Eaton weekly Democrat. [volume] (Eaton, Ohio) 1866-1875, 1873-12-25

into the flesh. It was an awful night,
spite of the calm of the heavens a
night long to be remembered how to
be remembered by me
1t came 8 o'clock, and we had finished
supper. My father was absent, but was
momentarily expected. I came out
from the house, and found my step
mother-the dearest and best of women,
whom I loved quite as well as could
have done my own Notwithstanding at
the yard-gate. Through the dusk, [
could see that ragged, uncleanly-look-
ing old fellow was at the gate, and
asking the privilege of staying all night,
and she was evidently hesitating. L
knew why she was doing so. Within
twenty-fours our home would be full of
visitors, attracted by the wedding and
the Christmas festivities and how could
she allow that uncleanly tramp to con-
taminate one of her snowy white and
immaculate beds - perhaps infect a
whole chamber.
heard that doubt in her voice, and
echoed it-God forgive me was so
much younger then, and SO much less
aware of the scares which crimes and
follies make on our natures as well as
our lives Sometimes I think our love
and our happiness make us for the mo-
ment harder and more selfish, just as
at other moments they soften and refine
us. L was so happy, just then, I think,
that the world was nothing to me.
Above all, wanted no strangers, and
certainly no dirty strangers, mingling
with the family and my great Joy.
The man was pleading, even after the
refusal, to be allowed to stay and I
heard him, in a voice that sounded
foreign and outlandish, though he was
speaking good English enough, saying
something about "Holdane." "
"Pshaw mother, you have debated
long enough with that old straggler y
I said. 'sHe knows about Holdane,
and no doubt can easily find his way
there. Send him On, and come in out
of the cold, with your bare head and no
shawl.
"There, my good man; You hear what
goR says vaaene % by 'h@S
words. "We cannot do anything for
you tonight all full. Right up the
road there, only couple of miles, that
is the way to Holdane."
The poor fellow made one more at
tempt to create pity, and 1 caught his
suggestion; , -,
Instantly another unfortunate recol-
lection took possession of me. Twice,
within the preceding winter, some
neighbors' barn had been burned,
through fire alleged to have been ac-
cidentally communicated by old tramps
and beggars, who had taken up their
lodgings in barns, and there Gas sup
posed lighted their dangerous pipes
though, of course no one really knew
l., = 41,o4 81 81 4I,nH ho1 cd
otherwise. However, at this suggestion,
L took the matter into my own hands,
thinking, at the moment, that my father
would not allow such thing.
"No, old man. said, "you cannot
sleep in the barn. You have heard
what my mother said; we have no
room for you. Go on, before it gets
later and colder"
The old fellow turned and went his
way but remember catching glimpse
of his almost white hair, by the light
from the house window, and hearing
him say, as he wrapped his poor clothes
about him:
"Cold cold!'
I have never known, since, except
that God is very slow to punish, or that
me, why was never struck dead at the
moment for that gross act of crulty. L
only know that I allowed him to go
away, and that I dimly saw his tattered
rags disappear against the white snow
up the hill-road leading to Holdane,
which place must do myself the u.s.
tice to say, that I had at the moment
no doubt of his reaching, the hour be-
ing 50 early,
= My step-mother entered the house, as
the man moved away, and followed her
in moment. He had scarcely been
gone ten minutes when she said, look
ing at me in her own, kind, troubled
way =
quite right in not letting the poor old
man stay? Who knows what may hap
pen to him ?"
beds and remember you do not keep an
inn He will get along all well enough;
and the roads are always full of such
fellows with pitiful stories.
"Ah, well, I suppose so !; but it is
cold-I wish your father was home"
She said nothing more on the subject,
and I was glad that she did not, for the
double reason that she did not wake my
sleeping conscience, as she might have
done, and that was thus enabled to
fall away into one of my cherished wax
ing dreams, in which was bathing my
self in the light and warmth of the great
fire, all the joyful events to the next
evening in bridal white, with her
face all bushes of love for me an hun
dred friends around us, all happy be-
cause we were so !; and myself arrived
at that summit of happiness on which
the crown of king, with no Milly to
bind it on the brow, would have been an
insult. I had dreamed such dreams a
thousand times before-at night in my
lonely room-by day, in my office, il
left alone and in silence for few mo-
monts-under the stars, when each
seemed sending down some benison Oh
! my love but never before SO fondly ol
wildly as that night when the near ap
proach of my aoces gave color to soms
intensity of expectation.
My father fulfilled my mother's,,wisl
in very brief period perhaps half al
hourly returning, the snow crunch
ing hard under the wheels, and hi
breath frozen to great icicles in hi
beard. He came in to the fire, Will
one of the men led away his horse. M,
mother was evidently i'll at ease, for sh,
spoke to him on the one subject upper
most in mind almost the moment tina