Middletown transcript., 1869-08-14

Popular Tales.
HOW I BECAME A BENEDICT.
A STORY FOR OLD BACHELORS.

Yes, Tn married man at last That's
my wife sitting over there in the great
rocking chair, that slender delicate crca-
ture, with the soft, creamy face, and lus-
trous, golden hair; and that queer little
thing in her lap, over which she COOS so
tcndcrly, is my son and heir, Chancellor
Trowbridge, Jr. Heavens! what feel
ing of importance it gives a fellow to
know that his name will live after his
body is under the sods! I never knew
what it was to be a man before; I'm one
now, every inch of me, as Lear was every
inch king.
A woman-hater! That's what I've
been called all my life, and the cognomen
was not misapplied. did hate women,
| and excluded myself from their society,
and rallied and sneered at their frailties
/ until--Wcll, until that little woman
| yonder glorifed the whole feminine gen.
der for mel I'm changed man. I can't
pass bit of female apparel in shop win
dow, a waterfall, or a knot of ribbon,
without tender thrill at my heart. I'm
an old fool, that's about the amount of it |!
No matter, fill up your mecrschaum, my
wife does not object to smoke-scnsible
women never do
Twenty years ago. Bless my soul, what
a long way to look back Such misty,
winding road, cut across at every turn by
the grass green graves of dead friends and
blightcd hopes! Al, nc | would not 70
back and tread it all over again, if
could Twenty years ago met with my
first disappointment, and it made me a
misanthropc, a woman-hater [ was a
young STRIPPING, then, just sixteen, the
sole idol and comfort of an oyerfond moth
er. We lived all alone in little nest of
Q cottage, just out from the city; and
mother did the housework, and managed
the small dairy, from which We derived
our support, while | attended the academy
She was bent on making Il great man of
me, poor, fond mother! She confidently
believed that possessed any amount of
undevclopcd talent, and denied herself a
thousand little comforts, in order to Sc
cure for me the advantages necessary to
bring it into action. Looking back upon
those days now, it affords me kind of
melancholy satisfaction to know that she
went to her eternal rest, happily uncon-
scious that all her unselfsh labor had been
spent for nought; still fancying, in the
egotism of her love, that {" her boy" as
she called me, would one day cover him
self with the lustre of great deeds.
shared her belief, then and when my
sixteenth year, and my academical course
both eliminated at once, and poor mother
expended the hoardings of an entire year
to purchase me new cloth suit, l thought
my fortune made AS matter of course,
the next step to be taken was matrimony
by way of beginning, set myself tc
work to get up poem, and to be dedica-
ted to the fair one of my choice, Miss
Jessie Weaver. The composition con.
sumed round week. Day after day I
shut myself in my bedchamber, and rack
ed my brains over rhyming syllables, while
poor mother drove the COWS to and fro,
and even brought the water to cool her
milk-pans. At last it was finished, and
elaborately copied on scented, rose-colored
paper. There were some two dozen ver-
ses. think, containing swashy sentiment,
and morbid melancholy, sufficient to stock
a regiment Of ordinary novels but sitting
on the stone steps of the dairy, with hel
butter-paddle in her hand, mother listened
) while I read them to her in confident,
declamatory style, her loving eyes full Of
subdued exultation.
:" always thoughtso! always thought
you'd make a great man, my boy" she
said, proudly,
sent the poem to Jessie, with nc
doubt whatever in regard to its reception
1 held too high an opinion of her good
sense to believe, for an instant, that she
would fail to appreciate it; and she didn't
as her gay laugh and dancing eyes attes
ted at our next meeting
:" You'll be famous by-and-by, Chan.
cy," she called after me over the garden,
gate; go second Byron"
I stroked my sprouting mustacAe witt
serene self-complaccncy, running my eye
Q over the rich meadow-lands, and alluvia
I fields, surrounding her fathers stately
mansion. She was an only child, and
would inherit all this wealth [ had
made I'D my mind to nronosn to her on