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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.