The Evansville journal. [volume] (Evansville, Ind.) 1866-1870, 1869-12-01
BARBARA's ~
BY MISS AMANDA N. HALE.

allied that exceptional friendship
whose story he told. placing it beside
that love which is supreme of all
and the measure of all.
Yet this love is itself measured BIZ
the heart IN which it springs. There
be women hard and cold as surely as
there are others unspeakably tender.
We are content to accept the tender
and true as the type, and pass the
others over as exceptions.
AS / write, the pictured face on
the wall there follows me with its
lovely, beseeching brown eyes; the
color seems to come and go; the lips
are tremulous with smiles, and seem
as if they would break easily into
words.
This face bewitehes me. | have
known it now five years, and have
looked In vain for its match among
woman. And sol must tell you her
story and how ] came to know it.
was idly drifting about the eoun-
try one midsummer. as artists, who
have just work enough to secure
season Of uninterrupted idleness, are
fond of doing, and somehow / foated
one day into Green Valley,
This same Green Valley would not,
Think, be just the place for a man
to live In who expected to do great
things In the world, whose ambitions
pricked him sharply. Its atsmos-
phere was too soft and enervatlng.
It's splendor Of SKY and field, the
hezinscot singing all day and all night,
sparkling in the sun and glooming
under the alders, its great, dropping
elms, all its beauty of sights and
sounds, lured you away to delicious
day dreaming and left your work IN
finished on yeur hands.
Anything more profound than the
stiffness was never known outside a
cloister. If anybody passed the
house they stepped upon the soft turf
and aWoke no noise. A carriage was
an unusual spectacle, aud the whistle
of the steam car was mellOWed by
distance into a tone so soft it might
have fallen from the pipe of some
sylvan god. Farmer Wilson and his
wife we're modified Quakers-they
spoke softly and moved with deco
rous deliberatiou, and were mellow,
kindly old people. Sometimes fan
sied that q shadow rested over the
household-and yet it was nothing
sombre enough to be called shadow,
1t was the quiet, the s6ftened shade
Of one Of those August days, when a
haze dims the sunshine, and makes
it so tender that you do not miss the
brightness.
Down by the river bank one day |
found some timbers swamped and
oversrown by the long grass; little
lower down lay pile Of massive stones
which the great mother had taken
kindly to her heart, and matted over
with lchens, and Wreathed about it
with wild eonyolvuli, sand so evolved
picturesqQeness from confusion.
/ went home at night with pencil
sketches Of the forsaken timber, and
the rocky pile, which by-and-by
elaborated into water colors. /
showed them to Farmer Wilson and
his wife. To my surprise the old
man looked at them q moment and
then without a word went away. The
old lady had been making little ex-
CARNATIONS In a kindly, gentle way,
and now she looked alter her hus-
band wistfully. FL emily she said /:
Father can't bear to look at them,
you-see, because 1t puts him in mind
Of things I've tried a good many
times 20 have him move all the rub
Dish away but he couldn't bear to
touch 'em. Aud now you've made a
picture out of it, and pretty enough
L is too. Dear mel Isn't it queer
that old houses, and bridges, and
heaps of rubbish that lock SO sort OF
shiftless when you see EN-, make
such pretty pictures? Barbara was
fond of old, homely things. and never
would let father paint the old house
white, or alter things anyway. She
said the place was like picture a;
twas. Bat after Harry Dartmouth
came she began to wish we had some
Of the nice things other folks had
But, dear me? He could make he
love or dislike anything.
Barbara was your daughter?'
asked. as the old soul paused to wipe
away a few tears that stole down,
mol No, Mr. Paul, Barbar;
wasn't our daughter. l think some
times father and I wouldn't hav
laid il to heart so if she hac been
hut YOU see she was the child of our oil
age. We lost all Of our little girls whel
they were babies, Nobody but Rich
ard lived to grow up. He was as fin
and stalWart a young fellow as Their
was in Green Valley and we wer
proud enough of him, but it's curiou
that q man isn't quite satisfied 1t b
don't have a daughter. No matte
how proud he may be OF his boys, tn
little girl creeps closest into his hear
and pestles in the warmest corner
holds. And so when Barbara cam
we we're both pleased, and particu
larlv father. You see her father wa
a sea captain. and after Barbara wa
born her mother was so weakly tina
the doctor advised her to go on
voyage with her husband. She wa
an old schoolmate of mine, and sh
knew God had taken my own babe
FROM my arms almost before Id &C
used to the feel Of them there. )
she wrote to me that she wanted he
little Barbara to have the vacan
place in my arms and IN my hear
and sure enough she wasn't long l
getting both. I've seen a good man
children and love them dearly, bJ
| must say Barbara was the mo!
Einsome little thing that ever LETT tn
skies. She was as pretty as pictur
but that wasn't it. l never right
found out what it was. There al
folks YOU know who make every bod
their bondslaves. | don't know no
they do il. | isn't always beauty an
it isn't always goodness. It's son
smell they have, and you can't 6
avav from il. Barbara had it.
s'Sbe could wind father round h
little finger when she was two yea
old: and after she got older, RIchal
would put his books By and ron
with her By the hour, and then stuC
till midnight to make it up. | don
know what we should have done
H. - he o14F