The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1869-04-01

the more selfish lover swept everything
before him; and the more generous one
said
off you really prefer him to me, Jane, ]
don't wish to hold you; give you up; :
even having the good grace to be present
a cheerful guest, at that famous wedding.
The old mans newspaper slipped from
his hand, the old lady's dim eyes wander
ed from the broad Bible-pa to the stove
hearth, and there they sat and unused,
while the dull December evening darken-
ed around them. One could almost hope,
out of pity for them, that they did not
think of those earlier days. How could
they bear to think of them Dear child,
whose bright eyes are now following these
lines, when the summer of y0atr life has
burnt out, and hope after hope has FADED
Oh the cold hearth of old age, can you
bear, think you, to sit in the long winter
twilight looking at the ashes !? ., the
ashes the ashes What story of bound
inc sap, and green leaves, and boughs
waving in sun and breeze, they might
tell if they had language! This is the
tragedy of life, with the slow, black, 81
lent curtain descending upon the scene.
It is all the more a tragedy when the
actors feel, as these two must have felt,
that they are the authors of their own I'M
happiness. If Jonathan and Jane had
been as humble as they were proud, if
they had treated each other tenderly, u.s.
ing love and forbeaTance toward each 9TH
er, all their days. this desolation could
never have come upon them. Destiny is
tree that grows from roots in our own
hearts.
The first few years of their married life
had been happy, but family cares increas-
ed, while their patience under them did
not increase. What trifes they allowed
to vex them !-trifes, surely, when com
pared with the greatness and glory of
love. They could better have afforded to
lose everything else than to lose this, it
they had only known it! They had the
New England vice of excessive industry.
Happiness they buried in hard work.
They saved the pennies of life, and lost
its jewel. The bitter and cruel things
they could say to each other after while,
must have amazed and shamed even them
selves when they paused to reflect. I
don't know which was the most to blame,
but it was she who said to him, in the
midst of violent alteration (this was
when they had children grown up and
married)
Jonathan Dracutt, I wish you would
never speak to me again as long as you
live!"
He started back, looked at her for a
moment in silence, then turned away
'Tell her take her at her word" said
he to their daughter Elizabeth, "but she
must never speak to mel"
II never will" said Jane.
That WIGS twelve years ago, and they
had not spoken to each other since.
Nobody, not even themselves, though
they were quite III earnest at the time,
could have expected that their unnatural
silence would last so long. Children and
friends demonstrated, but in vain.
"She has told me never to speak to her,
and unless she takes back that word, I
shall abide by it," said Jonathan.
"Ill take it back when he asks my for
giveness for what provoked me to the
was so unjust" said Jane; which,. of
course, he would never do
He ask forgiveness Not even if he
knew he was wrong.
"Then it is just as WELL" said she.
eyes," he replied, through an interpret
er, 'there is more peace in the house, now
her tongue is quiet.
And this was he who once believed
that life would not be, in any degree, toll
cradle to him without her.
Pride and resentment kept both from
speaking at first, and this reserve became
in the course of time a settled habit. It
gave rise, necessarily, to many inconven-
fences, and sometimes to a ludicrous stu
alton. If peddler called and found them
alone, he was sure to be amazed and puz-
zled to hear them communicate with each
other through himself: ASK him for
someE money" "Tell her to git me some
dinner" and to go away, perhaps, mag
lining he had been dealing with some in
sane people. Yet the habit grew at length
to fit them so easily that visitors were
known to stop at the house, converse
pleasantly with them, in the presence of
their children, and afterward depart with
out discovering the popularity of the old
couple. They did not even make direct
signs to each other, like dumb persons, for
that would have been a compromise each
was too proud and too stubborn to make
though, perhaps, if she wanted sugar from
the grocery, she would set out the empty
bucket where he would see it, and ne, if
he wished his coat mended, would lay it,
rags uppermost, across a chair.
One comprehends more easily how he
could continue to live so, than how she
could, with her woman's heart. But she
knew him to be implacable as fate, and
had, suppose, no notion of humbling her
self to plead for reconciliation which he
might not grant. Or, perhaps, when her
heart swelled with the memories of hap
pier days, and yearned again for the love
it had lost, the recollection of his harsh
ness and injustice rolled back the stone
upon it; for she, too, was one who found
! it very hard to FORGET wrong.