, 1872-10-27
AN INDIANA LOVE.STORY.

EDWARD EGGLEsTos, Author Of "The Hoosier
SsneoszteG an, GEa ,a Thr;y~tTo ~ Illustrations New
dreWB Co.
s*The End Of the World" as well as tho pre-
ceding novel by Alr. Eggleston, 1.-THE Hoosier
Schoolmaster," appeared at first in serial form
in Hearth and Home, Of which Mr. Eggleston has
been editor for about year. In this
story, as in the other, Mr.. Eggleston
concerns himself with the plain people and
the possible incidents Of Indiana farm-life He
writes Of what he has himself seen, and gains
great dramatic, as well as moral, power from
the homeliness Of his material and the skill Of
it's composition. 1.-THE End of the World" is
love story. August, q Dutch plowboy, falls in
love with Julia, the daughter of his employer,
whose termagant wife, and "the new singing
MASTER" villain Of the usual deep dye, bedevil
the unhappy lovers. The sketches Of char
acter and customs, the reproduction Of dialect,
are done with skill and no little humor. Jonas
Harrison, the wit OF the novel, describes the
new singing-master:
Sings Like owlinga1e, reckon. He's got more
seals to his ministry a-hanging onto Ls watch-chan
than ever seed. Got moustache onto the top story
Of his onth-soI1ething like tuft Of grass On the
root OF an old shed-Htchen Peart? He's the peart-
estooAng chap ever seed But he amt singing
il am any tedge Of turnps: He warnt
born to serve his day aud generation with tuning
fork think he's a~going to reckon water little IN
these parts and that he only playing
Says he come up here for his wholesome, and guess
he did. Think, II he'd staid where be was, he uout
and that room p'raps not more five foot by nine,
and ruther 1a-Hghted and poor-provaioned, an not
much chance for taking exercise in the fresh air.
The singing master forces himself into the
family Of the termagant wife and the blighted
daughter, who had been ruthlessly severed from
all communication with her agricultural affinity.
The plow-boy, who, though Dutch" was
" true, had been discharged, and his place in
tho story is taken for the nonce, by 'sthe Hawk"
as the singing~master is called. He smiles his
square smile, which was 's like some joint stock
companies strictly limited u alludes strongly to
the times when II was travelling in France
with my poor dead mother" Or 'dining at the
house Of the American Minister at Ber-
lin" To these plain country people, in
1843, he was better than lyceum full
Of lectures. As Mr. Eggleston puts it, he has
that flavor Of 'otherness" that they craved.
He gives Julia singing lessons; offers to aid her
in communicating with her lover; does it, Of
course, so as to alienate them, in hopes himself
to win julia, and the broad, paternh acres; but |
he spins his web too coarBely, and, just before |
Julia is caught, ahe falls through the meahes,
dlu escaPeas
There is steaul-doctor, with his "corn-
swcats and calamus j" there is an Elder Hankins, I
of the I" Millerite" persuasion, "who continued |
to whirl before the dazed imaginations of his
rustic hearers the wheels within wheels, and the |
faces of the living creatures OF 'zekie] -contin-
ued to cypher the world out Of existence, ac-
cording to formulas in DAME, marched out the
the seven heads and ten horns
OF the beast do service over and over again :"
there is, by way Of t'somethin' 1udcrous,"a
lynching Of one Gotlieb because he Was aDutch-
man; there is an ''evening with gentlemen" in
which appear "the Hawk" who, under the
name Of Parkina, . river-gambler, seducos
Julie's brother Norman into gambling away his
employers money, and August, now ''strikcr"
on the bout; finally, there is q dead1y illness
which brings August to the verge OF the grave,
and brings Julia to his bedside, in spite Of the
old folks; there is Millerits excitement, dur
ing which the termagant wife and the rest Of
the malerolent meddlers with August and Julia
assemble on a large bald hill overlooking the
Ohio,' to await the coming Of the Lord, where
upon August and julia sedately depart and get
and this is The End Of the World.