The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1874-11-19
sailors anchor pricked in faded blue on


the back. -. ...
But Deb was quick she caught at
the closed fist sharply, holding it in o
vigorous grip, treasure and all, as she
turned upon Che robber-a woman with
flashing eyes, full of nerve and strength,
not to be lightly quelled, transformed
by sudden peril into heroism.
But as she turned cry broke from
her lips-a wild, strange cry, uttering
all the passion and loneliness of her
lifetime.
"Jerry |" she cried. go God, it
was all for you !"
Was it so indeed that Jerry had come
homer Was it Jerry who shrank from
her extended arms, and falling abiectly
on the floor, groveled at her feet ?
Jerry her knight, her returning hero,
for whom she had coveted all things,
for whom her world was all too small
to afford largess FOR his welcome
A divine mother-light shone in Debo-
rah's eyes. All things were for him ;
first of all, forgiveness.
Disgraced, degraded, jerry fallen
upon evil ways, Jerry so much the
more will the great mother-heart COM
fort and welcome thee
ct never meant it, MOTHER" he cried;
"no, I never meant this I've been
bad enough and wretched enough and
starved enough, but I never meant this.
1t was the money he gave you down at
the long tent that done it. I never see
your face, not once, oh, not once,
mother, only the jingling, hateful purse
that lured me on like devil Let me
away out O. this" he cried, breaking
from her grasp, sand I'll never trouble
you more. l swear it-never
But his mother set her back against
the door; she drew with trembling
fingers the great rusty bolt. "Listen
to the lad p she said smiling, as she
smoothed his rough hair with her ten
der hand. "Does he think that after
waiting all these years he's going to get
quit of his old mother in this fashion :?
Nay, nay, my lad, it was all that there
sun-bonnet O mine ~
"Well," said Mrs. Thornpin to her
husband, as she cleared the dinner
table next day, 81 give Deb up after
this. There's no use trying to reason
with Deb. She won't take no kind OF
edvice. There she's got that great
bulky lad back to eat her out of house
and home, with his furrin ways and his
monkey face. But bless me! Deb
never would take things to heart like
other folk. She grows sleek on what
would fair wear me to skin and bone.
Thornpin, mark my words'-'
But Thornpin had lit his after-dinner
pipe and escaped.
Certainly Jerry had not improved in
appearance that was quite true. His
swarthy face and small, glittering
eyes, black and restless, constantly
suggested that obnoxious foreign origin
which the neighbors never could get
over. But Jerry, shy as some wild
creature, troubled the neighbors but
little only once in a while they caught
glimpses of him setting out shoreward
with his fshing-line, or late of an even
ing strolling along the sands with Deb,
who never wore the old sun-bonnet
now, having replaced it with broad
brimmed gypsy, always gay with a knot
of crimson flowers. "She could afford
it now," she said, since Jerry had
come home"
And never could any one bring Deb
to see anything amiss with her boy. To
all cavilers she pointed with pride to
her trim garden, rescued from sand
and weeds, where occasionally of an
afternoon you might catch glimpse of
the ragged straw hat and turned-up
trowsers in which the long -waited-for
prince did duty in the potato patch or
weeded the cucumber bed.
"There never was such a boy for
work." says his mother, watching him
dreamily from the porch and if he had
come home millionaire or merchant
prince, you could see no difference in
the light of the mother-eye beaming
upon him.