Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1873-08-28

whosesoeyer garments she had on, be
sure she wore them royalty, and gave her
opinions to the day Of her death In an ex-
cathedra style that beat the deacons hol-
low. -. 80
should do wrong to say that she was a
professor" Sitting in the front pew,
where the towns poor were paraded. in
what seemed to me an indicate and in
considerable manner. Polly always stayed
q to the communion, quietly waiting tor the
elements, which never came. The dea-
cons would not bring them to her, as she
had never given what was called "satis-
factory evidence of her fitness to sit at
the Lords table. They might have for
given her for much loving, as He did the
other Mary, but they wouldn't do this
without confession" as they called it,
and this confession Polly would never
make. OF her misfortune" she would
say nothing. literally nothing, at any time
or to any person. Only she asserted with
q her grand air. my skirts are clean from
which oracular saying the deacons might
have inferred much, if they had been less
eager or curious, or more Christ-like.
So she scared about in Sharpsville, in
an embyrean of her own,--which was
well for in a thiuner air, how soon her
poor, broken wings would have brought
her. stained and Inundated, TO the ground
And, after all, what was anybody in
Sharpsville, that we should throw stones
at her?
guess that a keen sorrow TO Polly
Frank was that serpent toothcd one of her
sons alienation. He never came near
her in all her long life; and she never
whispered, but to herself, his name. In
those weary years, which could not be
called repentant ones, had she not paid
more down and running over in her hard
disgraced life, for the sin of her young,
foolish daysp
Then again, putting ones self in the
place OF the wanderer, the nameless son,
with no fair chance in life,--for the world
has wholesome severity for the innocent
consequence as for the guilty cause.--can
we condemn him for his hardness? He
was inexperienced in the slipperiness of
sin, and the young, being so good, are
also so cruel! God only, who sees and
understands all, has long ago cleared
away the cloud and brought the son to the
mothers heart
take the second Polly on the same
principle, as when child, ! swallowed
my '.pikery drops, ito be done with it
Of course, people cannot all be good,
and we needn't have expected it in Sharps-
vile. Nevertheless, there are reasons
and reasons And Polly Dexter, who was
well-to-do, well enough connected, had nc
story. no mystery, no excuse, and was a
professor besides in good standing, had
no business to be SO heartily disliked and
dreaded as she was, in every house where
rents and holes made her advent necessa
ry.
Folly Dexter was as mustard and vine
gar to feast; nay rather like cayenne OF
horseradish; SO sharp, SO bitter were all
her sayings, SO persistent her faultfndng,
so faithful her transmission from house TO
house of every item of Information insult
ed to such travel.
For all that, Polly was as. necessary to
Sharpsville as the air she filed with her
mischief making; for who: ih her absence
could or would undertake the accumula-
tons of carpet mending consequent on
limited means and social ambitions From
six Ia the morning (for she preferred
breakfasting with her customcrs) till nine
at night. she made her needle and tongue
fly, transforming with god-motherlv skill.
rags into ball dresses. and making darns
at which the eleven thousand virgins
would have hesitated And then the
modest way in which she announced. af-
ter many years, that she must raise her
price from twenty-five to thirty-three cents
day, because wood has raised - What
was seven cents more or less. when put in
competition with skill and patience like
hers?
She had dark, bony body. with coarse
black hair tightly drawn back in a knot.
So We're her thin lips drawn from her
teeth; and her black eyes, restless and
rowing, saw everything she shouldn't,
and seemed like the child's description of
Satan. swalking up and down. seeking
how he might catch somebody
Her arrival was the unwelcomc signal
for the portcullis of silence to descend be-
fore our lips; and the smallest among us.
without understanding why, knew Better
than to talk before Polly Dexter. 1t was
reserved for further experience, TO show
Us that It makes all the difference in the
world 70 whom thing is said, and that a
remark as innocuous as a drop of fair
water may fall on some minds poisonous
as one OF hcmlock
Being instructed to t.shusu up, before
3 Folly. we naturally Associated her with
the restraint Of our position; but, indeed
she never said or did ANYTHING to make
10 hhH hNi' toOs as uiuI duu UOn IOVe
her, it may be with slightly acidluated
sense ofjustice that describe her, and
feel certain pleasure that, on a life like
hers, bearing as it did only thorns and
thisties, not the gauziest shadow of tender
remembrance need be thrown; but that il
should be left bare--a remainder and a
warning to carpet members and carpet
readers as well. l mention the last. be-
cause 1t is a sad thought that the vices slip
unawares into all fioors,-scandal being
harbors so frequently, even in parIors as
TO have given rise in some quarters TO the
imputation Of deprivity ia the general
heart.
But judgment like this shows shortsiobt.
edness and narrow mindedness. If Such
thinkers looked about in their own neigh
borhood, they would see numberless dis.
aprovcrs of SO pitilul an accusation. They
would see how sincere and heart inter-
ests shades off unintentionally into curl
Gus and unwarrantable interference how
Y the kindest sympathy wanders into care