags as slowly
To you as it does to ‘vour pet.
’Black brussels net over white satin,
And jewels of opal and pearl,’
I'd give the round world, if I had it,
To hear you say ‘dear little girl.’
‘A cluster of blood red Carnations,
‘To light the dead gold o! my hair,'
My own health is slowly improving
And baby’s as tat as a bear.
‘I.ay the locks in soft rings on the temple
One long shining curl for my neck,'
Please send me a trilling remittance
I've spent the last dime of my check.
‘A note! And such exquisite roses!
He begs me to wear for fits sake,'
I)o write every mail, for your letters
Are all the sweet comfort, I take.
‘He c’aitns my first waltz—how imprudent!
But waltzing with him is divine,'
Eaclt incident however trifling
Is dear to this fond heart of mine.
Now Felice, pray let your deft fingers
The glamour of witchery prove—
And make me the Queen of the ball room.
‘God bless you—Farewell! Vour true love.
that in a fit of anger she threw up her engagement,
which was just what he desired, and at once he
offered her place to Floyd. The new leading
■Tumble in then, tumble in, my hearty. We’ll
give you a trial. If your work is as bad as your
looks though, we'll tnrn you into another Jonah
lady became at once a favorite with the public. i sure.'
New to the Stage, she played with a freshness j Cobb went to the purser's office and bought
and enthusiasm wanting in hackneyed actors, an envelop in which he put the slip of paper he
Then romance soon attached itself to her past \ held in his fist and directed it to Captain Law-
history and present habits, adding to the inter- | rence of the Southern Queen.
THE REPLY.
Dear wife: Your sweet missive came duly
To band, by the earliest mail
Rejoicing yours ever truly:
Do write every day without fail.
‘Oh Tom! glad to see you old fellow.
Help yourself to cigars and a light.’
All day, I’m immersed in my business
But oh 1 the long long weary night.
‘I'll write, and then go to the Biair girls
Like blossoms all fresh with May dew,'
I sit here and think till my brain whirls
In longing for baby and you.
‘I'll ride with Miss Rosa to-morrow
And take her at night to the play,'
My heart like our rooms seem so vacant
Our light and our life is away.
‘Then sail with Inez, the princess,
I've christened my yacht with her name,’
I know it seems selfish to want you
But love, not the will is to blame.
‘Take this ten. it is due for my club tax
Here’s a live for the supper and wine,’
I am hard up to day, you must wait love
Till some small collections of mine.
‘And Nora petite, little songbird
Has sung herself into my heart—'
A kiss for yourself and the baby
In haste, lest the mail train should start.
"Belle Eva, she sends me rich dainties
Rose flavored from her linger tips,'
‘Good-bye—'tis a word makes me linger
I wish I couid kiss your dear lips.
est her beauty and talent had created. It was
said she was followed and watched by a jealous
lover,or a revengeful husband, and was constant
ly in fear of her life. She kept her rooms close
ly locked. She saw no company, went oat to
no parties, visited no public places, took no
pleasure drives or rows, though invitations to
both poured upon her from her admirers.
She drove to the theatre to rehearsals in the
day in a close carriage, and on nights when she
was to play, a policeman rode by her carriage,
being assigned that dnty on her representing
that she was threatened with violence from a
certain party. On the stage, her companions
had more than once seen her shudder and turn
pale through her rpuge, when her eyes, having
been drawn by some hateful fascination to the
gallery, she saw there a dreaded face—eyes that
watched her with a curious blending of the pas
sions of love and hate. While the public admir
ed her and recalled her each night with rounds
of applause, while the other actors of the troupa
envied her for her success and for the facility
with which she had attained what they had long
been striving for—a leading and well-paying
place; while she was thus admired and envied,
Floyd Reese lived a life of perpetual dread.
Each night her heart stood still as the curtain
rose upon her, lest some one in the audience
should recognize the features of Mabel Waters,
trace her and prove her identity with the Lonis-
Captain Lawrence had delayed sailing for
Honduras owing to repairs that had to be made
in his vessel, which had been injured by being
run into by another vessel, while she was in
the harbor.
‘Aint you a coming to finish this job?’ asked
Cobb's fellow workman, a burly Irishman.
heard of this who had bean hoarding a wrong
for years. Lanier had not returned to Mexico.
He had hidden in the lake swamp until he was
discovered and forced to fly, but he did not go
far. He was still in the State, and when he
heard of Witchell’s return to Cohatchie, and that
he rode about unprotected by soldiers, he came
back at once.
He had brooded so long over his hatred to
this man that he had become a monomaniac.
He laid in wait several days for his prey. At
last he saw Witchell ride up to the opposite
bank of the river with Kane who had married
sd elder sister of Witohell's long since dead.
Through a screen of trees, he watched the two
‘No. I’ve got another. I've shipped on the i leave their horses fastened, and enter a boat
Citrus. Comrade, where’s your boy ? He brought ! that had a negro oarsman. When they were in
your breakfast awhile ago. He’s a sharp one aDd the middle of the stream, Lanier rode out from
passed. The fair State of Louisiana, so long
paralvzsd by a corrupt admir stration, has shak-
en off her fetters; she is free to choose the best
and wisest of her own people to rule over her;
injustice and tyranny are no longer found with
in her borders, and, as a consequence, there are
n °j I ? 0re j aC * 3 ontlawr 7. 110 more appeals to
red-handed Mob, which often sacrifices the
innooent as well as punishes the guilty.
(THE END. )
Why We HavMLot Weather.
The Providence (R. I.) Journal condescends
to tell us something of the recent intensely hot
weather:
he minds yon like a dog. I want you to give
him this quarter and get him to do a bit of er
rand lor me. Here he is now. Simps come
here. Here’s a quarter for you if you’ll take
this letter to Captain Lawrence at the Southern
Queen. Do you know where it lies T
‘Sartain I do. and the Cap’n’s there a oversee-
in’ the workmen. I seen him a while ago.’
‘Well, take him this at once, so he’ll get it be
fore the Citrus pushes off.’
The boy nodded, but he seemed in do hurry
to go, and rung the quarter against his old jack
knife to test the silver. The Citrus whistled a
warning for all to come on bcft£u.
‘Go, I tell you,’ cried Cobb tujthe boy, ‘They’H
follow us,’ Ii6 thought grimly, its he hurried on
board. Ten minutes after, the steamship was
on her way. She had run for two hours. The
‘city of one vast plain’was out of sight; the shores
adorned with white villas and green orange
groves had given place to flat marshes and cane-
The sun was in apogee, and the earth in aphe
lion, tms morning at twenty-four minutes after
throe; that is, the earth reached the part of her
orbit in which she is at the greatest distance
w . , , . . ... ,i 'roai th3 sun. For, 3tr.ange as it may seem.
Wounded but not mortally, he the earth is now three millions of milesfurth«
W w.lh hn)h a-nia I from the sna t haQ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ q{ ^
| January. Taking the most approved estimation
I oi the sun’s distance, and using round numbers
j to express the same, the distance between the
sun and earth is at presmt ninety-three millions
, , ,, T rt - j ; m ^ es i while iu midwiater the two bodies
own gun aimed a bullet at Lanier. It grazed ; are ninety millions of miles apart. The question
his toreaead. He laughed^derisively, shook ; naturally arises as to the reason why we do not
have the coolest weather when the sun is farthest
the trees, deliberately took aim with his repeat
er and fired. The ball struck Witchell in the
side with such force as to knock him backward
into the water,
clang to the side of the boat with both arms.
Lacier took closer aim and fired, shattering one
of his arms. Still he clung on with the other,
and the man who sat on his horse on the shore
once more raised his gun, but Kane had now
recovered from the first shock and seizing his
ana refugee—the woman who had been aocesso- i brakes; the river was broadening, sea-like, to
ry to her husband’s murder.and who was believ-
j ed to have been drowned in flying from the Texas
| avengers. She lived, too, in constant dread of
Cobb. Each night when she played and his
I steady stare drew her with the horrid fascina
tion of the gaze of a savage beast, she saw that
wards its mouth, when a little steam tug was
seen up stream, puffing as it cut the waters like
a teal. It bore down on the Citrus and signal
ed her to stop. In a few moments, it was along
side the vessel: three men came on board and
showed the commander a warrant to arrest two
WILD WORE
A Study of Western Life.
BY MARY E. BRYAN.
who had committed a murder, and Mabel Wa
ters who was accessory to it. Captain Lawrence
was here to point out the accused who were well
known to him. The Captain’s usually ruddy
visage was pale with excitement. He would not
have been so ready to have a warrant of arrest
sworn out on the strength of ‘-kKi aaonvmons
note had he not twice had a look at Cobb’s fea
tures daring the past week, and in spite of his
disguise, been impressed with his resemblance
to Watson, the over-seer and murderer, as he
bad been struck that night by the likeness of
the beautiful actress to Floyd Eeese. This re
semblance had haunted the mind of the worthy
sailor and troubled him no little. He hailed
the note ao a possible solution of the mystery,
and was determined to pay all expenses in order
to get at the facts in the case.
Cobb was found and identified as Watson, the
criminal and hand cuffed at once.
‘Now get the woman’ he said. ‘She is up stairs
in the cabin, being quality,’ and he laughed
maliciously.
They started in search of her. She was on
deck, enjoying the soft, pale sunset, and the
passengers.
Troubled and hunted down as she felt, full
of forbodings that fevered her brain and throng
ed her sleep with horrible dreams, she vet found
men’s admiring looks a sweet elixir. She stood
CHAPTER XLI.
Three weeks afterward they were marrjed—a
quiet wedding at Mrs. Melvins, with only a few
friends to witness the ceremony, and no rela
tives but Hugh and his wife and the children,
whom Zoe in her letter to Hugh had especially
enjoined him to bring. The marriage was a
great surprise. Some of Zee's friends declared
she was throwing herseliaway on an adventurer.
Wild tales were told of Hirne’s past life, but
his proud look, his open brow, contradicted any
thing that would have called his honor in ques
tion, while in his eyes a certain kindly, even ten
der expression, shading into melancholy, told j
of generous and affectionate impulses, upon
which circumstances had fallen with the effect j
to chill but not to destroy. Hugh, who thought
Zoe good enough for a prince, demurred at first
at this marriage with a stranger, but he was
won over by the manliness of the min, no less j
than by the numerous certificates of respecta
bility, and even of high standing, which he
brought forward. Hugh found that Hirne had
friends in the city, among the best of the old
proud familierf—friends that knew him, knew of
all his eccentricities and their source, knew of
the kindly nature that lay under the surface,
poisoned by circumstances; loved him none the
less for his devotion to a lost cause and compre
hended the feelings that made him so bitter
against a people from whom he had suffered
such wrongs. These were rejoiced to see that a
calming influ enoe had been at work upon him.
The old fire of fierce passion had been smoth
ered; fresb hopes and purposes had flowered up
in a breast that wrong and revenge had well
nigh made a desert. There was every pros
pect that this broad and noble, yet disturbed
and turbid nature would settle and grow clear,
and flow calmly and benificently to the end.
Hirne’s pecuniary circumstances as well as
his character, came to light in the frank insight
into his affairs which he gave to Zoe’s brother.
She found that instead of marrying a man of
small means, as she had supposed, she was
; his blood-shot eyes and bloated face seemed to ! persons on board his ship. One Cobb Watson
| have grown more malignant. She had refused 1 ’ ’ ’ ’ J J ’ ’ ” T
to see him or to allow him to speak to her, and
! several nights he had been repulsed by the po-
| lice when he attempted to stop her on her way
1 to the carriage, which always waited for her
! close to the private entrance of the theatre. Once
| he had resented this and received five days in
! the lock-up.
I These things had worked in his revengeful
blood, inflamed to fiercer madness by the hard
I drinking he had taken to. She feared he would
be wrought to the desperate point of giving him
self up to justice that he might denounce her
and secure her punishment. He was further
maddened by finding he could get no more
money from Alver, who, before he had left the
city, had thrown him a bill as he would a bone
to a dog, and told him to keep out of his sight
forever.
He fornd himself unable to carry out his de
sign of getting Floyd in his possession. Pinched
by necessity and forced to work on the levee to
get money to buy liquor and a ticket for the
gallery of the theatre, the man was like a snake
pinned to the earth by the iron rod of circum
stance, writhing and lashing himself impotently
and ready to turn his fangs upon himself in his
rage and despair.
Floyd knew well what was passing in his mind,
and her dread of him increased. She de
termined to abandon her present situation,
to throw away her hopes of fame and fortune
and the enjoyment of the adulation that was
sweet food to her vanity, take what money she
had saved, and slip away somewhere any
where so that it was out of sight of her watchful
enemy.. He would not be looking for her to
take imfr;: lile o.n«w Cua company Co wuic'u
she belonged was soon to leave for Mobile. He
expected her to go with it. She had been warn
ed by a dirty scrawled note, inclosed in a bouqet
thrown to her on the stage, that she would not
be suffered to leave with the company.
‘There’s a slip 'tween the cup and the lip,’
‘and you’ll find the slip my lady,’ he wrote:
‘Make your arrangements if you like, but you'll
find me planted in your path. ‘I've stood it
long enough and if you don’t come and go with
me according to promise, we’ll both go together
to Uncle Sam’s hotel, or to worse. That’s all.’
It was this note that had determined her to
abandon her situation and make her escape se
cretly. She would go to Cuba, or to some other
of the West India islands, or she would stop at
some lonesome out-of-the-way point on the Fior-
da coast —anywhere to be out of the way of
Cobb, with the terrible suggestion of the galiows
or the prison's ceil, that the sight of his watchful
eyes brought up to haunt and torture her.
She reached the wharf five moments after Zoe
and her husband had gone on board the Citrus.
1 As she descended from the carriage, two men,
dirty and unshaven, were working near her on
the levee. One looked up.
“Dommed if that woman aint got a foine foot
j and leg of her own,’ he said.
The other looked, started, dropped his crow
bar and stared at the veiled and mufi'sd lady a
moment. Then as she passed them on her
way down to the ship, he muttered to himself:
It’s her. There's no other can walk like her.
back his wild hair, covered Kane with his gun
muzzle and fired, killing him instantly. Aa-
‘They’H j other shot in quick succession shattered Witch-
oil’s other arm and losing his hold he dropped
back in the Witter.
‘For God's Bake, don’t shoot any more. Both
de men's dead,’ shouted the negro. Lanier
laughed again.
‘Well, tuey’ll make better buzzard’s meat
than State’s officers any day, he called back and
he wheeled his horse aad rode deliberately
way.
He was not dead. As soon as Lanier
turned *'roui the bank, the negro drew
the swooning and mangled man from the blood-
dyed waters, and laid him in the boat beside the
corpse of Kane. He was taken back to his home
and laid down in the same room in which Adeile
had closed her dark eyes forever. Both arms
had to be amputated, and for weeks ha hovered
on the border-land of death, his sufferings be
yond imagination, yet borne with the stoicism
that characterized the man. That his life was
spared was due to woman’s faithful nursing.
Marshall Witchell could never lack the love and
care of woman. Some strange magnetism about
this cold, reserved man drew women to him.
This one, who nursed him for love as never a
menial would have done for gold, was young
and fair and refined in looks and manners. She
came to his bedside from a distance of many
miles so soon as 9he knew that he was wounded.
She sacrificed friends and reputation that she
might keep life in his mutilated body, that she
j away: This is easily explained, for the sun’s
rays fall perpendicularly upon the earth in mid-
j summer, and obliquely in midwinter; theinten-
j sity of the heat far overbalancing the difference
in the distance. The summer heat is, however,
i tempered by the great distance of the central
j ^ re > tor in the southern hemisphere, where the
sun is in perigee at midsummer, the heat is in
tensified, and the temperature is higher in Aus
tralia and Southern Africa than in correspond
ing latitudes north of the equator. It is well we
were not living about thirty-six hundred years
before the creation of'Adam, for the sun was
then in perigee during the northern summer,
i und in apogee during the nothern winter. Sir
j John Hersche! estimates that the northern sum-
! nier at that distant period of the world’s history
, was twenty-three degrees colder than it is at
j present. Every inhabitant of the north temper-
j ate zone has therefore reason to be grateful that
, the sun is in apogee at this season, for what
I would become of the poor mortals who have
been simmering in the intense heat of the last
ten days, if they were required to bear a temper
ature from ten to twenty degrees higher than
the nineties in which the thermometer has been
mercilessly reveling ?
An Enterprising: Woman.
aside Imr head to hide the tears when she saw
his white lips crashed together with mortal pain
or saw his dreary smile when she put to his mouth
the food or the water he had no hands to take for
himself.
It was a bitter fate ! He who had so gloried in
his strength and soundness of limb, he who had
admiration her beauty excited among the male j been so active of body as of mind, who had so
many purposes mapped out, to be hence
forth helpless, dependant upon others even to
A corespondent of the Capital writes :
^ A week or two since I accepted an invitation
might hang over him day and night, turning | *° Herndon, \ irginia, and spent a day or
raise his food to his lips
of fierce agony from his brow.
No arm to execute the promptings of that quick
two there. It is a little village of some three
hundred inhabitants, about twenty-five miles
from here, on the Washington and Oaio rail
road. It was formed and named fourteen years
ago aftera Captain Herndon who was lost at sea.
It has three stores, three churches, and not a
saloon in the place or a drop of liquor sold.
The lady I went to visit is an illustration of
what a woman can do. She is the wife of an ar
my officer, and being tired of going aroand,
to wipe the sweat ] wishing to settle in Washington while
her husband was on the frontier, she determined
i to make a “home” somewaere. Chance threw
leaning on the railing, the colored sunset re- i brain that indomitable will. All his arnbi- j - 16r at Herndon one day, and she found a place
flection making her fair skin more dazzling,
her plenteous waves and rings of hair more like
spun red gold, her lips of more vivid carmine,
the fine moulding of her throat, her bust, her
atyus and limbs more ar-parey
cl.aging dress fit gray. She
looking at her with quickened pulses. She was
thinking, ‘Once in Cuba, out of reach of that
wretch, I will make all this white and red and
gold of mine serve me in good stead. Those
meagre swarthy Spaniards will lose their senses
over my white, plump beauty. It shall buy me
a rich old Don for a husband and I will reign
in the tropic capital a sort of queen.’
Hanging over the railing, watching the sunset-
painted waters and building these gilded castles,
she heard not the first tokens of the approach
ing Nemesis tnat would throw a black pall over
casties and castle-builder. She heard not the
hail of the steam-tug and only wondered a little
at the shund of confused voices below that
presently drew away the group of admiring
spectators of the pretty tableau she made, and
left her alone upon deck. An excited voice in
the cabin broke her revery and brought her to
the cabin door to liad what was the matter. A
negro waiter, his eyes round and big with news,
was telling that a tug had just overtaken the
j ship, and the sheriff and some more men had
come on board and arrested a man named Cobb
for murder, and now they was ‘comin up to git
the other—There was another -’
tions hopes and revengeful plans forever in the
dust!
Humiliation and despair gnawed at his heart;
as he^lay there all those 3low, wretched hours,
were f hack although it must drag a chain henceforth.
And to be powerless even to punish the hand
that dealt the blow! The woman who watched
him shuddered as she saw his lips writhe and his
brow work with the bitterness of that thought.
She would fling herself do wn on her knees by his
bed at such times, and pray for him fervidly
pray to the Mother of Sorrows and the Saints in
whose intercession she believed. M limed as he
was, he was dearer to her infatuated heart than
friends, or home, or her own fair fame as a
rough, uncultivated aad neglected, as many of
I the Virginia places are ; still with capabilities to
! be developed. She had saved a little every
j month out of her allowance, so she paid a very
,1 own, eoiAinenreil 4 lira fsw wnnr\“p
; would care to Juo wore fond and used to socie-
ty. She has given herself throt’ years to pay for
it and get it in order. Already, in four months'
time, she has done much. She went iu debt
for nothing, aad her furniture is, a good deal of
it, hand-made. I sat down on a stylish otto
man, which turned out to b9 a drv-goois box,
while vulgar, commou-place nail-kegs were
transferred into fancy stools, covered with em
broidery. She lives alone, with one servant
and a young man, sou of a well-kaowu clerk in
woman, and when she saw the faint hue of life the departments, who is out there helping and
x . 1. _ . • . _ i.:_ 1.1 _ i. w . a a 1 ! ‘ran erh i n nr* if wifL li or ff or frion d a rrn nnf aea
stealing into his marble faee, she dropped tears
of joy upon the locks she daily combed away
from his temples.
He did not marry her. He was grateful, bnt
his heart was too deeply seared for love to taka
root. Disappointed hopes, remorseful memor- j
ies—these were the legacy entailed upon him.
He would have ample leisure now to brood upon
them, to let them feed upon his brain—for he j
must now resign his position, give up what he j
had sec his heart on keeping iu the teeth of op
position.
He did resign. He went back to his Northern j
home, it was published that he died soon after j
his return. I believed him dead when I begun '
‘Another man to be taken yon say?' asked I this story, else it never would have been written.
roughing’ it with her. Her friends go out there
and enjoy har hospitality, and wish ‘heaven
had made them such wom9n.’ She is perfectly
happy and enjoys it.
Now, thereason I have devoted so much space
to this is that while in Herndon I wondered
why so many people here in Washington, clerks,
eteeke out a miserable existence with a family of
children, when they could go to a place like the
village of Herndon, and by roughing it a little
get themselves a home and bring their children
up free from the contamination that hangs over
every city. Thera is many a clerk here getting
a good salary, bnt with his large family it is one
daily struggle. Now iu a place such as I speik
of ha could live and breathe. He couid no: go
Floyd in sharp, quick tones from the door,
‘No Miss—no man at all, tother one's a w£-
man, Mabel Waters I hear ’em call hor. Here
dev come up stairs now.'
Floyd glided from the door like a spectre;
round to the rear part of the boat she darted,
about to unite herseif with one who possessed ^er, getting pa-d in deceitful smiles and
It’s that she-devil, I’d almost swear. She's try- | loo ked one instant, with clenched hands and
in’ to get away from me, but I’ll follow her.
Let me see. Curse the luck: I’ve got but one
dollar in the world. Well, I'll hire myself and
work my passage—no; I'm tired of the cussed
work, l bate it, but I’ve got so shabby that rogues
wont have me in their ring. All through her.
I’ve been dodgin' after her, doing black work
for her, riskin’ the rope and the chain-gang'for
property in bouses, cattle, lands,etc., worth near
ly half a million.
Two days before Zoe’s modest little wedding,
she had been first bridesmaid at a large and
fashionable one, where her good friend Kate
kisses as long as she had use for me, and now
she flings me off, spits on me, thinks I’m too low
down and insignificant to harm her. I’ll show
her. I'll pay her, if I have to swing with her,
or rot with her in jaii. Though there’s not a
West was married to Winter Lareau. Florence that could hold me long.
Taylor was second bridesmaid, looking extreme
ly pretty in her dress of peach-blossom silk with
peach buds in her blond hair. Prettier still
she looked, when three weeks after she stood a
bride, little and childlike in contrast to Roy’s
tall figure, yet with a woman’s sweet dignity in
her young face.
Hirne and his wife sailed for Cuba to pay a
As these thoughts worked in his half crazed
brain, he was watching the veiled woman greed
ily. The polite Captain had assisted her on
board the vessel. As she stepped on the lower
deck, a puff of wind blew aside her thick veil.
She clutched it hastily and drew it over her face,
but not before the bright sunlight had flashed
on her white brow and warm golden hair. The
convulsed face upon the dark, foam-streaked
waters below and crying ‘God, if there be a God,
nave mercy on what you made,’ she threw her
self over the railing and fell with an echoing
plash into the dark river that closed over her
forever.
The officer of justice found no Mabel Waters
on whom to serve his warrent. Cobb, when he
learned her fate, dropped his head in his hands
with a groan. All the fierce, revengeful feeling
that had driven him to betray herat his own cost,
died out and left him gloomy and sullen. He
never suffered on the gallows or in the chain-
gang. He died of malignant fever ten days
after he was committed to prison for trial.
But one day, a long time after the first adapters I to the theater every night, or ais wife walk
■U-iilic ttLiu 1113 vvlie uttiiwu iui l»uuh iu unv a | a i u rr: a , llTr , e L A f
visit to Zoe’s father; after which they would 8I 8^ lt i“ a ^ e ^ e 0 £ . . ' , [ , ,
op round to New York take a look at the Lakes : a baleful flash trom their bloated sockets, he
S.1SS Loll?j l-o-d Hk into UU iUhydjrf
er points of interest,returning to New Orleans by ^ 1S companion spo . 11 n * t
that nleasantest of all modes oftravelincr a lux- swer. He sat down on a couon bale, pulled out
• ^ , . ,, ... . ®a dirty memorandum book and wrote these lines:
unous steamboat on the great Mississippi. From “ ainy meuiora u
New Orleans they meant to go on to Hirne's Tex- ! To Captain Lawrence oj the ^southern ^ q
as home where his‘family’would welcome them.
He had shipped there the supplies—provisions
farming implements, etc., together with a big
box of presents, chosen by him and Zoe for the
children, more particularly for little Jennie whom
agood neighbor was taking care of.
As Zoe was being driven to the levee to take
passage on the Citrus for Cuba, she passed an
almost closed carriage containing a veiled lady.
The passing of a funeral procession along a cross
street delayed the two carriages a few moments,
and the lady’s veil was inadvertantly pulled to
one side an instant and Zoe caught sight of
Floyd Reese’s brilliant face—the snow and rose
complexion, the dark eyes and brows, the lull
neck and firm, round chin.
In that momentary glance the eyes seemed
somewhat hollow, the brow anxious and cloud
ed; and the veil was hurriedly drawn back over
her face. Zoe had beard of Floyd as having been
regularly engaged by the theatrical company in
which she had played daring the illness of M’lle
Duprez who, after a protracted indisposition,
found herself so coldly treated by the manager
Cobb Watson, the murderer of your old
friend, Waters, and Mabel Waters, his
wife, who was accessory to the murder are
both on board the Citrus bound for Cuba, If
you would punish the guilty, take instant meas
ures.’ , . , ,
He folded this and with it m his hand, went
up to the mate of the vessel, touched his hat re
spectfully and asked if an experienced deck
hand was not needed on the Citrus ? Hardly
looking at him, the officer answered gruffly that
the Citrus had all the flands she wanted.
‘But if I give you work for nothing—such
work as these here can do—’ he said, stretching
eut his stalwart, hairy arms.
The mate cut his eye around, and was rather
impressed by the muscular limbs.
‘Nothing!’ he said, gruffly. ‘Can you^ sleep
in a rat hole with a hard-tack for rations ?
The sailors within hearing burst into a laugh.,
Cobb, with a grin, answered: ‘Aye, aye, sir.’
The prompt response and the laugh he took as
a compliment to his wit, put the old tar in a good
humor.
CHAPTER xm,(
Witchell had been disappointed in his efforts
to punish the slayers of his brother and his
friends. The disappointment was a keen blow
to him, but he gave no sign. His pride and
his stern, stubborn determination forbade him
to give up his office and have no more to do
with the people who had shown such opposition
to his rule. He determined to go back among
them, to carry on his business as of old, to levy
taxes, control courts, and be supreme in all ad
ministrative matters as he had been before.
Rule he would, as he had once said ‘if not by
good will, then by force.’ It was all the stimulus
left to existence for him, since death had lain
his black hand on the best of love and friend
ship that had been granted him—such love and
such friendship, as had seldom been given
to a man. All that had been soft in his
nature hardened into iron now, and the
man who once more rode through the streets
of Cohatchie was a stern and smileless man,
whose eye had the keen, cold flash of a bayonet,
whose brow never relaxed, whose voice uttered
only necessary words in hard, metallic accents.
That eye at times seemed hoarding up some
deep vow of vengauce, never to be uttered but
to he evolved in deeds.
He was here at this time to see that the taxes
were collected and placed in his hands as former
ly. He was rigid in exaotieg the collection of
every tittle that oould be claimed. He rode from
his home to Cohatchie several miles along the
river bank each day unguarded and unarmed.
At the intercession of his mother, a friend armed
with a gun or pistol, often joined him and rode
with him under some friendly pretext. One
appeared, came a letter to our office post marked
Canada saying: ‘Send me a copy of your paper, i
I have a curiosity to read a story I have heard is ;
being published in it;’ signed: ‘Marshall Witch- \
eil'—an odd irregular, signature—‘written by
holding the pen staff between the teeth,' sug
gested one, who looked at it over our shoulder.
But the body of the note was written in a deli
cate hand—a lady’s hand—his sister's possi
bly, or it may be hi3 wife’s. It may be that this
strong, grasping self-sufficient nature, so sorely
smitten, so deeply humiliated has found rest
and content iu the love of some true, kind wo
man, whose affection shall so proudly supply the
place of arm and hand that he will not feel their
loss—some woman, as loving as poor Adeile,
but hardly as loveable as she, whom all that saw
her, concurred in calling the loveliest of women.
down the Avenue every day; but for what they
pay here to support, or rather half supper:, a
large family, they could go out there aad live.
Mrs. W. H. Bristol, better known as Fannie
Burdette, who has been traveling for vears with
Forepaugh’s circus, gave birth on Wednesday
night last, in Cotnuiercial Hotel, to a child weigh-
! iug eight pounds. Tlie mother weighs about
I fifty pounds and is only thirty-two inches in
i stature. Her husband is of full size, being six
! feet in height and Weighing 145 pounds. The
! infant was healthy and well developed, but in
j order to preserve the life of the mother it was
j necessary to sacrifice it. The pangs of materni-
! ty lasted seven hours, begiuing at d A. M. and
ending at 0 P. M., aad had the little woman not
T - , xu x xu- - .. . , i possesed an iron constitution she must have
I could wish that this man were so comtorted. 4 £ iad Daring the svhole of the3e loag toars of
If he sinned grievously, he was deeply punished
and if oonsolation blossomed from his affliction,
it is vreli.
Alver moved away from Cohatchie. The place
had too many galling associations for the proud
man who had stooped once from his pedestal cx
honor. He wished to forget this episode of his
life—to blot it utterly from his memory. But
his hour in the valley of humiliation had dona
him good. Much of his old impatient haughti
ness, hi3 love of power, had disappeared, but
the instinct of command is a part of him, and he
is still a ruling spirit where he lives. His home
is in the Lone Star State, he is honored in the
community, his fine, manly boys are growing
up about him, and his gentle wife knows how
to soothe him when the dark mood comes on,
and he hears the croak of the raven Memory,
that will not ‘take its form from off his door. ’
In the same grand State—the land of infinite
possibilities—live Zoe and her ‘Wild Rover,’
now a useful and respected citizen, a happy
and loving husband. The fire and activity of
his nature are chastened, not destroyed. They
give vitality to his influence, progressiveness to
his character, variety to his intercourse with
his friends and family—with the wife, whose
sweet, delicate, yet vivid nature finds its true
supplement in the strength and independence
of her husband’s character.
I have called this story a ‘Study of Western
Life.’ Glad would I have been to have dwelt
more upon the sunnier aspects of life in the
great West—upon its breadth and freedom, its
hospitality, its frankness, its chivalry; but
the time in which tne scene of my story was
cast—the dark period in the history of the State,
wh«n tyranny on the part of the administration
re-acted into lawlessness on the part of the peo
ple—mat time did not admit of much sunshine.
Happily that time is now over, the shadow has
agony she maintained almost complete silence,
uttering only a few moans, aud struggling
against all extraordinary exhibitions of pain,
j The couple have been married two years, and
! this is their second child. The first was much
i smaller and was still-bjrn. Mr. Bristol was
formerly a door-keeper in the employ of Fore-
paugh's circus, aud in this capacity became ac
quainted with his wife, who was then traveling
uudor the management of that show with a twin
brother, who is an inch shorter thaq herself.
They were called tne Burdette twins, and always
traveled together until Mrs. Bristol’s confine
ment last spring, when the brother continued
the engagement alone. They are iu the twenty-
first year of their age. Mrs. Bristol was born
iu Montgomery County, Md., on a farm near
the little village of Damascus, where her parents
still dwell, tine has a brother aud a sister of
the ordinary size, and her father is above six
feat.
A woman named Whiteside, wife of a gardener
at Long ridge, near Preston, England, is now in
custody on suspicion of poisoning her husband
and three children, in order to obtain burial
money from the Prudential Assurance Com
pany. It became known that recently the wo
man purchased some rat poison, and it was
further remembered that she bought similar poi
son just previous to the deaths of her children
a short time ago. The body of Whiteside was
exhumed by direction of the coroner, and the
stomach hat been sent for analysis.
Daring her engagement at the Fifth Avenue
Theatre, Miss Mary Anderson will appear for
the first time in New York as Julia io ‘The Hunch
back.’ New costumes have been provided for all
the plays by the costumer of the Theatre Fran-
cais, Paris.