Delaware gazette. [volume] (Delaware, Ohio) 1855-1886, 1870-08-05
JOHNS LITTLE WOMAN.
BY AUGUSTA LARNED.

Its a risky business. A man has
got to take big chances" John cleared
his throat discreetly, as if he might be
saying too much; land then there is
the little woman at home. IF anything
should happen to me, it would be all
| day with her. The road don't seem to
me as it used to; and mean to gel
away from it, and turn farmer.
| Dunno, put in Old Sam, the signal
man, shifting his quid of tobacco from
| side to side of his leathern cheeks. "It's
easy talking. Words don't count no
more'n wind. But there's something
anuther that holds folks to their places
in this world-habit as much as any
/ thing; for my part, expect to live and
die on the road.
"Die on the road p There was some
thing in the phrase i'll suited to John
state of mind. He was not prepared to
die yet awhile. Life looked very warm
and bright in his eyes, with the smiling
face of his little woman filling the vista.
Come over to The Vine with US,
and take a nip, John, called out one OF
a group of hands off hours, like himself,
who were washing away the CRIME and
SCOT of a coal-train, in a little back office
of the freight-house.
mot tonight, - replied John, hardly
pausing in his long stride; land you
do better yourselves to keep clear OF
The Vine Men of our trade haven't
any business to muddle their brains. -
''Get along with your preaching p
called out a rough fellow, literally
smeared with coal-oil Everybody
knows Merivale is Methody; and that
his wife has him tied up to her apron
string. Come, Dixie, hand over the pol
isher, alluding to a not very immacu-
late crash towel ''I'll be goldarned if
I'd have such wife. I hate interfering
women
These remarks were quite lost on the
subject of them. He had set himself to-
ward home with a steady. square swing,
such as he used in all undertakings. 1t
was easy to sec by John Merivale's mo-
ton that ne need not be admonished to
do what he did with his might. He had
the grimy overalls on yet, which the
little woman washed and patched every
week of her life. Let the fellows without
a home to come to, he thought, scrub up
in the old freight-house. And something
warm and unspeakable welled up in his
big bosom at the consciousness of his
great good fortune. His hair and whis-
kers were full of cinders and grit but
Mamie had seen him in this guise more
than once before.
Out past the freight-house, along a net
work of side-tracks and long strings of
empty cars, into the mean part of a large
town, that did the dirty work for its
more respectable neighbors and took
the bad oders and the garbage. Skirt
ing this, John came to a more open
space, where the small houses of me
chanics stood, with a hand-breadth OF
garden about them.
There was one little brown dot of a
house, under the wing of a great cherry
tree, that looked as i it was trying to
hide the tiny thing behind its giant
trunk, to keep the world from a knowl-
edge of the pretty nest concealed there.
Just then a face appeared at the window
of the little house, where a Virginia
| Creeper would make a dainty frame
work of fickering leaves by and by,
| though as yet the spring was chary of its
green. Above it hung a canary-bird' S
| cage of red and white wires, and there
was bit of muslin curtain, tied back
with blue ribbons.
The face was round and dimpled
with smooth, even tint, neither dark
!
and the brown eyes very shy of direct
! glances. Over the low, broad forehead
/ the soft, glossy hair was brushed smooth
| ", except where it broke into rings and
! impromptu curls about the temples. This
was John little woman.
AT the moment John turned the street
corner the canary bird fluttered its gol
den wings and broke into a rapture o.
singing and the face disappeared. ano
| appeared again in the little porch like q
/ flash of sunshine. There was an en-
| brace. and Nancy's smooth linen collar
got rumpled when her face suffered q
total eclipse in John beard. But the
| next moment she was holding him bV
the arm, and looking up. with her eyes
| limpid and moist at the thought that She
had her big fellow back again safe anC
sound.
They were in the kitchen and living
room now. John thought there was no
another place like it for neatness in the
world. The house had just two room!
on the ground floor, and one of then
was a sleeping apartment. Beyond eX
tended tiny wood-shed, and through
the open door you caught a glimpse o
well-scrubbed boards a braided mat
and cleanly-washed pals and tubs. Ev
erything about Nancy's little domiCil
bore some special mark of grace. Ev
en- the polished covers of the cOok-stove
the shining tins the holders ranged upol
their hooks, were, in a homely way
beautiful; and the carpeted space b,
the sunny windows, where the birt
hung, with its workable, and framet
photographs, and bunch of everlasting
and dried grasses on a bracket, and
great pile Of snowy stuff that Nancy wa
Converting into shirts for John, with tn
patch work of the footstool, and the lii
tie woman's sewing chair, where the re-
light of the spring sunset stole in, was
dear, familiar picture of humble home
life.
The kettle was bubbliug on the fire
the tea was sleeping odorously, and tn
supper-table stood ready set. with GOV
+ cred dishes on the hearth, emitting fra
grant smells. 1t was after John ha
washed and combed, and they were sea
ed, with the veal-cutlet and smashed pc
tatoes between them. hanSed by one {
Nancy's apple-pies and a glass dish {
' clear ounce jelly, that John noticed th
little woman had something on herminC
1 There was a perceptible futter abol
Nancy, which made her lids droop an
the breath come quick when John lool
ed at her with his Keen gray eyes. II
was so comfortable, however, to hay