Port Tobacco times, and Charles County advertiser. (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1845-1898, 1872-09-13

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barrels off and on the busy time of the
year, and Alvin had learned the trade
too but the little shop was closed now,
and the fields were let out on shares,
and ever since he marched away in the
coat of army blue, her boy had sent
back his pay to the widow, and her
cruise and basket were never empty
Abiah Williams, who lived in the next
place, had banked up her house in the
fall, and dug and stored her winter We
getables, and in the spring, as soon as
the ground grew mellow, he came with
his OK team to plow her garden. By
carpet-making and odd bits of sewing,
Patience was able to supply all her
slender wants. Not a penny Of her
boys earnings had ever been touched.
That money was sacred. Patience had
already spoken to Enoch Holbrook a.
bout puttingi it out at interest. In the
long winter evenings, when she only
heard the slow tick of the clock in the
corner, or the sough of the wind in the
pine trees, her brain was busy with
plans for her boys future.
Deacon Spicer brought the paper in
every third day, after he had slowly
spelled it over for an hour or two at
home. The news had travelled two OF
three hundred miles by rail and stage
before it came to her hand; but Pa
tience watched for it with a beating
heart. The account of bloody battle
generally drove her to bed with a bad
headache, caused by the harder aching
of her mother heart. RachePs sym.
pathies were mainly on the mothers
side; she did not think so much Of the
stricken wives or desolate young mai
dens mourning over their dead. She
had one of those intense but narrow
natures which Puritanism Develops
with little imagination, but strong and
ferVent feelings. Her mind was sc
deeply religious that the whole Of life
was invested with sort of sacred ar.
dor; even her joy found expression in
some grand old covenanter's hymn
that seemed to fill the pauses Of the
wind in the forest grove near at hand
Patience had looked forward many
times to the possible harm that might
come to Alvin. She had thought OIL
her loneliness that perhaps might end
only with the grave; and how, in some
distant autumn day, when the crickets
were chirping in the stubble, she might
feel glad that she had plucked out he1
heart and given it to God, remembering
that he who would save his life must
lose it.
But there were other days when so.
ber gladness colored her mood, and the
sublime old hymns that told of perse.
cution and victory over death came
rolling out on her rich voice. Then
it was easy for her to believe that Alvin
would be spared, and she thought Of
his homecoming as of a second birth,
when the Lord would again put him
into her arms as free gift. With her
deep heart, that took such eager hold
of what it loved, kindling and warm
ing as it held, she pictured the life
that they would lead together, and
slowly pieced out a story of exquisite
kind in that little white-washed room,
where all his history had written itself,
A certain narroWness of vision, as well
as the absorption of her love, made
Patience almost blind to what nature
might bring to pass in Alvin's heart.
The child and the man were envious-
ly blended in her thought. He might
want wife sometime, but he was hard
ly grown up yet. There would be time
enough to think of that years hence.
Beyond the pine grove stood the Ray
farmhouse, and there lived Dier Ray
daughter Huldah, who had been a
plain child, but had grown into a love-
ly young woman, with soft voice, and
brown eyes, and long lashes, which
when downcast rested upon pearly
cheek. Some rumor about Alvin and
Huldah had come to the ears of Pa
tience, but she blew it away like fea-
ther floating in the air. Dier Rays
wife, she thought, was talking wo-
man, not malicious or bad-hearted, but
foolish about her girl; so she avoided
going to the farmhouse beyond the
hill. When Mrs. Ray reached over
in meeting to shake hands, with HUI
dah looking down from the singers
seat, in her pretty straw bonnet trimm-
ed with pink ribbons, Patience met the
overture rather coldly; still she was
obliged to confess that the sweetest
voice which rose above Deacon Spicer's
wheezy bass vial, was Huldah Rays.
Once when Patience was sick with
rheumatism and Huldah came to offer
her services, bringing a loaf of her
mothers snow white bread done up in
the cleanest of towels, she had turned
her face to the wall, and spoken but a
few words in a rather repellent tone.
Then if any one had peeped under the
brim of the little brown hat as she went
off the stoop, they would have seen a
dimness about Huldah's lashes. They
were things which the neighbors sus-
pected, if they did not know for certain,
and there were things which Deacon
Spicer, being postmaster, thought he
knew, for he peered at every letter that
came in the lean mailbag from High
lands.
Patience was blind, but her blind