Vermont daily transcript. [volume] (St. Albans, Vt.) 1868-1870, 1868-06-20
Jerome F'enwick's Cure,
BY LUCY A. RANDALL.

BY LUCY A. RANDALL.
Don't go out tonight, Jeromc-stay
with me! Oh Jerome! it is so lonely
when you are away ~
The little kitchen had been swept and
secured until every board glistened like
polished ivOry-the red nioreen curtains
were drawn over the tiny PANIED win
dows, and the great chestnut logs i'm the
fireplace were singing and simmering
and bursting into scarlet sheets of flame,
with capricious alterations. There
were no costly fresco on the walls
merely cheap paper where gigantic
pink roses burst into unaccountable
bloom among the green tendrils of
stiff pea vine; but the wooden clock
was framed in the coral berries Of the
bittersweet, and little Christmas cross
of hemlock sprigs and black ivy, yet
hung between the two windows, while
Rosa Fenwicll's monthly roses and seem
ted geraniums tossed their delicate bios
SONS among the red peppers and bun
ches of pennyroyal and catnip on the
smOke-brOwned mantle above the CHM
ney.
For Rosa, our heroine, was nothing
more dignified than farmers wife.
Ay, but farmers wife in this, our EN-
pire State, is, it must be remembered,
queen consort to member of the pop
ular sovereignty-and Rosa was as fit
to wear the royal robes as any princes of
the blood. She was quite tall, with pale
brown hair, and eyes of the clear vivid
blue that puts you in mind of sunshine
after rain, while the delicate color of her
cheek fairly rivaled the monthly. roses
above. Her dress was very plain and
simple-a dark brown calico, ruffied at
the wrists, and relieved by narrow
ell Il
tied trinity around her graceful waist.
Jerome Fenwick, tall, stalwart
young fellow of some seven or eight and
twenty, bit his lips as Rosa still kept
urging:
7Stay with me this evening-only
this once ~
"Nonsense, Rosa; how ridiculous
you are! A man can't stay at home for
ever"
"But you were out last night and the
night before"
"Well, what then? Now, my love,
don't you see how very absurd it is to
expect me to be always dangling at
your apron strings? L tell you Pm only
going down to the Columbian, to look
at the papers and talk over the news"
"To the Columbian !" echoed Aunt Try
of the subterranean depths of trap
door, very much la ghost upon the
stage, only that she bore a pan of glossy
red apples in one hand, and brandished
formidable knife in the other. All
h-h! you're going to the Columbian, be
We Jerome Fenwick"
Eyes, L am-and what then?" re-
turned the young man, spice of sullen
defiance beginning to mingle with the
playful tone he had assumed towards
his wife.
"And s'pOse your comm back stu
pider nor fool, as you came last night
or perhaps your comm with Peter
Stryker at your head and Sam Carney
at your heels as you come last week
pretty doings, these, for Teller that
hain't been married a-year yet"
"Dear Jerome" pleaded Rosa, look
ing up through sparkling tears, "ptedse
do not go to night"
"What dye s'pose you're comm to-"
went on Aunt Tryphosa, digging away
at the apples as spitcfully as if every
one had been a modern Marsyas, and
she specialized Apollo ''p'raps you've
forgotten how Pardon Pilkingham froze
to death, year ago come February,
; down by the hemlock holler, with the
snow two feet deep on the ground. He'd
, been to the Columbian, too! He'd read
the papers and talked over the news
And mebbe you don't remember how
! Josiah Hopkins went off in the delirous
4, tremens last June, all along o'that same
Columbian. He hadn't no pretty young
3 wife at home to cry her eyes out arter
his good-for nothing bones, though,
] Josiah Hopkins hadn't OH" ejacula-
! ted Aunt Tryphosa, emphatically, 81
. wish there was a Maine law, | just do!
+ Better stay at home, Jerome Fenwick,
n afore bad comes to worse"
;, Jerome FenwiclS's brow flushed and
Il his face become crimson.
: 81 shall do precisely as please, Aunt
) Tryphosa. Where's my hat? ?"
!, "'Taint for myself Pm speaking"
9 went on the wrathful old lady, suspend
ing her knife in mid air, Though you
be my brothers. son. Its for Rosa! Do
you s'pose she haint got no feelin's when
you come home night after night, as in
il toXicated as a fool? Good land o. Go
i shen if was Rosa, I'd go down to the
i Columbian too, and drink along with
\ you. She's got just as good right to be
i fool as you have! How'd you like
il that Jerome Fenwick?"
il He went out, giving the unconscious
i door bang that made the cat start in
Il ! her cosy corner of the red brick hearth
Il and brought fresh torrent of tears to
il Rosa's blue eyes.
sob, Aunt Tryphosa," she sobbed,
J, hiding her flushed face among the APP
n Piles in the good spinster's lap, "What
l. shall we do? He's being ruined--and
st l have no power to hold him back"
"Sarve him right! an obstinate fool"
: muttered the irate old lady. Yet even
e. while the words We're on her lips, the
/. bony fingers caressed Rosa's hair with