Litchfield enquirer., 1873-04-03

First three months after we were married she held off very well; next three, found out as she'd always took it, since her mother fed her on it, si1weeks baby, so she said; perhaps she did; don't know, nor care. .-as .s-.r. We'll. sir; you see I'd left the dredging- boat, seeing as must have decent house for decent wife. hoped to God she'd make me decent wife, sir I'd left the boat and set up in the city; it small choice you have in the city, sir, 1 If you've not trade. never had trade, and so I picked my way in the odd job line; hired to head-pOrter one week; driv an express the next; had fish-still; made balls; blacked boots; run a hack; took 8 contract on dough-nuts; and l set up in fancy iteratoor at the graveyard corner with bind beggar who sang song continual enough to wake tho dead; besides 8 little puppy tied to his bootleg. l To make long story short, sir, she led me LIFE. Yes she did. She led me LIFE after the first three months was over.
 Now that was what I couldn't explain to myself nor to another man. Why, a1ben a man had undertook for the first time in his born days to do useful thing heshould be led A LIFE for it. Not that I meant to put the young woman under obligations in my mind, but I had that feeling as if she'd see the sootability, as you might say, of making man comfort
 ble after it.
 Fur's I could see, done the best decd of my life, and they wasn't so many that could have much choice, and it was an awful blunder. That's what perplexes me.
 l I think you'll remember, sir, that I | spoke about swoird of Paradise? Fur's the young woman went, I'd beon back to my boat before the year was out, ad dog on times.
 But then thero come the little gal. She was the swoird of fames-God bless her! that turned me and kept me, which way and what, from my old ways, and my lonesome ways, and my reckless ways.
 don't quite understand, sir, clear, how man can ever be what he'd been before, after he's had a little gal.
 Now have that confidence in what you may call, meaning no onrespect, the sense of the Almighty, that take it how He blessed that little gal of mine from the first ont. And that's more than did myself.
 '.It must never be q gal, !" said I. Shed be like her mother"
 Sir? I don't quite understand ye. Why, yes; suppose so; kind of a pity-her own mother-yes; but I'd got use to that, you know.
 ''She'd be like her mother" says I. "It must be boy. Of course it will be a | boy" said l.
 You wouldn't believe it, sir, but the night that little gal was born, took my hat and cleared. l never came nigh her for week, and when l did, wouldn't so much as touch her, nor look upon her little face.
 ''Shen be like her mother" says I. How soon found it out, I can't say; it couldn't have been three months; long 1 before ever the little creetur spoke word, found out as plain as day how she wasn't that. There was that in her eyes when i she speared into my face, and that in her little fingers when they twisted into mine. who'd had little gal of his own that he'd 1 feared would be like her mother. l If was younger man, maybe should know how to made long story short, but fact is, the more think ont the longer it grows !; I'm so easy put awry in my mind since war-times come and gone. And l 1 come to set sight by that little gal. And l all that come and went seems to me to come and go for the little gal. And all was and wasn't, seemed to be- and bent, because of the little gal. And mostly all that can remember.-since war-times and and since took to aging-is the little gal. Somehow, it's very long thing, sir, to love little gal. .. 1 used to rock her to sleep O nights she'd rather have me nor her mother; and l I always brushed her little hair down for l her mornin's better nor her mother and I used to slick up her little apron-strings, and ontie her little shoes; and used to heft her softly in my arms, and lay her little arm agin my neck, and thank the | Almighty for that she had turned out On- like =; but never told her that, sir | no.
 ssMy baby" says I, soon's ever she could talk, "marm's sick
 ssMarm's sick" says Blithe, first thing she ever said. That's all said to my lit tie gal about her mother. "Marm's sick" says Blithe over arter me; always said 1t, sir, innocent and prompt.
 My little gal is gentle little gal, sir, with pretty way.
 l I don't know how ever come to leave her to list, I'm sure; but times was hard, and odd jobs slack, and-was I drafted? l No, wasn't drafted; aud l don't think was drunk, and I'm sure I wasn't patriot l ic: nigh as I can remember, I just went; come home one day to dinner, and I'd done it t; to tell the truth, l don't remem- Der much about it but a-standing in the doorway of rainy day, to bid my little girl goodbye.
 We'll, went in early and come out late: not that was much of Hail Colum- by man; but it's sight more easy to keep on doing thing than it is to stop, in general and sent the pay home regu- lar. and marm got tho house and sign painters widow of nine small children to write occasional, as she took in fine folks washing, for she couldn't write herself; and Blithe, she promised to write me letter of her own when she'd been school ed long enough but 1t never come; and so staid along. l went in under Little Mae, and come out under Sherman down to Atlanta, with l this here arm,--by which mean to say the one that ain't here,-in the trenches. Clipped off by she'll. You never see anything slicker in your life.
 s'Whatll Blithe say,' thinks as goes down, "when she sees it's the right un !"
 Nigh as I can recollect, that's pretty much all thinks till I get back to her.
 So one day I come along home, weak for bit. and faintlsh. And l sat down on q little step outside the depot, on &C., count of being dizzy with the cars. It was sunsh1ny on the step, and sunshiny everywhere.
 There come along little gal, remem- Der. with the sun on her, and two-armed father that lifted her over the mud.
 The little gal had stick of red candy half in her mouth, and she held it out to me, all wet, and it was much as ever l could see it, for the sun. But I eat piece of it to pacify her God bless her.) and piece kept for Blithe.
 I sat for little upon the step, with the noise of the city kind of whirring about me, and it was kind of queer now, how sat thinking it was all made by two-arm- ed men. Maybe it was because the jam in my elbow ached or maybe because Il L -=all- o,,ob n lnnn rnieca to get