The Cedarville Herald, Volume 12, Numbers 27-52
4 • .. The Cedarville Herald VT. H. BLAIR, Fubllsber. CEDAEVILLE, : : ; OBIO. HER ARGUMENT. Well, bo , not handsome Inthe least—bla figure’* straight and tall; He bM good teeth and roguish eyes, nloo hair, his bands are small. Onevery block yen'll meet*man much hand somer than he, Bnt, then, I lore him—thatmakes all the differ- enoe, you see. Not rich—far from it. He Is Just a book-keeper down-town. . Of course bis salary can't'be much; be works for Black &Brown. . I dare say we shall have to take the smallest kind of flat - To start with; but I love himsd I shall not care for that. He Isn't talented at all. He doesn't paint nor sing, Nor rhyme; nor show, Indeed, a speoial taste for any thing' , . ' Out of thecommon way. He smokes more than he ought to do; Bnt then, Zloro him, so Tve learned to loro to- banco, too. And, yes, he has a temper—be Is not an angel ' quite. •, , . He scolds me often; but I think he’s nearly si- ways right. ■ 1 / Aid cron if be- wasn't I should try to think be • was, ’ ■ .. ■ -Bscauso 'twould break my heart to really quar rel; and because— - Oh'l just because. And I can't help it—that ex- plains It best. It doei'n'tr Well, then, nothing will. You think I am possessedf . You say I makemyself a slave; andwonder bow ... j l cant ' ' . . . 1 But,'dear, I see yon don’ t know what It is to . love a man. . . —Madeline S. Brldgos, InJudge. A R O JW A f iC E T W O B R O T H E R S . ’ . BY EDGAR FAWCETT, A uthor or ‘‘T he C onfessions or C laud ," “A n A mbitious W oman ,” “T he Era. T hat M en Do," “A N ew Y ork ■ / family ,” etc . * ■ r LCopyrlght, 1890, .By Edgar Fawcett.] CHAPTER IV.—C ontinued . “Andyou don’t mindbeing left alone?” Sbe shrugged her firm' and shapely Bhouldera. “ I never care to. be alone. But I don’t mind if Sylvan leaves me now and then. It isn’t that.” . Thprndyko pretended to appear dis mayed. “What are these dreadfpl rev elations? You want other society than Sylvan’s?” She gave him the faintest smilo of in difference, ns though she ignored this, question, or rather as though she chose to put it Capriciously aside. T m very fond of life,” she said, slipping both hands behind her head and clasping them there, so that her hack-fallen sleeves evidenced the swelling pearl of her arms, from neat wrist to dimpled ■ elbow. “But life as I long to' have it and know it isn’t for mo. Sylvan cares nothing nt all about Iking , in. my eenso of the word.” ‘ “ And pray toll me what i»your sense of thoword?” . "Oh! to mix with people and enjoy y oui*youth. He doesn’t care to do that. Besides, we haven’t money enough to do it, lie doesn’t complaim about any slimness o f the household purse. He lets mo spend more dollars than I ought to spend. But we’re nobodies—that is, ■ we’re nobodies from tny point of view.” "And what is being a somebody hero in New York—from your point of view?” "Having lots of money—giving fine entertainments. You’re a nonentity here, if you don’t. It doesn’t make the remotest difference who your grandfa ther was. If you haven’t a big hank account you're sent to the wall,” “ And you're tired of being sent to the wall?” Lucia Maynard sighed. “ I’m tired of not living.” "And you think that not being fash ionable is not living?” "Oh, no. But I think not lenowing certain people—refined, attractive peo ple—is almost like death itself.” Thorndyko drooped his head for a moment and pulled at his gray mus tache. “Well, after all, is death so horrible?” , "Death?” she echoed, with a sudden fierceness of mien, "Oh, I think it is frightful! I do so hate the idea of dy ing! Don’t you?" And as she leaned toward him, with the light a near lamp sending out the clcar-cut grace and pal lor of her neck, throat-and chin, it oc curred to him that she was extremely beautiful, Not unnaturally ho thought of the sealed manuscript which of late ho had delivered to her husband. And then, while remembering this, he also recol lected the elixir (that “ infernal non sense” as he bad long ago got to call it) which might very probably have formed the gist and pith of Egbert Maynard’s bequest* " "If you so hate the doom ofdying," he said, Inwardly stirred by the idea of his own boldness and imprudence, "you might perhaps have read with interest the farewell lines which Sylvan’s father left lilm and which I delivered to him cm his twenty-fifth birthday. Or, it may be, your husband did net show you what 1 gave him. If that is true, then ‘Yes, yea,” she broke In, with An AMsraoM that vras violence. “He did 4 m w me that letter—-that singular let- lev. I— t have ha«n thinking of it ever mUnfrora hiiMftt taa»’tkM»auriai: idwell ing on It. Did yon not consider it a most amazing message?” “ I might judge better,” repliedThorn- dyke, "if 1 could know what it was like.” "Why, didn’t you know?” she fal tered. "1 thought yon were hia inti mate friend.” ' “ I was—and at one time his very in timate friend. Though he never told me what was Inside that envelope, I can gness its contents.” He- continued speaking for some time and ended with these words: "Of course it was a wild dream of Egbert Maynard’s. Now and then the finest human intellects are be guiled just in this way.” He saw her face fall, and then watched her as she nervonsly bit her lips. "You speak from your own experience os a chem ist,” she said, and the ring of disap pointment in her voice was plain to him as would have been her tears if shed from the tronbled glooms of her eyes. “ I’m not a chemist,” Thorndyke hastened to reply; “ I’m a physician—or was.” 'Her looks brightened again. “Then you do not speak with any real cer tainty, after all.” . . “Ah, my dear lady! As if one could not be sure we had left the elixir of life and the philosopher’s stone both very far indeed behind!” "But this liquefaction of electricity which Sylvan’s dead father describes—• for which he offers the very formula of preparation—would you assert that to be impossible?” "I would—yea." ' Lucia mused for a moment, and then gave her head .so earnest a -negative shake that its flossy bronze-brown loops of hair emitted dashes in the lamplight like those from polished mahogany. * “But you arc stating, ,in so many words,” she exclaimed, "that Egbert Maynard was a madman.” "There are many sane madmen in the world," ;• She struclc the edge of her chair im patiently with one clenched hand. "That is no answer. So many things no more wonderful than’ his assumed’ inventionMrehappened. To concentrate the vital principle of all existence—I sec nothing more extraordinary in it than to achieve the telegraph, the telephone. At least, I can’t understand why it should be scoffed at before it is tried.” Thorndyke laughed. "I don’t scoff at' it,” he said. “ But it is. like having some one tell you.that ho had construct ed an apparatus by means of’which you could see round a corner.” ' “ 1 can'imugiao such an apparatus he- ing constructed.” • ."Ono can imagine the miraculous,” conceded Thorndyke, with a smile of skeptic amusement gleaming between his gray-bearded lips. “ But 1 don’t suppdsc that your husband will object to testing the truth or falsity of what bis father so firmly believed.” • ■ : . Lucia once more Shook her head, and this time with a forlorn motion. “Ob ject! You don’t know him. lie's al ready afraid of that prescription as though it were a cobra.” "Afraid of it?” , "Assuredly.” “ And why?*’ queried “Thorndyke, with a sudden recollection of how his dead friend's djrud wife had once de ported herself. ‘ ; “Why?” Lucia repeated. She made a quick little gesture of exasperation and disgust. “He’s a tremendously relig ious man, this husband of mine. Didn't ytm know that? Haven’t you seen it? I think that from some sacred sense of fil ial respect lie would never destroy those papers. But lie's alrendy locked them up somewhere, and regrets that he Over allowed me to guln a glimpse of them.” “ You say that lie’s afraid of them?” asked Thorndyke, pierced with memo- ljcs of G<orgina Maynard’s past be havior. “ Yes. ' They fill him with horror. I don't know if he has any .faith in the chemical marvels they suggest. But he remembers that his mother more than once told him of how his father died an infidel,” t "Ah!” said her listener, drawmgalong breath. He felt ns if some specter were in the room, viewless and yet palpable. "I sec, Sylvan believes—” "That there would be something blasphemous about such an achieve ment,” broke in Lucia, "even if it could possibly he made." She rose, and for a moment appeared to listen intently. “That Is he now,” she at length said, in a quick, low, warning way; ami al most immediately Sylvan entered. The doctor stayed for nearly an lionr longer, hut during this time there was no resumption of the subject on which Ills wife and Thorndyke had been en gaged. "lie wishes to let it pass un mentioned from this time forward,” the doctor told himself. “ Ah! how heredity speaks here! And what a difference between the brothers! It is so easy to imagine Oerfild full of ardor to try the truth of what his father has asserted, instead of being browbeaten at the outset by paltry, superstitious fears.” As more days went on, the doctor felt piqued by Sylvan’s continued reticence. Not to volunteer ono syllable regarding a trust faithfully, kept for many years! Suck a course was tinctured with the dis-relisli of ernde manners, to say noth ing of it more severe. By this time Thorndykc’fl tom of, sojourn In New York had almost drawn to a close. H« had found that his investments and gen eral business interests as a property- holder in and near Chicago made it in convenient if not quite impossible to remain much longer in the East. Iks-, aides, he had become fond of the huge town that has sprung up with so magi* a speed if iierhaps with an over-great willingness to be a trifle too impressed lyr itself as a prodigy. * Ho felt actual bome-sick longings to gaze again on some of those very features of it which long ago, as an immigrant Englishman, he had roundly ridiculed. He decided that he would make no attempt to break the ice with Sylvan. , It was ice of the young man’s own freezing; let it stay rigid if he so wUled. Pressing letters came from Chicago, .and Thorndyke resolved to start at onoe. Before doing sohe said to Sylvan that his brother would soon arrive in New York and that it would of course he better for Gerald to remain there a month or so before going into the West. “ As regards your brother’s feelings on the question of practising his new pro fession either here or to Chicago," he continued, "that is a matter which! shall want him wholly to decide for himself. My friend, Dr. Clyde, in East Thirtieth street, will always be bis friend and counsellor. . Clyde is young, and a trifle too imaginative I sometimes think for a physician." But he is im mensely clever, has won a brilliant repute os a specialist in nervous dis eases, and promises me that he wiU aid Gerald in every possible way." Sylvan seemed to reflect for a brief while on the frank and genial sentences just heard. “ Thank you very much,” he presently said. “ You have been so kind to Gerald that I am sure he must appreciate it most gratefully.” • “Confound the fellow!” Thorndyke said to himself after quitting Sylvan’s, door-step. “Ho couldn’t give me any heartier or more graceful answer than that! I can understand how hh> legal ability has already made him a lawyer with strong promise of success. Thank fate for the few men in this world who are not bom cither flint or pulp. I be gin to think that character is the one thing .we crave in our fellow-mortals, whether it be saintly or devilish.” And then a self-accusing smile gleamed on Dr. Thorndylco’s face as ho moved onvyard amid the ugly brown- stone perkiness and “stylishness” of Fifth avenue; “ After all," his mnsings proceeded, “what character have I ? If ever there was a being without the vaguest social individuality, such a biped is Ross Thorndyke.” . . No doubt he was right in just the social sense of winch he had made men tal note. But when all is said, how often more potent as a factor of life is the heart richly brimming with, kind ness, the brain full of fraternity, hu- manitarianisin, help! Those people who are “ individual,” who have angles of personality on which description can hang its essays of portraiture, are not by any means always the choicest to know, feel with and for, make friends of and cherish, in the surety of their stunding cogent tests. Thorndyko light ly denounced .himself as colorless, but LUCIA SPRANG UP PROM THE CHAIR. his place in whatever landscape of life this or that observer might have placed him would have resembled some strong and full-houghed tree which never in trudes itself with the least salicnoy and yet can not lie exiled from the picture without calamity of discord. He left the Maynard household, on taking his journey to Chicago, with thoughts of Sylvan that were hurt though not at all malevolent. He perceived, from certain parting worth; of Lucia's, delivered in aside while her husband was present, that affairs weighed onerously on her spirit. “He's more stubborn tlum ever," tlie young wife had found time swiftly to whisper, and her distressed under tone echoed itself in his ears like a knell tortured into fantastic cries by the train-olamors of his westward trip. He had indeed left Lucia in a very un happy frame of mind. The idea of the vO-named elixir had taken hold of her imagination with a savage though co vert force. Not loving her husband, she had thus far secretly exulted in the possession of a distinct power over him, seldom used, though relied on as a deep reserved fund. . Ills firm refusal that slio should again look upon the letter and manuscript lately delivered him, hud first astonished and then ired her. A coldness grew up between them, each being aware of tno other's renson for preserving it. But Lucia was the first to change these mutual conditions. Her dreams were now full of the precious drug concerning which Sylvan chose to maintain so piquing and mystic a si lence. Did he then believe in its efficacy? Had ho nequired some positive lmowl- edge on that head? T ip vary thought almost took Lucia's breath away. Her husband, as she could not help feeling quite certain, would scarcely hesitate between burying the bequest under profound sceresy nnd allowing just her self alone to profit by it, even were he sumthat it meant a genuine victory for science. The more that aho brooded over the chances of his piety taking this dog-in-the-manger form, the more she felt her nerves distressfully tingle. His Bcrnples of a religions kind had not seldom bored her since their marriage; but these affected her with shuddering moods of disgust and chagrin. On a certain evening, fouror five days aiter Thorndyko hod departed, Lucia and Sylvan sat together at dinner. Dessert and coffee had been placed jon the table; the servant had slipped from the room. They had just been speak ing (both rather listlessly) of Gerald’s Intended voyage, when all at onoe it pleased Lucia to say: . “One can't help wondering what you will teU your brother when he asks you about that packet which Dr. Thorn- dyke recently gave you." Sylvan started, colored, and then frowned a little. He prided himself upon his gentlemanlike manners, and she who listened to his voice had hardly ever heard it raised In shriller key than when lie now replied: ; “ Tell Gerald? I have not thought 'of mentioning the subject to him. Why should I do so, pray?” Lucia began to slide one white finger tip along the rinf of her purple finger- bowl. . “It would simply bo natural if you did tell him; that is all.” “ I don’t agree with you,” he anr swered, stolidly. , . “ You didn’t think it unnatural,” she said, “ to rebuff me when I questioned you on the same subject.” , “ 1 did not rebuff you. I gave you aU the information it was right to give. More than that, even. Better if 1 had preserved complete silence.” . . She flashed him a challenging look across the pretty little table, with its glimmers of silver and glass. “Why would it have been better?” she asked. “ What has caused you to rate me as unworthy of your confidences?” “ It isn’t that,” he retorted, brusquely enough, for him, and tossing his head with a show of the most unusual in tolerance. “I explained to you; I ex plained fully. Your curiosity is.unwar- ranted; it’s rapacious, in fact.” She gave a high, chill laugh. “ Be cause I’m interested in what struck me as the great work of a striking intel lect.” lie smiled sourly. “Of an impious mind.” .. “You’rp speaking ofyour own father.” “Yes—more’s the pity.” “And .then you hold his accomplish ment as merely impious? You don’t rank it as a- fine and successful stroke of scientific insight?” Ho answered, at first, with a dogged shake of the head. “ I don’t know any thing about the brain-power it displays. Nor do I want to know. I’ve hidden the thing away—locked it np. I ought to have burned it. It smells of Egbert Maynard’s atheism. Only the fact ’of his being my father has prevented me from destroying it. Some day I shall.. Some day I.feel that I shall.” .Lucia sprang up from her chair, with sparkling eyes and trembling lips. “ You shall not! You must not!” she exclaimed. . ’ •He stared at her as though dum- founded by her vehemence. “In the nnmo of God," he returned, “what has got hold of you? You’ve heen tt,differ ent woman for days. Is it those cursed pieces of paper? For a good while I’ve suspected they’d bewitch you. Now I’m sure they have!” . OF GENERAL INTEREST. . ch apter V. After he had thus spoken she moved quietly toward him until she stood be side "his chair. He at" once p e r c e i v e d that she had become extremely tran quil again. • Her voico soon gave himfurther proof ofthis, “ Ishouldnothavehehavcdsoex- citedly, Sylvan,” she said. “But reflect: for you to destroy those papers would bo dreadful. It would be an insult flung at your father’s memory. Whether they aro of any real worth or not, he left them to you with the desire that you should test the idea, the hypothesis which they contain.” _ He rose and faced her almost fiercely. “ I do not wish to test it!” ho declared. ‘My poor mother prepared me, long ago, for something like this in him. But I never thought that I should ho so con fronted with his ungodliness.” “ Ungodliness! you arc a manof sense, Sylvan, a lawyer, a weigher of the truth against—” “I am a man who reveres his Crea tor,” ho broke in. "I abominate this sort of attempt to fly in the face of Heavenly laws.” “ But you do not abominate the pliy- sician who seeks to save you from death.” “No physician presumes to prolong any life beyond its allotted time.” “Oh, Sylvan, Sylvan! What would you say of such logic as this if you heard it in the court-room?” Ho quite averted his look fora second or two. , Then lie turned to her again, tand said, in a voice full of repellent discords: "I see, Lucia. You believe that packet may hold in it some uncanny means by which you may defy death.” “If I had such a belief—” she began. “ It would lie horribly sinful.” “ But you simply assert; you deal with no proof.” “My heart tells mo more, In a eosn like this, thanmy brain could ever do.” “Wouldyou let your heart dictate to you in the shaping of some important legal decision?" “You insult me As » Christian,” hean swered. “There Is hardly any great danger of my jumbling together tbs spiritual andmundane.” [TOBAMMAOTOXO.] —Charles G. Lsland first gained fame by his “Hans Breitman Ballads." He has studied palmistry, made Nu llah poetry out of German verses, learned wood-carving, established art schools, and written various charming volumes about gypsies and other vug- rom men. ' —By placing two iron bars at seven or eight- yards, distance from each other, and putting them in communica tion on one side by an insulated copper wire and the other side with a tele phone, it is said that a storm can be predicted •twelve hours ahead, through a certain dead .sound heard in the re ceiver. • —^Printers in this town, says the New York Sun, and' elsewhere, have an odd fashion of using type for dice. .Each typo has on ono side small notches de signed to guide the printer so that he may set the letter right side up, or rather up-side down, as is the manner of printers. When type are thrown ns dice they are simply shaken in the palm of the hand nod cast upon a table. The value of the cast is determined by the number of notches turned up. . —The Danish society for the culture of heaths, with the support of the gov-' eminent, is rewooding one hundred; square miles of heath in Jutland. The work was begun in .1888 with one square mile.’ The society now nutn- berg fourteen^ thousand members and is enthusiastically supported by com munities and private individuals. Last year it purchased plants to the value of sixteen thousand dollars, and about sixty-seven thousand dollars are an nually expended for planting and culth vation of heaths. —Mme. Ferdinand de Lesseps, tbs second wife of France’s “Grand Old Man," is just four decades younger than her illustrious husband, and is de scribed as a lively and vivacious matron,' in whose veins run a mixture of En glish and Creole blood. She made her future husband’s acquaintance at a country .home wberc$* he was visiting, and where she was, engaged as a gov erness, and the great engineer declares that to her encouraging letters, mailed ,to him weekly whilst he was engaged in fighting the sand, the world.owes the Suez canal. ’ —Ringgold, Ga., was visited by-a wonderful phenomenon recently. Mil lions upon millions of fire-flies issued from neighboring mountain ridges and • took down the course of the Chiclia- mauga river, which skirts the city on the southern border. The pyrotechnic display was grand. Trunks of trees skirting the river were plainly visible n.qimrter of a mile distant, and the en tire mountain side was illuminated. The horde of fire-flk'S wus fully forty’ feet high, and it took a quarter of an hour to pass down the stream, extend- , ing over a mile along its course. —An enthusiastic fisherman in Con necticut enjoys the sport without sac rificing any of his homo comforts. His residence is on the Williraantic river. From a back window ho has strung a wire across to the top of a tree.. Just over a very good ^“ fishing hole” he has blocked the wire, and with a carrier nnd a reel ho slides his baited hook, sinker and line down the wire to the block. The contact releases the reel and as it unwinds the baited hook drops into the water and “ fishing” be gins. Sitting at home ho can feel the nibbles and bites, and a quick motion secures his prey and pulls it along tho wire to the house. —A negro was thrashed in Galveston by another negro on tho ground that he had attempted to separate the latter from his wife through voudooism. ■ While lie was on his way to a hospital in a patrol wagon he gave to a detective what is known among tho negroes as a “ jack,” which is thus described: “ It Is composed of several items, among others a certain bone of a ’graveyard rabbit, a finger nail taken from off tho finger of a dead man, some hair, load stone, a hone of a jet black cat, all sewed up in a small red flannel bag about the size of a very largo straw berry, and having some of the spmo shape and appearance.” ■ —A number of persons living in the vicinity of Rccdlev, Fresno county, Cal., all.reputable citizens, too, declare that they have seen and hunted two dragons with wings fifteen feet long, bodies without covering of hair or feathers, head broad, bills long and wide, eyes not less than four inches in diameter and with feet like, those of an alligator, though more circular in form. They had five toes on each foot, with a strong’ claw on each toe, anil the track is cloven inches wide and nineteen inches long. These monsters were first seen near Selma, Cal,, on the night of July 11, After they had made several appearances a party was organized to hunt them. Ono of them was wounded and tracked .several miles and his track in the mud secured. Nut to Be C iufiiti Here is An interesting story in regard to Phillips Brooks, tho newly-olected Episcopalian bishop: “Bishop Brooks is an old bachelor, and has always fought shy of matrimonial entangle ments. He is, however, tall, well-built and handsome. A few years ago, so the report goes, a wealthy widow, after falling to captivate him by her winsome ways, wrote to him offering him her hand, heart and fortune. He answered promptly, advising her to give her for tune to those in need, her heart to the Lord, and her hand to the man who aakod for it ”—N. Y. WitM«a V Among fu thy ergot • plum, povn! und ther com berry. Tin- rye, hut is members o f . blue grass ■ .• seems to be henge more hero. It a plant, anil . • shows itsc'l of the seed, serve a gn proper size, color (a and ergot, purj,;< the interior and a dens* posed of rou with an oil • when eaten, the anirusu cular com>v in some ei known as. - the affef'n Jn order to s of this fun sinning that grains lias that favora ' for its- deve in spring. ' tie stalks in round hotly these is cm will sue'tbai ities (peril) (d), In i (asci). 11!lei bodies (ase. ends one pc FUfvf ,TER first man R stry, mi errnan tstablis ions cl ind otl bars :e froi in com isulateil le witl • storn ahead, ledrd ii i , says i :e, havi or diet all not ter so ■ lit side, is the ' are tli shaker •st'upon detenu urned i for the .ort of i ono .Tutlni ISSG vi .ety noi rueinl lortcd ■ lividua . to the irs, am ollars -1 nting ai e Less s’s “Gr •cades i band, a various nixturci She a taintan le was gaged 1 iginccri letteri je was! .he .-woi 3 visiti ; recent fire-flit itain ri of the rts tho: I'he pyi Trunks, •c plain taut, an 1 .•ns ills was fu ■r A. Rye, bear!' . iniitinjr, n. show the rji mi nscus vd enwt-proilm gus. The pores) are r ai*e exceed i .rye is in b>< flower eiUu or rain, wii base of th.- and the ui’t. of size in : portion of begins In : the seed, :■ it is a pan at this ti-si• fungus. conidin n-:> droppim1’ n flower, an ergot. Oh . gotted .see may be go. such get ;u human be are on rn died from flour into been grou way to j' taken not avo toa grain is ve the nea size and a! describ Jlemoli 1 items with ergot of a g, •2. Nem ikon fro! of ergol-. some li 8 Befor it blari for H mini ved flai degree- I - ery lar; 4 . Inin i me of j vitriol in * •” | the seed careful !\ come in Orange .1 a qua: stream ts eours slierma •ort wit 0 coinfc 'illitnai no has ) of a tri ng- hol| 1 with- tis bait the wit sloases j .he bait tnd “ flsl i ho car a quid alls it bed in C l.ho gro tparate j ugh vo| sous livf Fresno izens, to: and 'ha fifteen' fl •ring of| Tlie i>; !, bills cerning t. an four , and in h.-»fc like th M" oore eir toes on y on eachi inches r These t elina, Ca er they I a par •m. Ono fracked a che to Magaiii. eial sj’i . little, T than tuir the Atm Sweet. ! cooked. • dishes Jn- A numb, Germany 'the mud are: . ____ i , .1 knight, ( best an,;, etoiy i ing for I q1C! npWj| pronoun,. «‘i 5ish0p Cllr‘’v’’ ' and haj readily frfnun;;)ij c tins courJrt tai}.( v seven yo;5w ycar< •Spanish quhywid, is estimate, jjer. t»r ^ ’r to give on*her hear to ike tx i
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