The Dublin post. (Dublin, Ga.) 1878-1894, January 28, 1880, Image 1

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Newspaper Page TextVOL. 2. DUBLIN, GEORGIA, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 28, 1880. METTA’S elderly lover. “There is no pleasure you cannot command as Leon Parker’s wife,” said Mrs. Crossdalo coaxiugly, look ing at a beautiful fane opposite to her own, and noting its mutinous frown. “But, mamma,” said Meta Cross dale, her lips pouting and her pretty •eyes decidedly rebellions, “1 don’t want to marry Mr. Parker! He is fifty-four years old. He told mo so himself; and I am not yet twenty.” “But he is a line lookinc man, Meta; a perfect gentleman, and bet ter than either, a good man.” “I do not love him!” “At Iciest you love no one else!” Hero Meta burst into a clear, ring- ing laugh, as delicious to hear as a ■strain of joyous music. “Let me count up his rivals!” she ■cried; “the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker! There is not a beau at Lawrericevillo, .mamma, and • you know it. Yet—” And the ^ laughing eyes grew suddenly sad, the sweet smiliug mouth dropped in pathetic curves. She was young, not quite twenty, aud she had dreamt maiden dreams, as young hearts will ever. But in no one rosy-tin ted vis ion had her middle-aged lover, her only one; appeared. Lawrcneevilte was a small place, crowded in the village proper by the employees of a large woolen manu factory, but witlrtiny cottages lying on the outskirts of this busy heart of place, where a population of very limited means lived economically. Meta was but ten years old when her father died and her mother moved ‘ to Lawreueevillo. Hero the child was educated by her motlior, a most accomplished lady, who kept her one 4, treasure secluded in the tiny cottage home, add spared neither time nor pains to make her a refined, noble woman. Leon Parker was a connection of Crossdale’s, and managed for, the widow the Very narrow income left from her husband’s once large es tate. Twice a year lie visited her, aud on the visit previous to this Oc tober day on which our story opens, hud remained six weeks at the .Law*, renceyille hotel, kept captive by Meta’s soft brown eyes and golden hair. “Strange as it may sound to you,” lie told Mrs. Crossdale, “Meta is my first love. I have had duties pre venting my marrying in youth; an aged mother .and a crippled sister claimed all my care till I was past forty years old. Then I had settled into old bachelor ways, when both died. But I love Meta! If I can win her love, my whole aim will be * to make her happy.” But Meta rebelled. In her eyes this old friend, who had brought her dolls and sugar plums in her baby hood, pretty trinkets, mnsic, books, and other gifts in her girlhood, was not the prince who would corao courting some bright day. “But after all,” she sighed, “who ever comes here? Mamma will not associate with the neighbors, and there is no one else !” So, with reluctance, and yet a pretty,' shy affection, the growth, of years, Meta put her slender hand in that of Loon Parker and promised to be l)is wife. It was not until the promise was given that? Mrs. Crossdale told her of her strongest reason for urging the marriage. “I shall leave you in safe care, my darliug,” she said, “when the time comes to part. Hush!” she added, as Meta gave a sharp questioning y cry. “We have kept the knowledge from you, dear, but Dr. Weldon says the winter will end my life!” Shocked, grief-stricken as she was Meta was not altogether unprepared for the news. For a long time it had been evident that NewEngland’s fell destroyer, consumption had claimed Mrs.. Crossdale for its vic tim. “You will not ask me to leave mamma?” Meta pleaded when Mr. Parker spoke of an early marriage. “I will help you,” lie answered. “No,” she said gently^ “it would only increase my duty. I must be long to only one this winter.” Mr. Parker made no further pica for an early wedding, yet Meta was gratefully conscious of his care for her. From his city home he seut weekly boxes of rare fruit, tempting delicacies, choice flowers, magazines, trifles to interest an invalid, every token of most watchful love. It was characteristic of his delicacy, his knowledge of Metas unselfish devo tion, that he made her no gift all the winter, save a basket of‘rare flowers at Christmas. Every other offering was for the invalid. When spring came Leon Parker once more visited Lawrenceville, and for three weeks gave Mrs. Cuossdale a son’s loving care. The eud came gently, painlessly, and when Meta turned from her mother’s last em brace it was to find Loon Parker waiting to comfort her. He had sent for Mr. Crossdale’s only sister, a stiff old maid of ample fortune, who had reluctantly con sented to take Meta to her home un til Mr. Pargcr claimed his wife. He had hoped to take Meta to his own luxurious home at once, but she shrank from the mention of her mar riage so soon after her clays of mourn ing began. So once more he yielded, and Meta weeping and sore-heoj'ted, went to New York with her aunt. But even in the first year of mourn ing a new life opened to Meta Cross dale. Miss Crossdale, although past fifty years.old, set in her ways, prim and cold, had yet a position in society that it was her* pride to maintain. She was wealthy, and had a fine in tellect, so that she collected at her eveniuggatherings many distinguish- ed artists; literary nien and’ women, and those who enjoyed cultivated so ciety. There was no dancing—but little music; but Meta soon learned to en joy the treat, of really good conver sation, aud when the piano was opened, it was to artistic touch or professional fingers. • And coldly as she had taken her to her home, Miss Crossdale learned very soon to love Meta. The girl’s quiet grief, her gentle manner, her delicate womanly instincts made her a charming companion to one of her own sex, and in comforting her, her aunt learned to love her. The year of mourning was nearly over, and Miss Crossdale was think ing of Meta’s trousseax; when disas trous news came from some property in which Leon Parker had invested heavily. I have not space to enter into the details, but the result was given in his own words to Miss Crossdale: J “When my. just liabilities are all paid I shall be a poor man, and must commence the world- anew. You know mo well enough to be sure I will not hold Meta to her engage ment, but I cannot see her yet. You must tell her.” And Miss Crossdale not unwilling ly took the commission. “It was" all very wbll,° 'shT saicf, «ftor tciitng Meta anme taoto, ^fur NO. 31 you to marry Leon Parker when you wore first engaged to him. You had no prospect of making a* better match, and you were very poor. But Bince he releases you had better accept liis offer. I tell yon now, Meta, that my will is made in your favor. When I die you will be wealthy. If you are wise you will remain single as I have done. But if you marry you can let your heart choose, for you need not marry for money. You do not love Leon Par ker?” But Meta made no answer. She crept away to her own room, -pale and shivering, wondering why the world was so cold and empty. All the winter she had been comparing Leon Parker with the younger men who had assembled at her aunt’s, many of them drawn there more fre quently than ever before by her own fair face. She had tnot literary men whose brilliant intellect wen her hearty admiration; artists who had seemed to her above common hu manity in' their heaven-born gift; musicians who had made her heart glad with their wondrous harmonies. Some there were who had let her see that were she free she. might claim their life’s devotion; some who might have touched her heart had not Leon Parker held her promise. But now that he had given back that promise, and must fight fortune again, she felt her heart crying out against his sacrifice. lie had offered her luxury, had‘made her mother’s illness a bed of flowers, had sought her happiness in every hour of^ their long friendship. The thought of him iu some hum ble home, working busily to conquer fortune, alone! She pictured him turning from, the day’s toil, aud re turning to his small room, his ooarse dinner, alone! With streaming eyes and trembling fingers she wrote to him: •Dear Leon: You will lot me call you Leon now ? I wronged you once, not so very long ago, for 1 promised to be your wife, only be cause you offered me wealth and a devotion I scarcely understood. 1 was very young, very inexperienced, Leon, ana I did not understand how solemn and sacred a trust I was so carelessly taking. I ask you now to forgive me, that I would have repaid your love so poorly. But if you do forgive me, Leon ‘do not leave me, fori love you I Do not think I am bold and unmaidenly, for I would be in your eyes only what you can love. I did not know until Aunt Maria told me you had given me back my promise that I had learned to love you. Perhaps if there had not boon this fear of losing you, 1 should never known how deSoiatCth© loss would make my life. Do not fear'that you will find me fretful,. |f we are poor. I know how to econo mize, and havo never been rioh, so I dare hope I can help yon, Loon, not bo a burden to you. But if you can still love me, let our marriage bo up on the day wo had mailed—for I cannot give you up. Meta.” She took the letter down stairs and put it silently in Miss Crossdalo’s hands, and that prim maiden, after reading it, kissed her, whispering: “May you be very happy, dear child. He is worthy of your love!” So there was a wedding in April, and the bride went contentedly to a small house, with one maid-of-all- work, instead of to the grand home Leon Parker had lost. But there •was happiness there the grand house might have been missed, for Meta had learned the secret of her own heart, and Leon Parker know that his wife came to him for love’s sake, and not for money. THE FATTED CALF (And the Well-Filled Turkey. Writteu for tlio Constitution. Hog killing is over at last. Wo had about made up our minds to kill ouo at a time as wo needed thorn and not cure any for bacon, but the weather got right and the moon was on the increase, and so we slayed them. I don’t care anything about the moon myself, but there arc some old family superstitions that tho meat will shrink in the pot if the tnoon is on the wane when yon kill ; t. The now moon is quite level this time, which is a sure sign it, will rain a good deal this month, or that it wont. Wo have pretty well disposed of this greasy business. 1 The little boys had a good time frying liver on the hot rooks and/roasting tails in the ashes, and blowing up balloons, and now if wo had a few darkeys to cook up the heads and clean the feet and fix up the skins for sausages and make a nioe lot of boucc, we could live like princes, but its troublesome work and cost more than it oomes to if we lmVo to do it ourselves. It dont pay iiow-a-days to be eating and cooking all the time. Its all a habit. Wo are bettor off with less grease and more 'bread and milk. The children dont stuff themselves aud kick around so.in tho night when faro is light and simple. It don’t take nodr so long to wash up the dishes, and then when we have some thing oktra it is enjoyed all the more. Nobody ought to eat unless they aij hungry, and if they are hungry.;j;hey will enjoy most anything It is bad philosophy for the house wife to |vorry herself fixing up some thing to tempt a reluctant appetite, The appetite ought not to bo tempt )( h Bftfc I am not like Goldsmith’s her in l fj^S^me'affs wffeirnirsU'Td: Two Pictures. Miss Blanche Murray is a very proper young lady. Last week she happened to catch her little brother smoking. “You terrible tiling,” she hissed, “I am going to tell father on you!” “This is only com silk,” murmur ed tho boy penitently. “I don’t care what it is. I am going to Ml on yon, and see that you don’t get into that beastly, hor- ritt; degradingTrpiTT-X"lvouIdnT havo anything to do with smokers.” II. It is evening. Miss Murray is sit ting on the front stoop with Alger non. It is moonlight, and the redo lent spirits of the honeysuckle and syringa are wafting bliss to thoir al ready intoxicated souls. “Would little bird object to my smokjng a cigarette?” “Not at all,” replied Miss Murray. “I like cigarettes, they are so fra grant and romantic. I think they are just too delicious for anything.” “Do, and blow some of the smoke iu my face; it is so soothing and dreamily paradisic.” Then ho lights a cigarette, and they talk about the weather for two hours and a half. A Kentucky girl wants the logis- j! i ‘ lature to compel men to marry or to support old maids locks that roam the valley free To slaughter I condemn: Taught cy that power that pities me, I learn to pity them." Fish, flesh and fowl wore made for us to eat, and I enjoy them without conscientious scruples, though I al ways did feel bad to see an innoconb chicken jumping aimud for five minutes with its head off. I like to see such animals as we have to kill ’or food die culin aud sorono like an oyster. Maybe Edison will fix up a little electric'battery that will fill tllfc bill, and all wo will have to do will bo to touch a wire to a hog or cow and they will surrender without a kick or pang. Tiro other day we concluded to sacrifice a well fed steer and so, to make quick work of it I put fifteen buckshot in my big, long deer-gun and blazed away■ at him about ten feet off, but he just stood there ou his dignity, and tho only sign he made was a shake of the head. We waited a mi mute for him to drop, but he turned around and walked off, and we found all tho .bul lets lying in a pile on tho ground and as flat as buttons. Well, we had a time of getting a rope over his horns and hauling him up to a post and knocking him with an axo on the back of his head—all of which is very disiurreeablo. Bo|ne_ folks are very sensitive and. courso, she will havo some of tho ‘dressing.”’ You see, I thought that dressing was generally worn outsido, but it seems that a turkey is not dressed until it is undressed. Well, she overlooked mo when the pie was seut around, sho overlooks me a groat deal, and rhon I vontur ed to'remind her that I would tako some of the desert she said sho didn’t lmve any of the Sahara, but maybe a dessert of^mincc pie would do you just as well. We took tea at a mtbors house onco aud when the servant handed mo a little glass dish of peaches in a Waiter, 1 thought the whole concern was for me and sot it, downr by my plate. But ray wife, Mrs. Arp, she watches me pretty close and whispered to me tako some of tho preserves if I wanted any, as the servant was waiting for the dish. •So after a while I was handed a saucer of canned poaches, and when I took one out and put it on my plate my wife, Mrs. Arp, kindly requested mo to eat. out of tho saqcor., She had hover got reconciled to the way I embibed my coffee, for you see I pour it out. .into tho saucer, and when I try to tako it from the oup it burns mo so I have to give it up. Some folks will enduro a,heap for stylo, bnt I am too did to begin it now. I think I‘do pretty well con sidering all tiling^ and desorvo credit for whenever company oomes and they got to playing cards, I lot thorn play until mid flight, for my wife, Mrs. Arp, is very fond of cards, and so, when my bed-time coinis, I sot up and nod in the chipf until she gets through. Sho is a wondorful whist playor and I have no doubt if sho held as good hands as tho other sido^sho would boat t ( hem all tljo time, but some how the cards are not A day or two ago a woman entered a telegraph office and said to the re ceiver of mossages, that she desired to telegraph to her husband, who was in Chicago, for money. He pointed her to tho counter supplied with blanks, and tolk her tho rate for ton words, Sho trugglod away for a quarter of an hour and then handed in tho following: “Won’t you please send me #10 by next mail?” “I don’t know whether that will do or not,” she said, as sho felt for hor money. “If you wero to receive such a dispatch from your wife would you forward the money?” nil OUMII'l" ••• •M.i.’iy, mii in is against hor, aim so sho k.oops i playing in hope that lUck ; wiil olniu up their feelings, which is very com mendable, bnt I notico*it dont har row up their appetite to set down be fore a big, fat, smoking turkey gob bler. The fact is there would bo a kind of vacuum in domestic life without a turkey to grace tho dinner- table once or twice in awhile. My wife, Mrs. Arp, is so partial to turkey that I remarked to her one day that I reckon it must be angel’s food. Sho seems to have a dreadful time of it teaching mo manners and style. The last time we had turkey wo had company, and when I asked the lady if she woujd havo some of this fowl my wife, Mrs. Arp, sho looked at me indignantly and said: “William that is not fowl—it is turkoV’ When I asked tho lady if sho would have some of tho stuffing, Mrs. Arp, my wife, observed sarcastically, “Of on liangcP after awhile, for sho says “it is a long lane that never turns.” She has a rule of hor own about trumps. like to see folks keep tho^good things for tho last, and this is her reason for playing tho king when sho has the king and aco in hor hand. Cards are a good invention. Foi old pooplo especially they aro a relief to tho tired mind* It is a sociable pleasant recreation. When iny wife lias been sewing and working all the day long and the children have been put to bed it brightons hor up to take a little game and if sho comes out ahead I notice it makes her so amia ble and sorono. Sho bouts me so often 1 havo ceased to bo interesting, for sojnehow whonover I hold a good hfiffid I make a misdeal or play it so badly, she wins the gamo anyhow, whioh is all well enough considering for I always did liko to see things take a pleasant direction. I used to think this everlasting sowing‘busi ness would stop sometimo, and the poor woman havo rest, but.it don’t. She used to’do* it all by hand, and when she got a Wheelor & Wilson I thought the long agony was over, but it ain’t. The machino is going all tho time as hard as it can, but nOw- many flounces and frills, and niffios “Well—well, I might,” ho roplied lii doubtful tones. “Now, yon waitl I don’t liko this dispatoh at all, bojoauso I tried to keep it within ton words. I’ll write another;” She tore it up, walked to tho counter, and in three minutes hand ed in a now one, rondmg: “Am out of food and fuel, and >yant ton dollars as soon us you cau got it here! If you can’t spare it I’ll spout tho parlor oarpot 1” “That would bring tho money from mo,” said the received, ns ho read the lines and marked .the ntunbor of words. ‘Then I guoss it \Vill from him. Send it ukmg, and if I don’t get tho monoy inside of two days you’ll hoar somebody ripping up forty yards of Brussels carpet’off the llool” “And, oil, Edward,” said the girl that he was going to loavo behind him, “at every .stopping place be burn you write, then go ahead.” [par Paris, Ky., a negro stole a hog. that this was anything unusual put tho loop, thus fonnod around his HOC k. nTU ~ 1 :i; sorts, that it looks like Wheeler Wilson nor anybody elso can’t keep up with thorn. I wonder how Rachel and Leah and Rebecca and Ruth got along without needlos and thread and a travelling trunk, and corsets and ribbons and a new bon net, and were they ever disabled from going to church for the want of something to wear. But it’s all right, I reckon, any way, for they are lovely creatures, whether they havo got something to wear or nothing, and it lines look like wc can’t do without them in this subloonary world, though tho Scrip tures do intimate that wo wont han ker after tjiem in tho noxt. Yours, Him. Am*. Wlioii he climbed a fence ho The hog fell on one side of tho fonco and lie on the other. The man’s neck w is broken; and when found lie was dead. Yon may moot with twenty men in the day who stutter, but you nev er hoard of a woman who had an im pediment in her apoooh, The fathor with nino marriageable daughters must havo engaged in tho belle foundry businoss. Ho looked as wise as an owl, he did, his tricks wore well adjusted; ho declined to advertise, you see, and in a year lie busted. What a dear delightful state of un certainty politics would bo thrown in to if women voted. Evory time a girl ■Changed her sweetheart, sho would change hor politics. There is no remedy for lovobut to love more. Nothing so quickly dries a woman’s tears as a kiss.—Exchange. Do you want to sot all tho girls to crying? Tho two most important events in the life of man are when ho examines coin- top of It very frequently happons that tho girl who lias the most bang to hor hair, has the hggest holes in hor heels of hor stockings. * Father (who is ulwuys trying to teach his boy how to act while at table)—“ Well, John, you seo that when I have finislTed eating I leave t ic table,’ John— ‘Yos, sir, and t nit is abut all you do leave.’ The onl is when beau. ily h< they housework some girls do dust around after a You might as well back a mule up against a boohivo and tell him not to kick as to toll a woman about a wed-* ding and not'sot her under jaw in iqqi tjon. This is reliable. “How long shall girls bo courted asks ail English newspaper. Not luter than two o’clock iu the morning, we think, excepting when it rains.

Georgia Historic Newspapers

The Dublin post. (Dublin, Ga.) 1878-1894, January 28, 1880, Image 1