Delaware gazette. [volume] (Delaware, Ohio) 1855-1886, 1870-12-30

I ---A='-e--tA---Aa e-e-N 49, 49,
word, now rose, deposited dolly care
fully upon his hat, hmped back be
I tween his knees, and stood a-tiptoe with
/ her small arms upreached to him. He
took her up Instantly on his breast, and
kissed her with a long kiss upon the
mouth.
q know who. you are she. whisper
ed eAger1yA t'And l won t tell nobody.
4 The stranger made no. answer. She
snuggled close upon his bosom, and in
to his beard, for a minute or so, in per-
feet quietude then suddenly clambered
down, and resumed her seat in the little
chair with an air Of confidential and
solemn qualification.
/ 4 declare said Elkanah, softly
laughing. and rubbing his hands as he sat
down before the FIRE near the stranger,
s'it's the queerest thing I ever knew
FDo you know, Mr.. Carpenter, you quite
gave me turn when you came in2 I've
got the nerves of an OK, anyway, but /
tell you felt queerish for about the first
time in my life Well, n0Se. It was the
oddest thing And by Gee and Dee,
todd It is still p
''FI tell you how it was, he contin-
ued, after a pause. before the slow-sPeak-
ing carpenter could reply Little mag
pie there was twittering lot of stuff we
have over here a good deal in the fami-
] ly. OF course you never heard of my
old uncle Peter Dyer.
old niser Dyer. skin a. fly, sir,
| o. Sell the skin and turn the money In
as the boys used to rhyme it about him.
l inherited this fine old place from him..
1 Well, ofall the queer, odd, eccentric,
| funny old chaps that ever were-my,
my But he wasn't Iooney on bar
gain, sir-no, indeed; and he'd plenty
of hard horse-sense. and took good care
of his Propertys you can rely but he
had notions, sir, on some subjects, that
would make you think him mad as any
March hare you ever knew. vra
The old man paused, shaking with
restrained miTth.
"You ought to have seen him. here
sumed. Tall, big-boned, dry as a chip
in all his speech and ways. And plum
ed himself on a kind of resemblance he
had to President Washington. On Sun
days, sir-he never went to church
; read Tom Paine, Volney, Diderot, Vol
taire, and all the French fellows of those
days, and hated clergyman priests as
he called emf worse than 'ison-swore
by Tom Jefferson, too, in politics, and
in every thing else, except his knuck-
ling under to slavery-and there I'm
with him, sir. there I'm with him; well,
sir, as I was saying, on Sundays he d
rig himself out ike President Washing
ton, claret-colored, square-tailed coat,
long satin vest, ruffies, knee-breeches,
black-silk stockings, buckled shoes,
cooked hat. and SO forth-and take a
walk all over the place, flOurished gold
headed cane, Peert as lizard, sir
peert as any lizard you ever saw. With
a train of his darkeys behind him the d
buy EN-. take out nnanumissiOn papers,
and keep EN- on wages. Lesson for
bloody Earistocrats, he'd say( with a
train of EN- behind him, in even line,
I the women first -'mothersbefore Taen,
4 he d say; then the male adults; then the
little girls; then the boys, ranged in
their order down to the smallest walking
i piccaninny-'B Brothers in Adam, sisters
in Eve, he'd say. He at the head,
aourislling his gold sheaded stick, every
/ now -and-then turning and hating them
to see if they were in exact line. Keep
the straight ineT he'd bawl; every real
trouble in lifesc comes from not keeping
the straight liner And if he saw one Of
EN- out Of line, he d march down, pull
cars if 1t was girl rap pates if it was
boy ;spunCh her in thesTlbs with the gold
head of his cane if it was a woman; and
if it was man, by George! he'd pull
him out, and thrash him like sack,
sir p
> Aad Elkanah dropped his head. shak-
ting with silent inward laughter.
That's a samplc-lot Of old Peter Dy-
ger, he resumed. Lord, sir l could
ST here ali night and tell ye stories
about him Well, as l was going
on 10 say, one of old Peter faneies was
pictures. He got hold of an old loafer,
! Tomeny by name, house-painter, as
4 near ash could ever gather, with. athe
strongest taste for apple-jack you ever
knew in your life, and he kept him here
to paint pictures for him. The horridest
/ old daubs-nny salzes I'd like to show
4 you a lot Of EN- up garret, though
they're pretty well faded out now. But
uncle Peter thought Fomeny the prince
of painters, an unappreciated genius,
and all tbat--Tome the Great, he al
ways called him; and when he died, he
buried him with a handsome grave
stone atshis poor apple-brandy soaked
head, and on II just the words, Simon
Tomeny, Painter as if that was enough
/ for all posterity. Now, one of old Pc
4 ter's maddest notions was that Jesus
/ Christ was still alive, and grown old
and gray with walking the earth for
] CdAoy cS wei llC IItlGIlL,
/ indeed. He'd got hold of the old story
Of Ahasuerus, the Wandering Jew, dye
see That's hirn-that's Christ. saws
old Peter. But, Mr.. Dyer, one would
say, that's the man the story saws
I Christ put curse on bidding him walk
( the world till he came again. All a
FAM says rough old Peter; the Good
! Mamie commonly spoke of Christ as
the Good Man-'the Good Man.never put
a curse on any one. It's Christ himself,
I tell you. Or, perhaps one might say,
/ Why, Mr.. Dyer, what should Christ
be going round the world for ? Going
round doing good, snaps uncle Peter.
Al my Lord my Lordsl the mad old
fellow Well, sir, with his own hands
| for old Peter was a shifty mamie put
a facing of prime old oak on the chim-
! ney-place in yonder and dye know, he
! got old loafer Tomeny to paint on the
| right-hand side of it-an ugly thing to
tell, sir, but its rtrue-a portrait of. him
/ self as Judas, grasping the bag-did you
ever hear the like ofthat now and on
the other side a figure of Christ, old and
gray, as he fancied him. Tomeny's
masterpiece, he called it. Well, little
1 humming-bird there was bringing up all
this in my mind, as l said, and you can
perhaps fancy the turn it gave me, when
you came in. with your gray hair and
beard, and long coat, and the plane,
and all that And the queerest thing
of all isl hope you'll excuse me for
saying SO, for the pictures wretched
piece Of Imaginary, as much as you can
see of it for the faded colors-the queer
est thing is, that you a0 look something
IKE the figure of Christ as old Tomeny
! has painted il. - - 80 H
And Elkanah again laughed softly,
rubbing his hands, with his eyes on the
silent-smiling carpenter, who had listen
ed, as the old man vaguely thought, |
with the air of one to whom the story
was not entirely new
It's a sort-of pretty notion, too, that
of old Peters . presently resumed Elba-
nah. rand little chattering blue-Iay
there gavesit quite fairy turn ius my