The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1869-12-23
The Old Miracle.

The children went laughing and sing
ing Gown toward the village, the cloud
began to pile up in the West for the com
ing sunset, and the first flush of sprin!
beauty tinged the hills and woods will
! peculiar radiance.
AS they stood in the grove-Anni,
Linn and Charles Mason-the rush of tn,
river below, aad the voices of the chill
oren from the road, mingled together
like the base and soprano of some exquis
tie melody; bat if they heard it at al i
was with the impotence which comes
over one when happy sounds break il
upon restlessness and trouble.
She had come down there to bid him
fareweli-Hot from any girlish desire fol
a quarrel which ends in pleasant recon
tcillistion, but from settled conviction
of the necessity Of the step which, once
taken, muss be irrevocable.
They were both young. A year be
fore they had been for short time en-
gagged; but all that had long since been
broken off, and this last interview was a
great deal worse than useless, though,
perhaps, without it neither could have
brought their minds to regard that book
in their lives IS completely closed.
Charles Manson was the eldest son of
a widow. He had been spoiled, hand
some boy-I fear he was a hayward, reck-
less man, just one Of those young fellows
whom everybody likes, and whose agree
able qualities and faculty of making
friends prove their own greatest snare
and temptation.
| should have made one exception when
said everybody liked Charley, for old
Mr. Linn had detested him from his boy
hood. He was close listed, grim old
chap, who always prayed as if he meant
to frighten the angels into doing their
duty, who had toiled necessarily all his
life, and could not understand why any
body should expect an existence at all
different
Now, as a boy, Charley would not
work, except to attain some special OBJ
iect. He hated farmers life, and was
determined to 60 to college He had &C
com plished that by dint of sacrifices on
his mothers part-those few words tell
the story of her life-and considerable
labor on his own. He played tutor du-
ring the vacations; distant relative
helped him, and 80 he went on.
But, alas, during the last year of his
course everything changed Charley
made the acquaintance of an entirely
different set-young men of fortune and
expensive habits, whom he ought to have
avoided-and his natural disposition did
the rest He left college very suddenly
good natnred people said he was ex-
pclled--and the next the village heard of
him he was in London, but whether in
business or not nobody knew. "a
Before he came nome, old Mr.. Linn
discovered the engagement existing be-
tween him and Annie, and, with his usual
per-emtoriness, broke it off at once.
Charley wrote her scores of reproach-
full letters, which her father coolly burned
before her eyes Then a long silence
then terrible stories Of his bad habits
and dissipation. Nobody yentured to
question the widow, for she was one of
those women whom even village gossips
did not care to approach with their
affected sympathy and i'll concealed curl
osity AS she sat in her place at church,
people noticed how week after week, the
smooth hair gained an added tinge of
gray, and the patient lines around the
mouth deepened with hidden anxiety
and trouble. 013
Annie met her but seldom, and then
there was but little conversation between
word concerning the sub
iect which filed both their hearts, Mr..
Linn had forbidden any intercourse be-
tween the families; but the widow had
known him too long not to understand
the truth, and to exonerate Annie from
all blame in the matter.
Old Linn loved money. If Charley
had been as steady as young Scion, he
would not have given him his daughter.
1t was convenient that the young man
offered him reasonable excuse for the
course he pursued.
Annie held her father in great awe.
She had inherited the feeling from her
mother, who, ten years before, had faded
into the grave, perhaps glad that for once
she could do something in peace and
quiet. The neighbors still talked about
her resignation; the old minister often
alluded to her death-bed as the most
edifying scene he had ever witnessed.
I suppose Mr.. Linn was sorry. Her
health had been falling for a long time,
and she had been obliged to neglect her
dairy, and that fact helped to support
him in his bereavement.
He never married again, and Annie
grew up under the shadow of her fathers
presence and the tyranny of two elder
brothers, who were really prototypes of
their parent. One of them was married
now, and his busting active wife gave
Annie world of good advice and set her
ia 20 AGAINST Charles Manson and all be-
longing to him with praise-worthy per
tinac1ty.
There they stood in the maple grove,
with the sunset gathering around them,
and the black sorrow swooping down