Newspaper Page Text
riMlantotts.
n£g^ ,oHw
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PIJPWfIPKiii in 1 11 cW
‘minutely ili‘ county
LjUo i;t-*nor.V‘ u'as fo’rtV. tvf
hut on
he was very good to
•<i.t.i!h"in|
lull l.i I ! i\
any others, ami
, ' w ' .<i>gone.
" :l ; „ historians, ,ve are
MpiP mly that .John thought
EK wore of his having to leave
HflUhan lie did of parting from
lie went
§Y®ht to the well, to help her
■■>fTeher I ;JS * time,
food bye, but he went
l*.\to help her again.
Ptiroi. -Sahel looked less
r -usual, for she had not
•|> night, and her fare was
( .:,.and her eyes were red.
' owever, he was fairly oil' at
'* but while his ship spread
white sails to the breeze and
, <fKed gaily over the sea, he
*.vhs very unhappy, and the whole
of his time on shipboard was
made miserable by his imagining
Isabel at home in all sorts of hap
piness, which of course was very
foolish of hint.
When he landed in the West
Indies, he was obliged at once to
get to work, and that comforted
him somewhat, as it always will
comfort anybody; and he wrote
long letters to his grandmother,
which were indited, we know,
with a view to Isabel's perusal of
them, for he was too shy to do
openly more than send his re
gards to her in the postscript.
After a while he rather tired of
these letters, for they brought
nothing in reply but short an
swers from the old lady, dictated
by her to the village schoolmas
ter, in which were no news but a
chronicle of her rheumatism, and
an earnest hope that he would
take caro not to catch cold, and
always keep himself decent.
At last, one day there came a
letter from Isabel, telling him
that his grandmother was dead,
ami making some attempt at con
solation, which read rather too
strangely with half the globe be
tween him and the newlv-made
grave. He was sorry on first hear
ing of his grandmother’s death,
kilt if she had not died, he thought
abed vrould not have written,
H’o ho was comforted.
“(letter which Isabel receiv-
n answer to this of hers was
written in a strain so like his for
mer ones, that sin* might have
seen that all had been really for
her. Meanwhile. John was ex
pecting an answer.
He expected till lie was tired.
At that crisis, better prospects
were offered to him higher up the
country. He would have to leave
the address which Isabel knew,
and through the unsettled duties
of this new post he would be un
ble to leave any clue behind
dm, and he was too proud to
rite again while his first letter
ained unanswered. John did
decide hastily, lie told his
new employers there was some
thing he should like to consider
before accepting their proposal
(®f course he did not say what). ;
and went home and thought the
matter over for two whole even
ings.
He made up his mind to go and j
he went. Three days after he had '
left, a letter came for him, which
he, not being there to receive it,
got tossed aside, and so it never
reached him.
John became a great favorite
with his new masters, so that one
of them constantly invited him
home. During these visits hefre
quently saw a very handsome
young lady, his master’s daugh
ter. For a long \yliile he did not
fchink of her, bedluese she was his
daughter,
l.tr him, AflV*’
iit of her
and so
erlnfcjJJohn thaVmsread
Hi- in
tesaawiWp~ ■ , j “
IliffhjT VmL. ;j I ' 11 *
tlnng- at
‘ 'l ;|V 11 (■ I ( 111 ■
11 *l l ‘''' * 1 " 1 ' *
- -lie lode nil
", 'S-\ VV ** •^Llei 1 eiit on r
prb’fitelv
it is a piitW l^'
* ° (ijj.
V al * lc !U Vfie of j
blinding her father.
She was served as she deserved
to be, for, two months after their
marriage, her husband deserted
her, and she was obliged to re
turn home and live again with
her parents.
Unfortunately, this could not
make matters any the better for
John. He took a fever which |
sometimes broke out in those i
it hi ngs as this,
lot last forever.
Louth, and, be
fcoo disposit ion,
foant. prosperous
Kentish village,
'’lqpve it and go
parts, and although he had had
it before without receiving much
hurt, now. combined with his
dumpish melancholy, it made him
very ill indeed ; and on his recov
ery he found his skin was like old
parchment, and that he had lost
nearly all the hair from the front
part of his head. There was no
help for it, so he went back t® his
work, and, somehow, he seemed
to prosper in business more than
ever.
After some years, John had oc
casion to visit the town at which
he had first landed, and while
there he, out of curiosity, called
at his former residence. The peo
ple did not recognize him, but
when he informed them who he
was, somebody remembered that,
a letter had arrived for him just
after his departure, and thereup
on a hunt was made for it. It
could not be found, however, and
John had to imagine what was
in it.
After this he found he could
not settle to his work again, and,
after trying half a dozen doctors,
he made up his mind to pay a
visit to his native Kent, so he ar
ranged his affairs as if he were
never coming back ; but that, of
course, was only prudence on the
part of a person about to take a
long voyage.
When he reached the Kentish
village he found it but very little
changed, for the time we are
speaking of was before railway
days. Bu‘ his grandmother’s cot
tage was pulled down, and when
he asked a boy at the well wheth
or Isabel’s family lived in the old
place the boy did not know their
name.
He walked about for awhile,
too afraid of bad news to ques
tion any of the old inhabitants,
whom he easily enough recogniz
! ed, although they looked quite
blankly at him. Presently, on
turning into a green, shady lane,
ihe heard a brisk voice call “Isa
bel !’’ and a little child in a lilac
j pinafore ran past him and down
1 the pleasant turning.
He followed her to the door of
: a stone cottage. There stood a
woman, young and agreeable in
| appearance, hut rather stout and
very matronly, with a cap on her
! head and a baby in her arms. She
was very changed, but he knew
her.
It was Isabel.
She looked at him respectfully
him for quite an old
man, and when he asked what had
become of the Thornton people
(her family), she curtsied and an
swered: ‘Sir, the father and moth
er are dead, and so are two of
their daughters and their only
son. The other two are married.
I am one of them —Isabel.’
‘I knew it,’ said John. ‘Yon do
not know me, Isabel ?'
She looked at him earnestly for
a few moments, then her good
tempered mouth broadened into
a laugh.
‘Why, it's John Hurst!'she said.
She invited him into the house
and set another plate on the din
ner-table, saying her husband
would be veiy glad to see him. !
THE FIEdD AND FIRESIDE—MARIETTA, (GA.) THURSDAY, DECEMBER 5, 1878.
John then remembered to in
quire who that happy man was.
‘James Woodman,’ she answer
ed. ‘Do yon remember him ?We
all went to school together.’
John did remember, and also
that young Woodman had then
been as civil to a certain little
Cecily Simon as he himself had
been to Isabel, but he only said
that he remembered James Wood
man quite well.
fcL^yjpp ose y° n are marr * e< i •
ruptured Isabel.
bitterly, thin
the *man,
and quite forgetting that, if he
was unmarried, it was not his
fault that he was so.
Jfoti’re nutoL said Isabel
mucQPPurpnsed.
chiton.
|HE—lii^rcig
in 1
tin- clfi-t 1771^^^^^^^^^'
►ilt iinjuiiv.
‘ Just eight **st*ner iTOe <%,}
the wife. • - , "ocat- ml
It was fully ten years smce
John had prepared to be Bertha’s
bridgroom.
James Woodman came in and
was duly introduced. He was a
.jolly countryman, with yellow
hair and red cheeks that shook
when he laughed, and he wore
light country clothes and knee
breeches. John was very tall and
very thin, and, being dressed all
in black clothes and having a face
as we said, like old parchment,
and but the remnant of a head of
hair, the two men formed as
great a contract as could well be
imagined.
He stayed with them but a
short while. Their easy, good
humored affection for each other
was painful to him, and when he
alluded to the letter he had mis
sed Isabel could not think what
he referred to until he explained.
That completed his bitterness.
He resolved to leave them whilst
ho could part in a friendly way
so they shook hands all round
and he went away.
‘What a grim old crow he
looks !’ remarked Isabel, as they
watched his retreating figure up
the lane.
John went to the churchyard,
and found that some other grand
son had put a stone at the head
of his grandmother’s grave. He
offered to send the sexton some
money every year to keep it neat,
but the honest old man answered.
‘ Misther Johnson, him that
paid for the stone, sir, gives me
ten shillings a year to do it, and
I couldn’t in honor take no more.’
So John gave the old man a pre
sent and walked off.
‘ I’m not wanted in Kent,’ he
thought, ‘so I’ll just go back to
Jamaica.’
He went back, and worked and
prospered, and the remnant of his
hair grew gray, and he found that
he could see better with specta
cles than without them. At last
the doctors said that if he did not
want to die within the year, he
must leave his money-getting
and go back to live among the
green fields of Kent.
John sighed heavily, and obey-
ed. He made his final arrange
ments, and found himself to be
even wealtheir than he had
thought. Then he leisurely trav
elled home to Kent. He did not.
however, return to his native vil
liage, but settled in the county
town. Nevertheless, he some
times felt a strange longing to see
once more the old church on the
hill, where he had kneeled in boy
hood and the cool lanes whore he
and Isabel had wandered and
played together, and one summer
evening found him at the old
place.
He wandered down the lane
where he had discovered the
Woodmans on his last visit. The
house was sadly changed; no
honeysuckle now twined itself
over the porch, and breathed its
fragrance into the face of the hot
and dusty traveller, and in the
little familiar plot of ground the
flowers had run to seed or were
choked bv weeds. A woman
[ came to /he door, a woman of a
bout theV&ge of Isabel when he
last saw her—but how different
otherwise! She screamed in a
harsh voice to some children
playing in the garden, and John
turned sadly away.
The long shadows of the trees
were falling across the church
yard as he opened the gate and
entered. A man whom he knew
not was digging a grave the old
sexton was gone. The place was
now crowded with graves, so that
it was with some difficulty he
found his grandmother's, the
stone cracked and half hidden in
nettles.
He called the new sexton, who
knew nothing ©f Mr. Johnson or
his annual ten shillings. John
told the man to have the tomb
repaired, and engaged to pay all
expenses. They entered into a
little talk about the inmates of
the surrouding graves. John
found that he had more friends
in the churchyard than in the
village.
‘Do you know what has become
of James Woodman V he inquired.
‘He lives just where he did
sir,’ answered the man.
‘lmpossible!’ said John; ‘I
have seen the house, and surely
it has new inmates.’
The sexton shook his head and
langhed grimly.
a new wife, sir,’ he
rifled ; ‘the first one. one of the
sir, she died years ago.
got a second family of
I/O ling ones.’
There was a short silence.
‘ What has become of the elder
children ?’ asked John.
‘ Well sir, the youngest daugh
ter died before her mother ; and
the boy ran away when his father
married again; and Bella, the
eldest, married a sailor and went
abroad.’
‘ Is Isabel, Mrs. Woodman, bu
ried here ?’ John inquired.
1 Yes, sir. I’ll show you where,’
and he hobbled over the mounds
and then paused. John followed
him.
‘ That’s her grave, sir,’
It was a long, grassy heap, mat
ted with weeds. At the end
stood a rude wooden cross, al
ready falling on one side, and a
disconsolate shrub stretched a
cross it and concealed the all the
fading inscription, except one
word:
“ Isabel.”
John stood so long, gazing si
lently at the grave, that the old
man went back to his digging.
The next week John took up
his abode in the villiage. He did
not offer the sexton money to
weed that grass}' grave, but he
went in the early morning and
weeded it himself and set up the
cross and planted some flowers
beside it.
The only person he ever met
in the churchyard was a quiet
little woman, not much younger
than himself. He found that she
tended the Simpsons’ grave, be
ing too poor to pay the sextou.
It was Cecily.
By and by these two got ae
quainted, and he found that she
had never left the old village,
but had kept a school there,
maintaining both her parents for
some years, until they died, and
tiien tending their grave. She
was all alone now, and very
pleasant it was for her and John
to talk over old times, sitting in
her little cottage,whither he often
invited himself.
The great house of the village
had stood empty for some years.
John took it and beautified it
and went to live in it. But he
found life in a large house but. a
dreary thing for a man whose
friends were mostly beneath the
churchyard turf. Such guests as
came only wearied him. His
housekeepers cheated him ; and
so, perhaps, it is hardly to be
wondered at that one spring
morning he went with Cecily to
the old church, and when they
went back to the big house she
was his wife.
Cecily founded a school in the
village, and it so happened that
James Woodman’s children were
the first pupils. James Woodman
himself is very poor, and his wife
manages her household affairs no
better than she manages her
temper, and he is very glad to
find work in John's garden.
Visitors to the pretty Kentish
village may now see an elder
ly gentleman,tall and with slight
ly stooping shoulders, walking
by the side of a lady with silver
hair and bright gray eyes, who
has always a cherry word for all
the children, and who seensto be
the object of their special admi
ration. And anybody can see
that John Hurst and his wife are
very happy.
TOM POTTER’S SHOOTING.
They had been talking about the
remarkable performance of Dr.
Carver the marksman who shoots
with a rifle glass balls which are
sent into the air as fast as a man
can throw them. Presently,
Abner Byng. who was sitting by,
said:
‘That's nothing.'
‘What is nothing V
‘Why, that shooting. Did you
ever know Tom Potter V
‘No.’
•Well, Potter was the best hand
with a rifle I ever saw ; heal that
man Carver all hollow. I’ll tell
you what I’ve seen Potter do.—
You know, may be, along here in
the cherry season, Mrs. Potter
would want some cherries to pre
serve ; so Tom’d pick ’em off for
her. and how do yon think he’d
stone ’em ?’
‘I don’t know. How ?’
‘Why, he’d fill his gun with
bird shot, and get a boy to drop
a half bushel of cherries at one
time from the roof of the house.
As they came down he’d fire,
and take the stone clean out of
every cherry in the lot. It’s a
positive fact. He might occa
sionally miss one cherry, maybe,
but not often. But he did big
ger shooting than that when he
wanted to.’
‘What did he do ?’
‘Why, Jim Miller—did you
know him? No? Well, Tom
made a bet once with Jim that j
he could shoot the buttons off'
his own coat tail by aiming in
the opposite direction, and Jim
Miller took him up.’
Did he do it ?’
‘Do it! He fixed himself in
position, and aimed at a tree in
front of him. The ball hit the
tree, caromed, hit the corner of
the house, caromed, struck a
lamp post,, caromed, and flew be
hind Tom, and nipped the but
ton off as slick as a whistle. You
bet he did it.’
‘That was fine shooting.’
‘Yes, but I’ve seen Tom Potter
beat it. I’ve seen him stand mi
der a flock of wild pigeons, bil
lions of them coming like the
wind, and kill ’em so fast that
the front of the tjock never
passed a given line, but turned
over and fell down, so that it
looked like a brown and feathery
Niagara. Tom did it by having
twenty-three breach-loading ri
fles and a bov to load ’em. He al
ways shot with that kind.’
‘You saw him do this sort of
shooting?’
‘Yes, sir; and better than that
too. Why, I’ll tell you what I’ve
seen Tom Potter do. I saw him
once set up an India rubber tar
get at three hundred feet and hit
the bull’s eye twenty-seven times
a minute with the same ball. He
would hit the target, the ball
wetild bounce back right into the
rifle barrel just as Tom had clap
ped on a fresh charge of powder,
and so he kept her a going back
ward and forward until at last he
happened to move his gun and the
bullet missed the muzzle of the
barrel. It was the biggest thing
I ever saw; the very biggest—ex
cept one.’
‘What was that V
‘Why one day I was out with
him when he was practicing, and
it came on to rain. Tom didn’t
want to get wet, and we had no
umbrella, and what do you think
he did ?’
‘What ?’
‘Now what do you think that
man did to keep dry V
‘I can’t imagine.’
‘Well, sir, he got me to load
his weapons for I pledge
you my word, although it began
to rain hard, he hit every drop
that came down, so that the
ground for about eight feet
around us was dry as punk.—
It was beautiful, sir; beautiful ”
And then the company rose
up slowly and passed out, one
by one, each man eyeing Abner,
and looking solemn as he went
by; and when they had gone Ab
ner looked queerly for a moment,
and said to me :
There’s nothing I hate so much
as a liar. Give me a man who is
the friend of the solid truth and
I’ll tie to him.—Max Adeler.
FOR SALE!
THE House ami Lot in the City of
Marietta, one block from ttic city
square, owned and formerly occupied
hy l>r. W. E. Dun woody.
FARM of 130 acres 1 f.j miles from
Marietta, Cobb County—has 80 acres of
arable land—one small house—will be
divided to suit purchasers.
FARM of 80 acres 1 1 - 2 ' miles from Ma
rietta, Cobb county, on the W. & A. R.
R.—will be divided into three small
farms.
A FIRST CLASS Plantation of 200
acres, four miles from Marietta, in one
of the best neighborhoods in Cobb coun
ty. There are on the premises about
100 acres of arable land, 70 acres of bot
tom land and a line orchard, with abun
dance of wood and water.
THISPLANTATION formerly known
as the Howell Mill Property, contain
ing 300 acres on Nickajaek creek, about
Imiles from Concord Factory. There
are on the premises a good water power
formerly used, about 160 acres of arable
land and tine tract of white oak timber
ALSO PLANTATION of 100 acres,
on the Roswell road 1 miles from Ma
rietta—7o acres cleared—3o acres in
good woodland. There are on the prem
ises a large barn and stables—an abun
dance of good, free stone water. Terms
easy.
APPLY TO
A. Van WjeL,
At the Marietta Savings Bank.
THE
FIELD
A
N
D
mum,
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TURE, GENERAL NEWS
AND MISCELLANY,
Is published every
Thursday morning at
the old Printing Of
fice Building Mariet
ta, Geo. Subscription
$1 in advance—or
$1 50 if payment is
delayed.
Advertising at Reduced Rates.
JAB Pl®.
Of all kinds in the
most approved style
and at reduced prices.
WITH THE BEST
•
of material and doing
our own labor, we of
fer ourselves as candi
dates for a share of
public favor.
Respectfully,
J. G. CAMPBELL, & CO.
Enentit agr Home Indititry
William Spencer,
CHEROKEE STREET,
MARIETTA, GEORGIA.
DKALKB JM
LEATHER
of all kinds, Shoe Findings and lfar.
ness Mountings, Upper Leather, Har
ness, Kip and Calf Skins, Hemlock and
Home Tan Sole Leather.
IW I have employed as wortaneu,
Mr. G. T. Swann, and will earry on a
firat class
Boot and Shoe Shop
where we guarantee as good and cheap
Roots and shoes made as elsewhere.—
Spend your money at home and it will
come back after a few days. Eneour
age home industry and you build up
the prosperity of vour neighborhood,
Marietta. Oa.. March 19. 1879. ly