The Toledo chronicle. [volume] (Toledo, Tama County, Iowa) 1873-1924, 1873-10-30


Jailed in their time and season to
give flavor to their domestic felicity
OF the period. Beyond this the sto-
ry has little valuc--except as an off
set to the usual anecdotes OF Hessian
atrocity.
They had .thclr financial panics
even III Jersey in the old days She
remembered when DR.. White marri-
ed your cousin Mary, or was it Su.
san yes it was Susan; she rcmem
bers that your uncle Harry brought
in an armful of bank natas---papor
money, you know, ard threw them
all IN corner, saying they were no
good to anybody. She remembered
playing with them, and giving them
to your aunt Anna-ro, child, it was
your own mother, bless your heart
Some OF them were marked as high as
hundred dellars. Everybody kept
gold and silver in stocking or in
clancy vase like that. You never
used money to buy anything. When
JOSIAH went to Springfield to bny
anything, he took u cart-load o!
things with HIM to exchange. That
yaller picture frame was paid for in
green,ngs. But then people knew
just what they had. They didn't
fritter their substance away in un
christian trilles like your father Eli
"a Jauc, who doesn't know that there
is God who will smite him hip and
thigh-ior vengeance is mine, and
those that believe in me-bu. here,
singularly enough, he inferior max
iilarles gave out, and her jaw drop
ped. I noticed that her giddy
daughter OF 85 was sitting near her,
but | do not pretend to connect this
fact with the arrested flow of per-
sonal disclosure). Iowbeit, when
she recovered her speech again 1t
seemed that she was complaining OF
the weather.
The seasons have changed very
much since your father went to sea.
The winters used to be terrible in
those days. When she went over to
Springfield, In June, she saw snow on
" atsohs ridge. svas whel .
days when you conldn't get over to
William Ienry's, their next neigh
boris, quarter OF mile away. ii
was that dretfel winter that the
Spanish Sailor was found-you don't
remember the Spanish sailor, Eliza
Jane, it was before your time. There
was little personal sklrmishing, and
| feared, at first, it might end in a
suspension OF maxillary functions,
and the loss of the story, but here is:
All, me, it is pure white winter
idyl, how Shall | sing it, this bright
gay autumn day?
1t was terrible night, that winter
night. when she and the century
were young together. The sun was
lost at 8 o'clock the snowy night |
came Down like white sheet that
tapped around tie house, beat at the
windows with its edges, and at last
wrapped it in a close embrace. In
the middle OF the night they thought
they heard above the wind voice
crying. 'Christus Christus in a
foreign tongue. They opened the
door-no easy task IN the face of the
north wind that pressed its strong
shoulders against it-.but nothing
was to be seen but the drifting snow
The next morning dawned on fences
hidden, and a landscape changed and
obliteratcd by drit. During the
day they again heard the cry Of
Christus this time faint and hid
den, like a child's voice. They look
ed in VAN, the driitei snow held its
secret On the third day they broke
path to the fence, and then they
heard the cry distinctly. Digging
down they found the body Of q man
"a Spanish sailor, dark and bearded.
with earrings in his eats. AS they
stood gazing down at his pale and
pulscless figure, the cry Of ChrIstus I
again arose on the wIntry air, and
they turned and fled in superstitious
terror to the house. And then ono
of the children, boldcr than the rest,
stopped down and opened the dead
mans rough pea jacket, and found
what think YOU? A little blue and
green parrot nesting against his
breast. 1t was the bird that had
echoed mechanically the last despair.
ing cry Of the hfe that was given to
save il. 1t was the bird that ever
after, amid outlandlsh oaths and
wilder sailor songs, that fear often
shocked the pure ears Of It's gentle
mistress, and brought scandal into
the Jerseys, still retained that one
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