The star. (Cincinnati [Ohio]) 1874-1875, 1875-04-17


He knew well that 1t was her interces.
sion that saved him many brutal fog
ging for his neglected tasks; and before
she had been a month at The farm he
could not have counted on all his fl
gers the times she had sheltered him.
Once a heavy whip-lash had fallen
upon her own white arm interposed to
screen him; and Trotty wept as he sci.
dom wept over his own bruises and blows,
He followed the girl like dog, con-
j tent to lie at her feet and look into her
eyes AS she read, or took her guitar to
j forget her SORROWS in the sweet sounds
that seemed to bring her fathers spirit
to her side.
She was fond of wandering alone In
the woods, mile from the house, to lad
or play, and it never startled or annoyed
her to find the idiot boy creeping out
| from amongst the trees to lie at her
feet, or listen to her music, or hear her
voice talking to him. Her pity for him,
her gentle tenderness of tone in speak,
ing to him, her tolerance of his presence,
increased al every interview the idiots
worshiping love, till it was a little
thing to say he would have died to spare
her one sorrow. ..-
But Trotty never came forward when
| Charles Garland was PearPs companion
In her walks. The young giant wooed
| the fair girl as he thought most accepta-
BILE, and she endured him for the sake Of
| his parents, never dreaming OF the hope
her gentlen6ss inspired.
Her sorrow was too young yet for her
to think of the future. Every instinct of
her nature warned her that she could
not long endure her present life, but she
had made no plans as yet. Friends she
had made in plenty, but her fathers
restless wandering from place to place
had left her no homelike feeling for any
one spot. She felt vaguely that some
time she must leave Ohio and return to
the society where books, music and the
retinements of life would be hers again.
In the meantime she had quiet, ana se-
clusion, and love, even if it was rough
In its expression.
Upon such vague dreams as these
broke one day the spoken wooing of her
cousin Charles. They were in a favorite
spot in the wood, when he said words
whose import could not be mistaken
words now dictated by a wild, yearning
love for the gentle girl beside him, as
well as desire to handle her riches.
She was not eighteen, this Pearl of
whom write, but she had dreamed her
love dreams as well as others-pure, in
nocent visions, with an ideal hero ior
center. But love never pictured such
wooer as this one, who had taken her
hand into his own huge palm, and bent
his coarse lace to peer into her shrink
ing eyes. ..
"Oh, Cousin Charles" she said, trying
to release her hand, 81 never thought or
this-never. Pray let me gol You hurt
mew =
"Let you o.. go' When you promise to be
aOh, l never canl Indeed, l never
can. You will soon forget me! will 90
awayw she sobbed.
he held her slender wrists fast In one
of his great hands, and swore a hideOus
oath that he would never release her till
she promised to be his wife,
"You think am not good enough for
your dainty ladyship" he said; "but l
will have youW
She was feeling deathlike faintness
creeping over her, when there was a.
cry, and in second the idiot boy sprang
upon Charles Garland's back, and
grasped his throat in his long bony arms,
hanging back with his whole weight on
the coarse brawny throat.
Strangling, furious with rage, Charles
released Pearl to throw of his new as
sailant. Paralyzed with horror, the girl
looked upon the frighttul struggle.
Locked together i'll q horrible embrace,
the two rolled over and over, till there
was sudden gleam of steel, knife
blade rose in the air, and was plunged
into Charles. Garland's heart.
Then all life and sense left Pearl, and
she fell heavily to the ground.
But the idiot, with blood upon his
hands, was turned to a madmall- Find
ing his enemy did not move as he drew
out the dripping blade, he left him, and
kuelt beside Pearl.
ave killed him for you! He's deadW
he said. "Iou can open your eyes now,
and 10 away. Pearl, he can't harm you
now. Hush She is dead, too! Deadl
White and cold and dead! Nobody now
to put up her pretty white hands to save
poor Trotty from a beating! Dead
DeadW
They found him crying, beating his
breast, and calling on Pearl, with the
bloody witness Of his crime lying beside
him, and Pearl still white and sense-
less.
In one of the asylums for idiots there
is still shambling, loosely hung man,
who is kept alone because his hands
have been dyed in blood, and who has
only one joy in his dreary solitude. 1t is
when a sweet-faced woman, now past
thirty, comes with tall, handsome man
who calls her his wife to see the poor
pensiouer on her charity, and plays
upon the guitar, while he lies at her feet,
looking into her lace.
And the gentle woman calls him "Poor