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THE SOUTHERN WORLD, AUGUST 16,1882.
§omq §it[clq.
Iff THE WHEAT FIELD.
I»Y PAUL HAMILTON HAYME.
Home and Farm.
When the lids of the virgin Dawn unclose,
When the earth Is fair and the heavens are calm,
And the early breath of the wakening rose
Floats on the air In balm,
I stand breast-high In the pearly wheat
That ripples and thrills to a sportive breeze,
Borne over the Held with Its Hermes feet,
And 1ts subtle odor of Southern seas;
While out of the Infinite azure deep
The flashing wings of the swallows sweep,
Buoyant and beautiful, wild and fleet,
Over the waves of the whispering wheat.
Aurora faints In the fulgent Are
Of the Monarch of Morning's bright embrace,
And the summer day climbs higher and higher
Up the cerulean space;
The pearl-tints fade from the radiant gruln,
And the sportive breeze of the ocean dies,
And soon In the noontide's soundless rain
The field seems gruced by a million eyes;
Koch grain with a glance from Its lidded fold,
As bright as a gnome's In his mine of gold,
While the slumbrous glamour of beam and heat
Glides over and under the windless wheat.
Yet the languid spirit of lazy Noon,
With Its minor and Morphcan music rife,
Is pulsing In low, voluptuous tune
With summer's lust of life.
Hark 1 to the droning of drowsy wings,
To the honey-bees as they go and come,
T6 the "boomer,”* scarce rounding his sultry rings,
The gnat's small horn and the beetle’s hum ;
And hurk to the locust!—noon's one shrill song—
Like the tingling steel of an elfin gong.
Grows lower through quavers of long retreat
To swoon on the dazzled and distant wheat.
Now Day declines! and hls shafts of might
Are sheathed In a quiver of opal haze;
Still through the chastened, but magic light,
What sunset grandeurs blaze!
For the sky, In its mellowed luster, seems
Like the realm of a master poet’s mind—
A shifting kingdom of splendid dreams—
With fuller and fairer truths behind ;
And the chungeful colors that hlend or part,
Kbb like the tides of a living heart,
As the splendor melts and the shadows meet
And the tresses of Twilight trail over the wheat.
Thus Kve creeps slowly and shyly down,
And the gurgling notes of the swallows cease,
They flicker aloft through the foliage brown,
In the ancient vesper peace;
But a step like the step of a conscious fuwn
Isstealtng-with many a pause—this way.
Till the hand of my Love through mine Is drawn,
Her heart on mine, in the tender ray ;
O hand of the lily, O heart of truth,
O Love, thou art faithful und fond as Ruth ;
But / am the gleaner—of kisses—Sweet,
While the starlight dawns on the 'dimpling wheat!
•The humhlr, or us commonly culled, “bumble-bee.”
“ l»EK*ONAI/’-KirTY OLOVEH.
Kitty Wheat used to plead in extenuation
of the pranks that mude her the plague of
the house as a child, the torment of teach*
ers und delight of schoolmates as a girl, that
site was predestined to mischief as the sparks
to fly upward.
She looked like a sparkle of very lively
flame on u certain Suturday afternoon which
she hud spent with her two •‘ownest" friends
—Sophie James and Jennie Hurt.
"A weury, muddy lane walled in on both
sides!" complained Kitty, to-day. "Stagna
tion is a sort of miusmayic poison to one of
my temperament. 1 suppose this is the
feverish stage of ennuf.”
But 1 uiu almost sure it was not Kitty with
whom originated the idea of answering a
“personal" in the somewhat equivocal cor
ner of an otherwise respectable newspuper.
Sophie called her attention to it in the iirst
place.
“Who, do you think writes such tilings,
and why?" said that young lady, who wus
Kitty’s senior by a whole year.
“Lazy people who have no brains, and take
it for granted there arc others in the world
as foolish and idle as themselves," rejoined
sixtcen-ycur old Kitty, sensibly.
Then she read the advertisement aloud:
“A young man of fair education and
breeding, with little taste for the frivolous
routine of fashionable society, desires to
open a correspondence with a young lady of
kindred tastes. The object of the proposed
exchange of letters is mutual improvement
in Intelligence and in the expression of
thought and feeling. Any young lady an
swering this advertisement may trust to the
word of a gentleman, that her communica
tion shall be treated with delicacy and her
confidence held sacred. Address
"Martin Kxlloou, P. O. Box 1380."
“A proposal extraordinary!” observed
Kitty, laying down the paper and taking up
the macrame lace she was netting.
“So Jeanie and I said,” returned Sop'hie,
animatedly. “Not at all like a vulgar, or
dinary personal. But 1 wonder if he would
really be content to exchange views with his
incognita upon such matters as tend to ‘mu
tual improvement?’ "
“I should like no better fun than to put
him to the test if 1 were not an ignoramus
who can’t write ten words without misspell*
ing one,” said Jeanie. “He is evidently an
educated gentleman.”
Kitty dropped shuttle and thread to re
read the personal. She was no ignoramus,
and she knew it. Her chirography was re
markably beautiful; her sprightly compo
sitions were the pride of the school. She
could sustain the role of “L'Amie Incon-
nue" in literary, artistic and social discus
sion better than any other girl of her “set.”
She would not have said it aloud, but this
was what she was thinking in acertoin closed
back-chamber of her brain, when Sephie
chimed in with—
“If I had your skill with the pen and your
ready wit, Kitty, I would write one letter
at least—tentatively, you know. You would
never be found out. It would be glorious
fun to lead him further and further and fur
ther into the fog.”
In reviewing the scene in other days,
Kitty lost the succession of indiscreet steps
at this point; could not be sure if she sat
down ut Sophie's desk of her own free will,
or if she wus coaxed or bantered into begin
ning to write. She knew that she soon be
came interested in the letter of four pages
to “My stranger friend," dated "Cave of
Trophonius. A snowy afternoon," and
signed, by a sudden thought, “Kitty Clover.”
The girls applauded each sentence when
she read it over to them. Every nerve and
vein of the three was tingling with frolic
and expectancy. Martin Kellogg was to ad
dress “Miss Kitty Clover," under cover to
Mrs. James Aiulruss, a former trusted ser
vant of Jeanie Hurl’s mother, but now mar
ried to a respectable tradesman.
Three days later, Kitty goinggaily singing
through the hall of her own home was ar
rested by the imperative ring of the tele
phone close by. Tiny! ting! ting! ting!
"13!" Kitty grasped the transmitter.
“Halloa!”
Kitty always insisted to her somewhat
shocked mother, that everybody said “Hal
loa,” in such circumstances. "It was a tele
phonic technicality,” the minx would add,
magniloqueiilly.
"Is that Kitty Clover?” said Jeanie’s voice.
Kitty laughed : “Sometimes, and to some
people.”
"I have a letter for you," called Jeanie
far more loudly and shrilly than was neces
sary, after the manner of most telephoning
damselB. "Come over at once! We are
dying of curiosity!”
The Harts lived just around the corner,
and in live minutes more the three bright
young faces hung over the important docu
ment. It was longer than Kitty's by two
puges; the chirography was free and firm ;
the composition a tissue of respectful perti-
Jlaye, a pugc or two of graver import and
much grateful flattery of his fair correspon
dent.
“And no.sentimentality !” Kitty drew a
relieved breath. “This is better than we
hoped for. No, my dear girls,” as both be
gan to speak eagerly. “We will not flatter
Martin- by an immediate reply. Wuit a
week.”
Before the allotted time had passed, a sec
ond letter arrived. Martin was evidently
impatient. But his tone was even more
guarded than at first; the subject matter of
the epistle unobjectionable. The current
news was discussed; a paragraph given to a
municipal election, und a page to European
affairs. The weather und lost tiubbuih’s
church-services received due notice.
“I believe he is fifty years old!” cried
Kitty catching up her pen.
She began her reply thus: “ Venerable
man! You have come down to us from a
former generation!”
As such, she addressed him with playful
familiarity of which she was scarcely con
scious herself, thanking him for the "patri
archal wisdom of his essay,” and the valu
able items of useful knowledge he sought to
instil into her youthful mind, with much
more badinuge that ran off of itself from
the point of her pen.
On the next day but one, number three
was brought to Jeanie by Mrs. Andruss,
wnile the three friends sat togethep over
their lessons. Jeanie took the envelope as
bad been aranged between them, but as soon
as the woman had gone, passed it over to
Kitty.
"It is very heavy. I believe he has sent
you his photograph!” she said, in a half-
frightened, half-laughing tone.
Kitty took it with the tips of her fingers,
undid the thick folds with the air of one
who feared to let loose a spider or a toad.
“Ach I" she ejaculated, when the expected
object fell into her lap. 8ophie seised it.
A floridly-tinted photograph of a vulgar
looking fellow, with black eyes, waxed
mootteohe, studded shirt-front auud uuo*
tious smile, sitting sideways in his chair the
better to hang a ringed hand over the back.
“A regular ‘Bowery Boy!" said Jeanie
horrified to whispering.
Poor Kitty’s face sank into her hands.
“Girls! girls! what have I done? What
shall I do ? '
"Read the letter!” suggested Sophie. "It
can’tbesobad as the picture.” It was no
better. Kitty's inch was made the warrant
for an ell so liberal that reader and listeners,
rattlers and madcaps as they were, were
shocked into the severest propriety. Kitty
sat like an image of gray stone. Her
pretty lips were tight lines of such misery,
that Sophie began to cry, and Jeanie to re
volve some form of possible consolation in
her mind.
“After all,” she brightened up to say,
“there is no real barm done. It is as easy to
drop the—the—wretch—as it was to take him
up. Mary is as close as wax, and knows
next to nothing besides. All that we have
to do is to burn the picture and letters as
fast as they come."
“I feel as if my hands were dirty!” sighed
Kitty, looking down at them. But I never,
never thought once that I was writing ail
that stuff to a real dreadful man! Look at
that watch chain! I know it is brass; And
the ineffable smirk of that Curl in the mid
dle of his forehead, stiffened with quince-
seed water! I can actually smell the hair-
oii! Faugh!”
With the interjection the photograph
went into the lire und the letters followed.
“There!" Kitty’ heaved a deep-drawn
sigh, watching the burning. “I have had
my lesson—and paid well for it!”
Bite made further puyment in lacerated
self-respect and harassment during the en
suing fortnight. Martin Kellogg wrote four
times, twice per week, each epistle being
more familiar in style than its predecessors.
He wus losing sleep and flesh, he averred,
under her cruel silence. He left a mighty
bouquet at Mrs. Andruss’s house with the
fourth letter.
Jeanie made a cremation of flowers and
letters in her chamber, Kitty looking on in
anguish that was beginning to tell upon
health and looks. 'Like a bound captive,
she waited the cessation of persecution, or
further and crucial developments.
She was practicing witli mechanical dili
gence one evening almost three weeks after
the receipt of her corrrspondent’s photo
graph ; her father and eldest brother had
gone out; her mother was confined to her
room by a sick-headacbe; the two younger
boys were busy above stairs with lessons;
dropping her hands listlessly upon the keys
at the close of adilllcult exercise, something
—not sound or motion, but an indefinable
expression ut unolber presence besides tier
own in the room—made her glance around.
A man stood within three feet of her.
She had never seen him before, but as she
started up he saw that he wus recognized.
"Miss Wheat, I believe!” lie suid. in oily,
insinuating tunes. "Alitu, Kitty Clov.-r!”
"Who are you?” Her sharp, thin voice,
so unlike her usual speech, startled even her
self. “And what do you mean ?”
He held outun upen letter, silently point
ing to the signature, smiled more broadly,
and took a clmir, uninvited.
“1 don’t comprehend!” stammered miser
able Kitty, ubout whom the lighted room
was growing black, while the floor rocked
and sank under her feet.
“You were quicker of wit on the 8th of
January, when I chanced to be in the cen
tral office of the Telephone Company, chat
ting with my sister, who is one of the ope
rators there. Kind Fate led me close to the
instrument as a voice culled, ‘Is that Kitty
Clover?” and an angel answered, ‘Borne times,
and to some people!’ ’’
Kitty, deathly sick, sank upon a sofa,
wringing her hands.
"On! if you’d only go away I It was
nothing but fun with us girls. I never
dreamed of ever seeing you!”
“And do you find me so frightful, then?”
said the fellow, his leer intensifying the dis
agreeable smile.
The room seemed filled with his breath la
den with brandy fumes. Kitty jumped up
and backed towards the door.
“Papa!" she called, faintly and brokenly,
aaln a nightmare.
“I met your father and brother on my
way up-town,” remarked Martin Kellogg,
coolly. “Sit dowu and talk rationally.
What harm can come to you through my
visit? Why should we not be friends? Why
should not friendship in time ripen into a
warmer feeling?”
Kitty looked at him, her eyes wide with
horror and abhorrence.
“All the Mine, I stay here for awhile (” be
uttered, insolently, tipping his chair back
and crossing his legs. “You owe me some
thing for not answering my last love-letters.”
Kitty tried to rise.
“Sit down,” ordered Kellogg.
A hollow roaring filled Kitty’s ears. “I
must wake up presently! I must! I mint/”
she repeated to herself, pinching her chill
fingers.
She turned and ran as for her life up to
iier room, bolted the door and fell on the
bed.
Mr. Wheat and hls son returned home at
10 o’clock. There was no one in the parlor,
but the gas burned there brightly, and an
overturned chair lay in the middle of the
floor.
"What a smell of stale cigar-smoke and
liquor!" observed the aitonished master of
the house.
“Papa! 0 my dear papa!” Kitty flew
down the stairs and fell into his arms. “I
thought you never would come! And that
he would never go away! I am so glad!”
Mr. Wheat was a just parent, and his lec
ture after hearing the confession was severe.
He dearly loved his only daughter, and
while he chided, he did not put her out of
his embrace.
“It is all over now!" sighed exhausted
Kitty, and before sinking into the first sound
slumber she had known for weeks.
She exulted too soon, miscalculated the
talents of her “stranger-friend.”
Baffied and vindictive, he was yet too
shrewd to make himself personally liable to
the active indignation of her natural pro
tectors. He could, and he did, ply her with
anonymous letters in various feigned hands,
full of his spiteful criticism of her manner,
appearance and behavior, all testifying to
the close watch he kept upon her move
ments, although she never saw him.
No one could prevent, or foresee, the arri
val of presents-still anonymous—of bon
bons, flashily-bound cheap literature and
flowers. In these and oilier ways, he haunt
ed the poor child, until she hardly dared
stir out of doors, or open a parcel.
To avert the nervous fever that seemed
imminent, her parents took a sudden reso
lution to send her, under her brother's es
cort, to visit an aunt whose home was in
Chicago. Kitty's native city did not see
her again until the following autumn. Her
tormentor was weary of the chase then, or
had removed from town, for he never crossed
her patli again.—Marion Harland, in Youth’$
Companion.
The Sheep and the Chamois.
A chamois once came down from its moun
tain home to graze in a rich valley, and
while there met a well-fed and contented
sheep. After an exchange of cordial greet
ings, the sheep, noticing the thinness of his
friend, expressed great pity for him, com
miserating hls hard lot in being compelled
to inhabit rough and inhospitable moun
tains, where food was scarce and the climate
severe.
“ 1 have, as you see,” suid the sheep, “ the
richest pasturage that the land affords. I
have, also, a comfortable house, that affords
me shelter from the storm, and a protection
against wolves."
"You may spare your pity," said the
chamois, in reply. “ My lot is not so hard
us you deem it. Thu conditions that
you think so unfavorable to my happiness,
tend to secure it. I dwell among icy crags,
it is true, but the hunter cannot reach my
home. The pasturage afforded by the moun
tains is indeed meagre, but I eat my food in
safety. The rocks are a hard couch at best,
but 1 sleep in peace. I am sometimes hun
gry and shelterless, but I am always free.
Excuse me if I prefer a hard life, with free
dom, to an easy life without it, and deem it
better to perish of hunger on the mountains
than to grow fat in the rich verdure of the
valley, only to die at last by the hand of the
butcher.”
Just then the shepherd approached, armed
with a glittering knife.
“Alas! my poor friend,” aald the chamois,
“ you must even now meet your fate. It is
the end of ail your happiness. As for me, I
will breath once more the mountain air, and
find safety among the avalanches, and on
the barren rocks.”
What appear to be hard conditions in life,
oftentimes secure to men the most dearly
prized treasures, while ease and luxury
weaken, enslave, and destroy their victims.—
Paul Peregrine.
Bruised peachtree. leaves applied to a
wound caused by a rusty nail, will remove
the pain immediately and prevent lockjaw.
Moistened soda applied to a burn will re-
lw tip pain immediately.