Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1869-03-19
THE BuCKsoN CASE.


In the year 1851 Captain John Buck
son lived, with his wife Nancy, in a
handsome cottage in the village of Sea-
konk, near Providence, Rhode Island, in
the enjoyment of competence acquired
by many years of frugal industry. He
was, however, often absent from home,
as he still pursued his vocation, and was
master of the sloop "Oregon," plying
between Providence and Norfolk, Vir-
ginia.
He had then reached his fiftieth year,
and his hard seafaring life had not made
him look younger than he was. He was
tall, gaunt and angular, weather-stained
and storm-beaten. His short, stiff hail
was grizzled, and his long narrow face
furrowed by deep lines, but his physical
powers appeared to be still untouched,
and he seemed assured of long contin-
assrrvv vr- aotIvv Irrc.
His temperament was favorable to a
lusty longevity. He was patient, and
apparently so passionless that he stared
at the cares and troubles of life, as at
strangers with whom he could not posi-
bly, have dealings. He avoided quar-
rels and all unseemliness with scrupulous
care, and was known on his vessel and
in his village only as sedate, God-fear-
ing man, kind hearted and even-temper-
ed
But he had positive points in his char
acter, and the requisite friction would
produce the natural glow. AS in all
equable men, his anger burned with dim
light but intense heat, and hence, with
him, a knitting of the brows or twitch-
ing of the hands, meant more than the
widest signs Of passion in other men,
and his word Of wrath was weightier
than the brawler's blow. But he so
loved peace, and so sedulously courted
it, that his most intimate associates re-
membered as memorable epochs the rare
occasions when his temper had given
way.
The only trouble of his life brooded
upon his own hearth-stone. Mrs. Nam
cy Buckson was many years his junior
in age, and in important respects his op-
posite in character. To her youth she
added comeliness of person. Though a
thoroughly good woman at heart, she
yet embittered her life and his by con-
slant efforts to do more than her duty.
Nervous and irritable, she became fret
fully voluble in her assertions of her
own merits and his shortcomings. So
in the summer of 1851, the neighbors
began to pity poor Captain John as a
hen pecked husband, and the inroads of
the wife upon the domestic quietude were
noticed as of constantly increasing fire.
quency and bitterness. Captain John,
however, bore the infliction with his ac-
customed patience.
But the end was at hand. One even
ing in the last week in July, neighbor,
James Pauls, in passing the house, heard
Nancy's tongue going at an unusual rate,
and glancing through the window saw
Buckson standing before her. He SEEM
ed reused at last, and although Pauls
could not hear his words, he saw the
knitted brows and twitching hands, in
one of which a stout whipcord was con-
vulsively grasped. The scene was indel-
IDLY stamped by aAer-events upon the
memory of the accidental witness, and
he could always see, even to the most
minute details, the enraged woman, con-
fronted by that quiet, concentrated man,
struggling with his passion, and fidget-
ting with a whipcOrd. AT the time,
however, Psuls gave no especial weight
to the circumstance, and stopping at the
village inn on his way home, only casu-