Newspaper Page Text
ADEtINA.
It was the day after New Year's—a
c<tfd. Tuesday morning—that I
disconsolately wended my way to school
wishing that holidays came oftener and
stayed longer, and regretting that out
of fifty-two there was only one week of
unintenroptod pleasure.
. The old red school-house stood at the
junction of three roads, and as I raised
the little hill just before reaching it, I
saw coming from the opposite direction,
a little black-clad figure that looked like
a moving blot on the unbroken white
ness of the snow-covered landscape. I
never could tell what actuated me to
linger on her movements as I did, or
why she so strangely attracted me, but
from the first, I think I must have loved
the child, even before I was old enough
to slightly understand the meaning of
the word.
We reached the worn old door-stone
together, and, being a boy, not at all
afraid to speak to any one, much less a
timid little girl, I very coolly asked her
if this was her first day at school.
“ Yes ; and I dread it so much.”
It was the sweetest voice I had ever
heard or have ever heard since. The
peculiar rising inflection on the last
word was like the short, clear, low notes
of a bird, and as purely natural.
“ Do you come every day ?”
“ Haven’t missed a day this winter.”
“ Oh, I am so glad!”
Why are you so glad ?”
“ Because you are a good boy. Won't
you please tell me your name ?”
“Edward Durand.”
“ I like the name,” she said sweetly,
and, boy as I was, I wondered how any
mortal ever came by such an angel
smile. All this time she had been try
ing to untie the round worsted strings
of her hood, but had only succeeded in
drawing them into a harder knot.
“ Won’t you please untie it for me,
Eddie ?”
She held up her little cold chin, and
without a moment’s hesitation I bent
down and did as she requested. It was
such a tender, confiding little face—
who could help loving it? I patted
encouragingly the rose-red cheek turn
ed toward me in gentle trustfulness,
and bade her not to be afraid, for she
had as good a right to come to school
as any one.
“ Hallo ! where did that little black
bird come trom ?” cried kind-hearted
Ben Phillips as we entered. " Come
along, little girl, and get warm, for you
look half frozen.”
A general tittering and nudging fol
lowed Ben’s energetic seating of the
new scholar, and one saucy little mini,
not understanding its significance, ask
ed pertly:
“ What are you looking so like a
crow for ? I hate a black dress.”
“ Hush!” reproved an older girl,
who overheard the remark. “Hush,
Sue ; don’t you sec she is in mourning?”
The voice that had so charmed me
iu the entry answered the question Jin
a strangely quiet way.
“ Mv father is dead !”
A hush as of death fell upon the
noisy group gathered around the old
cracked stove. The unwonted silence
was broken by the entrance of the
teacher, who immediately rapped us to
order, after which he briskly called up
the new scholar.
“ What is your name ?”
“ Adelina.”
Mr. Pike looked wise.
“ Adelina Lagrange, I suppose ; and
you are the daughter of the lady who
lias recently taken the Baldwin cot
tage ?”
“ Yes. sir.”
“ Well, you may take this seat,”
pointing to a bench not far from where
I was sitting, and without further ques
tioning Adelina had passed through
the trying ordeal of a “first day,” and
was duly counted one of us.
Her mother, it was rumored, was a
lady of refinement and culture, but
very proud and reserved in her de
meanor for a person who was obliged
to teach music for a living. Mrs. La
grange, at any rate, was 3 T oung, hand
some, and recently widowed—at least
the length and newness of her veil in
dicated to observing feminine eyes that
the bereavement was recent, and that
is all the gossips knew about her.
The summer term brought Adelina
again to the old red school-house, but
so changed outwardly that we hardly
knew her for the sombre “ blackbird ”
of the previous winter. She fluttered
in one morning dressed in white, with
sash and shoulder-knots of cherry rib
bons—the loveliest creature I ever saw.
At noon she came to me and said,
very gravely:
“ After to-day I am not coming any
The llabtwell Sun.
By BENSON & McGill.
VOL. IV—NO. 12'.
more.”
“ Why ?”
“ I am going to the city to live ; but
you were kind to me the first day I
came, and I tell you for that reason,
and because you didn’t mind untying
my hood for me.”
I felt her going so keenly that I
could not study, try as I would, and in
consequence my grammar lesson was a
decided failure. I went home from
school her way that day, taking care
that the other scholars should not sus
pect my motives.
When I came in sight of her she was
standing motionless by the roadside,
attentively watch a yellow-jacket buzz
ing for sweets in the downy heart of a
white Canada thistle.
Years after, when miles and miles
away from that spot, I could shut my
eyes of a hazy October afternoon, with
a 5 o'clock sun dipping towards the
tree-tops, and see a little girl, lovely as
the blush of the sunset, gazing pen
sively at a bee upon a common road
side flower.
“Did it sting you ?” I asked, assum
ing a very sympathetic air.
“No ; bees never sting me and I’ve
watched them dance on the thistle
beads all summer.”
“ I did not know that you loved them.
Most girls are afraid of bees.”
“ Yes, but I am not.”
She turned from the rank patch of
thistles and slowly resumed her walk
homeward. *
When we came to the lane where our
paths separated she put up her little
arms to be taken and kissed before
leaving me, as she said, “ to come back
no more.”
“ lie good to yourself, Eddie, and
next winter, if any little lonely Ade
linas come cold and frightened to the
old red school-house yonder, be to them
as you were to me.”
Something choked in my throat, and
I could not say a word ; but I kissed
her more than once; and after she had
slipped from my arms and was twenty
rods away, I sat down and cried like a
baby, because I was never to see Ade
lina again.
It was not long before the rumor was
rife in the neighborhood that Mrs. La
grange had married a middle-aged city
millionaire, and that the young widow
and her child had found anew protect
or in her place of the one death had
taken from them.
Years flitted by; I was 24; I had
fought through the great civil war—en
tered the army a private and came out
of it a captain, shattered in health, and
utterly depleted in pocket, to find my
self at home again, ill and altogether
distrustful of fortune’s smile.
In my frequent walks to the village
post-office I often passed by the old
red school-house, and never without a
sigh of regret for the many happy,
carc-free days spent within its battered
walls.
Among the letters handed me one
morning was one post-marked New
York, which informed me of the agree
able fact that, through the instrumen
tality of a friend of mine whom he was
anxious to serve, the undersigned, Mr.
Maxwell, had been induced to extend
to me a commercial opening at the lib
eral salary' of two thousand a year, to
be increased if merited. There was
fortune for me in the offer, and I ac
cepted it with alacrity.
Mr. Maxwell, a rich New York mer
chant, from the first took a lively in
terest in my advancement. The un
known friend I could not account for in
any other way than by supposing it to
be some soldier comrade whom I had
befriended in the past.
Within a month I was fairly estab
lished at my new post of duty, and
succeeded in pleasing Mr. Maxwell so
well that, at the beginniug of my sec
ond year, he sent me to Europe in the
interest of the house. When I return
ed, 1 was given a week’s vacation, which
I spent among the breezy hills of my
old country home, passing the pleasant
September days in tramping through
the woods and fields and by-ways that
were the chosen haunts of ray boyhood.
I was just turning the curve in the
road where the Canada thistles grew,
and so lost in my walking reverie that
I was almost opposite a lady standing
HARTWELL, GA., WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 19. 1879.
in their midst before I was aware of
her presence.
“ I am glad you still love the old
scenes, Mr. Durand,” she said, with
out expressing the least surprise.
I was astonished. Here was a lady
whom, to the best of my knowledge, I
had never seen before, addressing me
as familiarly as if we had known each
other all our lives.
“ Names are treacherous things, and
if I were ever so fortunate as to have
known yours, I am guilty of having
forgotten it.” 1 replied.
“ Men forget easily, I am told ; but
I hail hoped to find you an exception to
the rule.”
Avery awkward silence on my part
ensued. She took pity on my evident
embarrassment, and continued:
“ Has your battle with the world en
tirely driven from your recollection all
the old school faces ?”
Her voice dropped to its old, sweet,
clear, winning cadence, thrilling ray
whole being with delight.
“ Adelina!”
I caught her hand, and before I knew
what I was doing had carried it to my
lips and kissed it.
“ Excuse me,” I stammered ; “ but
I—am so glad to see you, and yon
seem just the same little girl I kissed
here years ago—not a hit taller, not a
bit older—only Adelina, always lovely
and always loved.”
Then I told her all about myself, how
prosperous I was, and the strange man
ner in which I had been brought to the
notice of my kind employer. When I
had finished she merely said, in her
simple way:
“ I know it.”
“You appear to know everything.
Do )’ou know Mr. Maxwell ?”
“ He is my father.”
“ And my unknown friend—
“ Adelina.”
I staggered back, in my soul ashamed
that I should owe every good in life —
everything—to a woman who owed me
nothing but the poor favor of once hav
ing untied for her a wretched black and
white worsted hood.
I turned away, cut to the heart, but
she put out a detaining hand.
“Don’t go, Mr. Durand—that is,
don’t go feeling hurt; for it would
make me very unhappy if you were to
go away angry with me.”
“ Unhappy ! What am I, that a pain
to me should render you unhappy ?” I
answered bitterly.
“ I know of no other way in which to
express my gratitude.”
“ Gratitude for what ?” The ques
tion was rudely abrupt, but she took
no notice of my ungracious speech.
“ Gratitude for the kindness given
me long ago, and which I have missed
ever since the day we parted here by
the roadside.”
“ Are you conscious of what it is
you are saying, Adelina ?”
“ Perfectly.”
“ How am I to understand your
words ?”
“That I leave to your good judg
ment,” she smiled, lowering her eyes.
She had an instant illustration of my
“goodjudgment,” in the way I impris
oned her two little hands in both of
mine, and kissed the sweet mouth for
its shyly whispered promise.
I walked home with Adelina—oh, so
happy ! and when I asked her hand of
Mr. Maxwell, he said :
“ I have anticipated your request by
keeping you under my eye for more
than two years. Adelina is the best
and truest girl in the world, but I be
lieve you to be as worthy of her as any
man living, and give her to you, confi
dent that you know how to prize the
the treasure you have won.”
And so, not long thereafter, I mar
ried Adelina, the love of my boyhood,
and the crowning glory of my latter
years.
“ This is a late fall,” said Ileffelspin,
as he sustained a midnight tumble.
“To be followed by an early spring,”
he added as the tack he lit upon went
to the quick.
Atlanta Dispatch : Gen. Toombs re
marked yesterday that as between Grant
and such sneaking Democrats as Tilden
and Raadall, he preferred Grant.
Athens wants the State normal school.
Devoted to Hart County.
DEATH OE A VENEKABLE MAN.
I>r. I.ovl<-k IMerrr Din n II In llonx- in
Nimrtn. After l<oii|r l.ife f l'e
fiilnt-M—An Kvrntinl III*-
tor y,
Augusta Chronielt and Constitutionalist.
A telegram received in this city yes
terday morning announced the death of
the venerable Dr. Lovick Pierce, at his
home in Sparta, on Sunday night. The
intelligence will be received with the
deepest regret, not only by Methodists,
by whom he was so much beloved, but
by people of all denominations, to whom
his good works were so well kuowu.
Dr. Pierce was born in Halifax coun
ty, N, C., March 24th, 1785, and was,
consequently, Jn the ninety-fifth year of
his age at the time of his death. Early
in life his parents moved to Barnwell
county, S, C., where, with only six
mouths’ previous schooling, he entered
the Methodist ministry t in 1804.
Wo are indebted to the "History of
Methodism in Georgia and Sotlth Caro
lina” for the following points:
The Conference of 1805 met at
Charleston on January Ist, Bishop As
bury presiding. At this Conference
Keddick Pierce and Lovick Pierce
were admitted on trial; Keddick was
twenty-two and Lovick not quite twenty
years old. Keddick was sent as junior
preacher on the Little Kivcr Circuit,
Georgia; Lovick on the Great l’edee,
in South Carolina. There was a strik
ing contrast between the two brothers.
Reddick was vigorous iu body as in
mind. He was strong, brave, daring.
He rather enjoyed than recoiled from
perils. He cared little for refinement or
culture, never aimed at polish, orsought
for elegance of manner or speech. Lov-
ick, on the contrary, was gentle ns a wo
man, shrinking, sensitive and timid.
His desire for culture of the highest
kind was Intense, and his taste was for
all the refinements of life.
Lovick Pierce was sent to the new
Apalachee Circuit with Joseph Tarp
ley. This Circuit included Greene,
Clarke and Jackson. He was but little
over twenty years old and as timid ns a
fawn. His sensibilities werq unusually
acute, and his aspirations of the highest
and noblest kind. He had an exalted
idea of the responsibilities and of the
lofty demands of his ministry, and a
painful sense of his deficiencies. His
circuit threw him into the presence of
people as highly cultured as any in
Georgia. He was born a preacher and
he was in a school to make one. He be
gan his Georgia ministry a plain, untu
tored, but highly gifted boy. He never
left the State for any length of time af
terwards. A few appointments he had
outside of it, but his home was always
in it, save for one year. For over 70
years the life of Georgia Methodism and
of Dr. Lovick Pierce move on together.
Two generations and more have gone
since he came to Georgia in 1800. A
few old men may remember when they
were children to have heard the good
and gifted young circuit rider preach
powerful sermons, but they are few. He
left his home in South Carolina to travel
a circuit which led him to the very wig
wam of the Indian, and, without a teach
er to secure by constant diligence that
knowledge for which he had such crav
ing appetite. Hope Hull, whose criti
cism the young preacher so feared, was
at a Hull’s meeting house to hear him
and as from beneath his great overhang
ing eyebrows, his piercing eye fell upon
Lovick Pierce, he saw a man who was
to bless the church, and he took him to
his home and heart. When Hull died
twelve years after this, young Dr. Pierce
then in the brightness of his fame, preach
ed the funeral sermon of the old hero.
On the 24th of last March, his birth
day, Dr. Pierce wrote to the church the
following greeting:
“My Ninety-Fifth Birth Day.”
“Truly the light is sweet and a pleasant
thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun ;
but if a man live many years and rejoice
in them all, yet let him remember the
days of darkness, for they shall be many.
“ Life, as a whole, is like light —it is
emphatically sweet. But there is ai
rways some discount—sometimes pretty
large. Yet the world, as a home for
probationers, is ‘ very good.’ And it
has fitted me so well that I have never
been packing up and hurrying away be
cause the old boat of Saints —on the
$1.50 Per Annum.
WHOLE NO. 1(58.
river of death, all the time going and
coming—leaves on its embarking wharf
no one uncalled for.
" Well, lam willing. All lam care
ful about is, when my time comes to be
both ready and willing.
During December, Jnimarr and Feb
ruary, I lay and looked into death's large
encampmeut; looked for the undertak
ers to come and put an end to this fam
ily memorial. But here I am. I know
not for what final end. Bnt I do know
that there is an cud with God lobe at
tained by keeping me hero this time.
At this time I have nothing in view, ex
cept, if it be His will, that I may, iu
some sort, as an actual relict of early
Methodism, bridge the clmsru between
the past and the present. God has
made me, as fond friends have expressed
it, 1 the Nestor ’ among them. To show
more fully to our people the power and
excellence of unadulterated Methodism,
I wish to write my own biography.
Whether I shall be spared to do this
God knoweth.
*' But before I leave this world I wish
to testify, as to myself, in its favor. It
is a good world. Asa world, God did
his best on it and in it. The Spirit
never asked the question : ‘ Who will
show us any good?’ He could not, and
enquire in the next breath, ‘What shall
we render unto God for all his benefits
towards us?’ As to what we ought to
do in return, the Spirit tells us at once:
‘ Let us take the cup of salvation and
call upon the name of the Lord.’ In a
word, it is to bo an open, devout profes
sion of religion. In this connection it
is the grand, the glorious moral phenom
enon, universally felt to bo true, that
the light of God’s countenance,, lifted lip
upon us, is the soul’s panacea.”
In December, 180(5, in the house of
John Lucas, in Sparta, Bishop Asbury
ordained Lovick Pierce deacon, at the
end of his second year in the itinerant
ministry. In the old “ Lucas ” house
was horn, some months ago, I)r. Pierce’s
first great-great-grandchild.
Cost of the “ Know How.”
Harper's Magazine for December.
There was much gumption evinced
by that particular darkey whose master
was a surgeon, who had performed on
another darkey an operation requiring
a high degree of skill. This latter
darkey was well-to-do, and the surgeon
charged him twenty-five dollars for the
operation. Meeting the doctor’s ser
vant afterward, this dialogue occurred :
“ Dat was a mighty steep charge of
the doctor’s for cutting on me tudder
day.”
“ How much did de boss charge ?”
“ Well, Julius, he charge me twenty
five dollars.”
“Go ’long, niggah, dat ain’t much
charge.”
“ Well, lie wasn’t more dan three or
four minutes doin’ it, and I tink five
dollars was all he oughter took.”
“ Look-a-heah, Sam ; you don’t un’-
Rtan’ ’bout dat ting. You see de boss
have to spend a great many year lam
in’ how to use dat knife, an’ it cost him
heaps o’ money. Now de fact am dat
he only charge you five dollars for do
operation; de tudder twenty he charge
for de know how.”
That’s it—the time and money to
learn the know liow.
A Safe Hide.
After the conclusion of a lively horse
trade, a witness of the transaction asked
one of the traders what sort of a horse
he had got by the exchange.
“Oh, just medium—just a common
sort of a plug,” was the reply.
“ And how old is lie?”
Twenty years old.”
“ But I did not see you look at his
teeth.”
“ No, you did not, young man. I’ve
traded horses for the last thirty years,
aud I have owned as many as eight
hundred different animals. My rule has
always been to mentally calculate the
age of the other man’s horse at twenty.
In this way I make no mistakes and suf
fer no disappointments.”
“ Did your rule never fail?”
“ Well, it did fail once. I was trad
ing horses in Pontiac, and I made the
usual estimate at twenty years, but the
critter died of old age while I was try
ing to beat a grocer down two cents on
the price of a peck of oats.”
Ingersoll on Alcohol.
Colonel Robert lugereoll, who has
been denounced as an infidel, was lately
employed in a case which involved tho
manufacture of ardent spirits, and in
his speech to the jury he used the fol
lowing language:
“ I am aware that there is a prejudice
against any man engaged in the manu
facture of alcohol. I believe from tho
time it issues from the coiled and pois
onous worm in the distillery until it
empties into the hell of death, dishonor
anil crime, that it is demoralizing to ev
erybody that touches it from the source
to where it eads. Ido not believe that
anybody can contemplate’ fht*”' subjoct
without being prejudiced against tho
crime. All wc hare to do is to think of
tho wrecks on either side of the stream
of death, of suicides, of tho insanity, of
the poverty, of the destruction, of tho
little children tuggiug at the breast of
woepiug and despairing wives asking
for bread, of the man of genius it has
wrecked, the man struggling withimagi
nary serpents produced by this devilish
thing; and when you think of the jails,
of the alms-houses, of the asylums, of
the prisons and of the scaffolds on either
hank, 1 do not wonder that every think
ing man is prejudiced against this vile
stuff culled alcohol. Intemperance cuts
down youth iu its vigor, manhood in its
strength, and age in its weakness. It
breaks the father’s heart, bereaves tho
doting mother, extinguishes natural af
fection, erases conjugal love, blots out
filial attachment and blights parental
hope, and brings premature age in sor
row to the grave. It produces weakness,
not strength; sickness, not health;
death, not life. It makes wives widows,
children orphans, fathers fiends, and all
paupers. It feeds rheumatism, nurses
gout, welcomes epidemics, invites cholera
imports pestilence, and embraces con
sumption. It covers the land with mis
ery, idleness and crime. It engenders
controversies, fosters quarrels and cher
ishes riots. It crowds your penitentia
ries and furnishes victims to the scaffold.
It is the blood of the gambler, the ele
ment of tho burglar, the prop of tho
highwayman, and the support of tho
midnight incendiary. It countenances
the liar, respects the thief, esteems tho
blasphemer. It violates obligations,
reverences fraud, honors infamy. It de
fames benevolence, hates love, scorns
virtue and innocence. It incites the fa
ther to butcher his helpless offspring,
and the child to grind the parental axe.
It burns up men, consumes women, de
tests life, curses God nnd despises heaven.
It stubborns witnesses, nurses perfidy,
denies the jury box and stains the judi
cial ermine. It bribes voters, disquali
fies votes, corrupts elections, pollutes our
institutions, and endangers the govern
ment. It degrades the citizen, debases
the legislator, dishonors the statesman
nnd disarms the patriot. It brings
shame, not honor ; terror, not safety ;
despair, not hope; misery, not happi
ness ; and with the malevolence of a
fiend, calamity surveys its frightful des
olation, and unstained with havoc, it
poisons felicity, kills peace ruins morals,
wipes out national honor, then curses the
world and laughs at its ruin. It docs
that and more —it murders the soul.
It is the sum of all villainies, the father
of all crimes, the mother of all abomi
nations, the devil’s best friend, and God’s
worst enemy.”
A Terrible Crime.
A dispatch to the Atlanta Constitu
tion on the 11th Inst, from Chester, S.
C., gives the following awful informa
tion : We have just heard the particu
lars of a terrible murder which was
perpetrated seven miles below Lancas
ter Courthouse. A lady named Mrs.
James Adams, poor, but highly respect
able, cut the throats of five of her own
children as they lay asleep in bed. It
is said that her husband had recently
treated her badly and had been away
from home nearly all the time. She
grew sad and desperate, and some sup
pose she lost her reason. It is thought
that she cut her children’s throats with
a pocket knife found near their bed,
clotted with blood. After doing this
horrible murder, she set fire to her own
garments and burned to death. Next
morning the neighbors found the horri
ble scene and the entire neighborhood
was shocked. It is one of the most
terrible instances of crime known, and
its real horror is increased by the fact
that a mother’s hand wrought all the
misery—murdered her own children
and threw herself fresh from the hor
rid crime into eternity. 'I he children
were found nestled close together as
they were accustomed to sleep in their
sweet childlike slumber and they bore
such marks of evidence as indicated
that they passed out of the world with
little pain.