Dodgeville chronicle. [volume] (Dodgeville, Wis.) 1862-current, 1867-05-30

"He was nice man, said Aunt Clara
ga proper, nice man."
"And is it only because he was nice
man." said la proper, nice man, that
you have saved his miniature so carefully
for ever. so many years And, declare
here's O lock of his dark hair on the back,
braided in with strand of somebody
white Whose was it, Aunt Clara pr
1t was shame in US to tease her. There
was shake in her voice as she spoke, and
a suspicion of tears in her eyes, and her
dear old face was white with suppressed
feeling. Aunt Clara had custom, COM
mon to every person whose life is in the
past and who lives in the present only in
memory; she would steal away from us all,
and spend hours over her souvenirs-yel-
low letters, well-worn rings, old-fashioned
brooches, and the like. We had come
upon our dear old aunty unawares this aft
ernoon. Jerusha said, Let us slip in upon
her 'unbeknownst,' and so we did. Or
dinarily, when we went to her room we
were in time only to hear the click of the
lock Of her bureau-drawer, and to see her
pretending to smooth her hair. But this
day she had the miniature in her hand.
The picture of a child was upon the bu-
reau, with rings, pins, bracelets, and the
dear knows what We had crept up the
stairs like "a couple of mischievous kit
tens" as Aunt Clara called us, and caught
the old lady in the midst of her treasures
got possession of the miniature. Over
the rest of her valuables she lowered like
hen over her brood. l drew away, and,
sitting on low stool, studied the picture,
while Jerusha dropped down ON her knees
and looked over my shoulder Aunt Clara
eyed uS uneasily as mother bird robbed
OF her young. The miniature was not very
wonderful, as a work of art, certainly
The artist was, in the true sense of the
term, "a pre-Raphaelite," without know
ing it. Every fold in the shirt-bosom was
marked as sharply as the lines on third
quality commercial note-paper The coat
collar, six inches deep, and pushing the
head well up was perfectly defined. You
could see the button hole stitches. The
black neckstock was so high as to force a
dlmple IN the chin. Each particular hair
OF the head and whiskers was so painfully
elaborated as almost to suggest a suspicion
OF the river Niger or the Gold Coast. New
ertheless 1t was genuine painting on &C
tual ivory no photograph, fifteen for
dollar. And you could see, by the light of
the eyes. that the artist, poor though he
might have been, had some idea Of soul
and expression.
HE aoas proper, nice man." Aunt
Clara resumed, reaching out her hand for
the picture, " and this is the only likeness
OF him that ever was painted. His mother
wanted it dreadfully."
And why didn't you let her have it,
aunty?" a.,5 III. b..
@."Oh did. And when she died it came
back to me again, with lock of her hair
l had some of his already, and got them
braided together. 1t was dreadful scare
crow OF thing that l made her give me
before would give up my picture. And
i had to make believe that it was so pretty.
and so like him!"
"Why, what was it that she had?"
She ran OF notion that she could cut
profiles. So she made great thing more
than two feet square, which she said was
his likeness. 1t was cut out of black
cloth, and pinned up on the wall of her
settin-room. So l told her she might have
this as long as she lived, if she'd only give
me M0t and | fiattered her up, and pre-,
tended the black thing was his very image"
I'D like to see il"
- Mortal eyes will never see that again" |
said Aunt Clara. burned it on the same |
night she died and would have burned it
before, only | was afraid she would I'D and |
Out out another by guess 1t was dread
full, girls. You haven't an idea! :"
That was Aunt Clara's climax-idea in
three distinct syllables, with the o. as in
pay. AND when she said that word, our
imagination exalted what she describedto
the highest, or depressed it to the lowest
as the case might be-.
Protlles," Aunt Clara half solilouuized
- proteets-there was Frenchman along
taxing them, and he called them profeels.
lie used to have machine, and a wire
went along over your nose and your chin.
and the other end traced an outline of YOUR
face on a paper. But the domestic ones
used to be traced by the shadow of your
face on the wall. 1t was real fun to do it
but awful things some of them were, and
ms was one of the worst for he had a
master large nose" efIc5( 1911
"Tell US all about him, aunty He looks
well enough in the miniature"
" Yes, indeed. And that was the beauty
Of pictures. They could give you bodys
best looks, and kind of shade the plain fea-
lures out. But those protects and these
Dear me! The profeels !
were we're as IKE the real thing as crows skin /,
stretched on a barn is like a crow A.: and as
20 these photographs, look in a polished
1oor-knob, and, you see what some of them
ire; Ihey are IKE, certainly, but there's /
40 fiattery in them. Why, your hand is
always as big as all outdoors.
Aunt Clara has real pretty hand of her
'wn, and | minded that she had slipped on t
o-day one of the rings out of her treas.
Tres. She does that on high days, after {
Inner NEt ttt8 NJ - ;
"When did he die" asked sister Jeru- )
ha. I
Years ago-ever so many years ago /
efore you were born"
" And you never thought of marrying c
fterward ?" p
:, Never and I'd given it up before.
hat was his daughter, that child you saw 4
n the bureau. tell you, girls, l was very Fl
,u !. N, taken with that young man." "
.1 WY didn'tyou marry him?" n
we both jumped to our feet.
By PROXY Z" -''' e.