Delaware gazette. [volume] (Delaware, Ohio) 1855-1886, 1870-12-23

was klnQ1fng IN MS merry Drain. 10 MS
other troubles. this one added. he
th0ught, would be worse than all.
He had way of talking to himself,
alone or in company, in an inarticulate
bass undertone, Ike the booming OF
some enormous bee; and presently, as
first one and then another of the group
roamed away across the passage into the
rooms beyond, leaving him standing on
the hearth, with only the little child sit
ting silently near him, it was in this voice
that he entered upon a recapitulation OF
all that flung columns Of darkness
among the lights of his Christmas Eve.
Something wrong. / fear" he said,
coming on. or come already, between
Faulkner and Emily. o house of trou-
bles, troubles But It cant be. There II
be murder done on Faulkner if such a
things afoot. And what'u become OF
Emily And my son John going back
to the war, with his life spoiled and his
heart broken And little Lily ailing-
perhaps to die, like the other. George
lost and dead. Rupert worse than dead,
if he's iving-the internal young, heart
rending villain! Everything going-go-
ing. Even poor little Toms got a girl
that goes from him. All going together.
And ruin hanging over me. The old
home, where I've lived so long, going
from me in my old age. How can l
ever break it to theml They've got to
know that we must soon leave all to the
aucdoneer, and begin the world again,
among strangers. Country going too,
I'm afraid. The blaze Of victory lights
the Shenandoah but oh, the corpses,
the corpses! Grant in the deadlock at
Richmond. Sherman's S made the grand
march, and now he's in for the mad,
belly-breaking wrastle. And the old
wife going from me. All, that's the
worst-the worst of all And to keep
up stout heart, and be merry and bold,
on Christmas Eve the last here-the
last-the last! o my God my God p
He. ceased abruptly, and sat down in
Emily's low chair beside the child, his
hands dropping between his knees, his
gloomy visage bent upon the leaping
antlers of the fame For little while
there was complete silence in the hollied
room, only broken by the murmur of
distant voices and laughter from the 9TH
er apartments.
Grandpa, at length said little Lillian,
in her plaintive voice, 81 want to hear
my 'Olian harp very, very much in
deed
The old man smiled.
do you, darling? And so you shall,
if the wind wills, he answered. Let's
see. Where shall we put it. so that YOU
won't get the draught? Here, I reck-
on"
He had risen as bespoke, and, taking
from a shelf near by the 4Eolian harp,
he opened the window on the left-hand
side Of the fireplace little way, and set
the instrument in the aperture then re-
sumed his seat and attitude beside the
child.
For a minute all was STILL But pres
emily stole up on the silence, holy and
solitary as the breaking dawn, the long,
low strain Of remote and thrilling sweet
ness, wild, delicate, and lonely, and
hung hovering for a moment in the
charmed air, then failed away in a dim,
mysterious cadence, which, ended, vet
seemed to lnger, like the spirit of bright
things departed, of tender summers
gone.
Little Lillian listened with a face of
breathless ecstacy. The wind-harp was
again still, remaining soundless in the
minutes that followed, and the child
finally resigned herself with a little sigh.
INllIoEJsL5 -5sfFti lJIeseIItIy, Wliat
z0aS Jesus Christi"
The old man glanced at her smiling
ly, with his never-failing surprise at the
oddity of her abrupt questions.
"a mechanic, my dear, - he presently
answered. "What our fine Southern
gentlemen call common mud-sill," +" he
added, sardonically. "A carpenter
God bless him !"
Lillian quietly sat, cogitating his reply,
while the old man wagged his sturdy
head, grimly chuckling over the signif-
cance of his response with an enioy-
ment beyond words.
Grandpa, the silver elfn-voice be-
gan again, ''will Jesus Christ come here
this evening p
Elkanah stared at her in blank won
derment, then burst into a below of
laughter.
well, you are a young one % he said,
wagging his old heao with hearty amuse-
ment. "If l ever heard the like of that
Now, what put that into your noddle,
Lilykin p
II put it in my own self" she an
swered with intense positiveness. "But
will he, grandpa p
"Well, don't know. He might" re-
piled Elkanah, loosely.
Because he's alive, grandpa" earn
estly pursued the child. "OId Uncle
Peter always said he was alive, and
going round doing good. Only that
he'd grown old and gray walking in the
world SO many hundred years-just as
old loafer Tomeny painted his picture
IN there on the fireplace. And that's
all true, grandpa; amt it p
"Ot course, replied the waggish FL
kanah, ticllled to his very midriff
Well, then, guess he might come,
continued the little prattler, with a salts
fed air. "And I wish he would, for /
want to see him very, very much"
Elkanah laid back his head, and
roared and shook with merriment. Fl
nally, subsiding, melIowed to the core
with mirth, he relapsed into his former
position, his hands between his knees,
his head bent forward, gazing at the
elk-horned flames, and tittering secretly.
The little girl sat sedately, taking it all
with perfect seriousness.
Now, sup-posing he was to come
here this evening, she resumed, land
we was sitting here, and talking, and he
should knock at the door-and then,
you know, we wouldn't hear him, grand
pa.
The flames suddenly died down, in
volved in light-blue smoke, and the
hearth gave forth strange and lovely
amber-hght upon the darkening room.
At the same moment there was a faint,
sweet chord of mysterious, trembling
music from the harp.
'Well," said EIkanah, what then p
Then" continued the child, che
would say, Behold, stand at the door,
and knock.
The fire became so strangely low, and
cast so weird light, that the old man
felt sort of wonder creeping over him,
and, without replying, or moving from
his crouching attitude, turned his face
slowly around, with the singular glow
and cross-bars of shade upon his fea-
lures, and scanned the shadowed room,
in holy foliage, and hallow-
ed by that dusly, amber radiance.
The distant voices had ceased, and the
house was still. The unusual light, the
breathless hush that lay upon all, sur
L