The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1874-04-23

attic - interposed my mother. ''I've seen
him furious with the fancy that any one
had gone up there"
"That accursed Continental paper was
there, and he considered it invaluable.
I've no doubt"
1--WE no patiencel'' cried my mother.
SLOW can you sit and talk so to these
children! The poor old man was babbling
childish nothings, as all afflicted so do"
II know what you mean, Marian" :" my
father said. severely. " You try to reason
me out OF the evidence of my own senses,
because you think while / believe in that
buried treasure | shall fail TO seek other
means of providing for my family. 1t is
unwise. at any rate, to teach your children
to dcspise their father" And then he
walked away, and mother cried, and that
was the way we went.
Poor father we didn't know what he
suffered. We were little things. and he
was still moderately young, and he literally
knew how TO do nothing that would fetch
money. At last, more in despair than any,
thing else, for he had no ailment that the
doctor could discover, he took to his bed,
and there for ten long years he staid.
How we held soul and body together
and grew up don't know. Mothers lit
tie despised money paid the tax on what
was left of the FeatherstOnehaugh estate,
and procured a few comforts for father,
now and then new gown for herself, the
cast-off one falling upon us. Father for
tunately did not need any clothes while he
was in bed. There had been several arti-
cles of silver left. Father had insisted
upon their being on the table even when
we had only mush-and-milk. Now, piece
by piece, he told mother to part with them,
and it brought us shoes and firewOOd and
meal, and once in a great while piece OF
beef, and the absolutely Indispensable. We
had lineal descendant of the old Feather
stonehaugh cOws-we never could have
bought ene-and some bee-hives. We
lived chiefly on bread and milk and honey,
and thanked the Lord for that. We sold
half our milk. and that gave the COW her
winters hay, when Bob took care of her.
We tried to keep hens, easily in the sum-
mer but eXtravagantly i'm the winter, and
so we ate them up. OF course we children
were not at all so miserable as our elders :;
we had never known better living, so did
not miss it. And we had gay times among
ourselves, only as we grew older, and Ma
ria and put on long dresses, we realized
our situation. We wanted to go into town
with the other young folks of whom we
heard in the mysteriOusly telegraphic way
that rumOr has Offlying among the young.
When we had anything passably present.
able. we walked the few miles to church
distance being our excuse at other times
and there we saw the more fortunate
lads and lasses, and had themes for talking
and castle-building for days. We did not
go to school, our staple clothes
being unfit, though there were
l. z Il a., uf,fv-
but picture children at a public school in
gold-embroidered taffetas But father had
us about his bed, with his old books, and
he taught us all he knew, and dare say it
was more than we might have learned if it
had cost anything. The hardest thing we
had to do was, when the fuel and the
money gave out together, to 60 down on
the beach and gather drift-wOOd. We
went at twilight, the great dark sea foaming
beside us. and brought our armfuls to the
garden gate, and the nsat night transferred
| that pile to the shed. Some fortunate sea-
sons of many wrecks, we laid in broken
beams and spars and planks, that lasted us
all winter. And il made a splendid fire,
soaked, as it had been once, in the salts and
substance of the sea, so that the flames
wallowing up the great fireplace were
sheets of emerald, of dun-brown gold, sui
phurous azure, and blood red. And as
we sat before it of nights-for we had no
other light at might've conjured up the
circumstances of the woetul wrecks that
made our blaze till we had almost as many
tears to shed as we had in the task OF gath
ering the drift-wOod.
We were lonely children after all, in ouI
cloistered life; for though there were toul
of us, and we had much unity, we longed
as children will, for the outside world
though the day was full with lessons, witt
keeping the great rooms in condition, witt
relieving mother at fathers bedside, ON
drawing-rOom seemed to us yet magDiti
cent apartment-it was one of the Ions
suites. We kept the blackjack floor pol
ished where the old Turkey mats failed
and as the curtains had fallen, the better
parts of each had been taken TO renew the
rest. and tall pieces of cumbrOus furniture
dragged against the bare windows. The
antique chairs and tables were still beauti
full: we were so out of the world that W.
did not know their value in money, ol
thev might have gone long ago. Th'
white paint we made spOtless, and tht
gliding of the carved corniceS was not ye
all worn off. In the summer we KEEP
blossOming plants in great china punch
bowls in the windows, without an ide;
that the exquisite china was worth it
weight in gold; and hiding their blemishe
with well-placed sprays, we heaped th'
broken vases with every flower that bloom
ed in our old-fashioned garden, and KEEP
flat dishes of them on the tables. Thei
the tattered upholstery was covered witt
the old holland covers, now bleached ant
boiled out white; and here, If the Feath
erstonehaugh acquaintance who had no
forgotten us called, my mother saw them
NV mother made no visits herself, bu
she was as much of lady as any Feath
erstOnehaugh of them all, if her aunt KEEP
ten haberdasheries, and she had the air o
a duchess! Here in the summer we made
ourselves happy with realities or imagln
ings. peopling the place with those tha
once oueened it there, or looking forwart
to impossible days when we should queer
it there ourselves. But in the winter tn
room was shut, and any one coming {,
see us then knocked in vain-the days o
the Featherstonehaugh hospitality wer
over. We could not let a guest go ava.
i'm the winter weather unless we had warm
ed his heart with cordial or dainty, an,
neither cordial or dainty did we ever have
but we knew what the Featherstonehaugl
tradition expected of us, and we admitte
, nobody in winter.
| Its the falsest pride!" cried Rob, on
! stormy April night, anger sparkling in tn
ewes that the Greek characters by fire
light had tried; for Rob had resolved t
: 90 to college and work his way, and hav
| a profession, and get out of this mire, h
said. ITO think of a Featherstonehaug
| refusing his fireside to any one in this bi
ter air because he can't crafty his yanit
= bv setting venison pie before him. That
[ an idea of hospitality TO have! The mex
: person that comes | shall let in, and
now-'' Hardly had Rob spoken when
ringing knock startled all the echoes, an
E before mother could look up Rob ha
sprung from the room full of detianc'
: ran down the hall. and thrown open III
door. And it was Francis Royalston.
F; think-such is the force of bloot
( though mother, as well as she could tt
l father, had tried to destroy in us ii
D Featherstonehaugh pride-l think we
1 turned pale; and Amy and Maria ra
!, away. We had seen the Royalstonss
5 church, and had envied the lovely pin
satin and white feathers of the girls hat
and admired their manners, and been ha
d in love with Francis Royalston's ham
" some dark face and gallant air-all thrt
/. of us together, in a fashion that meal