The Portland daily press., 1875-09-18

as it promised to keep me standing there all
night, revolver in hand. What would Molly
say, sweet soul, if she should happen to wake
up and miss me?
l had listened to the tick-tack, tick-tack. of
the old clock for fifteen minutes, perhaps,
when I began to dose a little, wondering,
after all, as I dozed, whether it was not the
old man in the upright coffin in the corner
VIII O had slipped out of bis receptacle during
the night and smothered the babies in The
trundie-bed. From this dose started sud-
denly, with the same premonition which had
broken in upon my browse On the previous
night, and saw the two marsh-light ewes of
ManX peering from the cathode into the room.
Expectation on tiptoe, l stood still, holding
nv breath until the muffled thump of nv
heart drowned the ticking of the clock.
Manx crawled slowly into the room. did
not hear him, l only saw min as a moving
flame. with lighted cat in the centre. He
was ten minutes creeping from the cathode
to the trunde-bed, possibly six feet. SO imper-
ceptible was his progress.
was so situated that my eyes commanded
| the truro le-bed as he crawled into it with a
movement so like that of a swaying, lumi-
nous mist, that only knew he was there by
seeing him. A drowsy purr stirred the atmos-
phere of the room, and by the flicker of the
unsnuffed candle, had just an instant to no.
| tice him lying exactly across the throat of
little Job, his face bent forward, and laterally
| so as to rest purring upon the very face of DR..
Needham, jr. Then baby-moan interrupted
my observation, and, 1 think, wakened me
| from kind of torpOr that was gradually
sleeping my senses.
With sudden movement had him bv the
neck, and dragged him from the trundle-bed.
With q queer hiss, but 70 scream, and ewes
| like two living balls, the creature turned and
| buried his claws in my arm, tearing the flesh
| as if it had been paper. Maddened with the
laceration and the savage struggle of the des-
perate animal, 1 walked deliberately to the
| door, opened it with the hand holding the re-
yolver, passed into the adjoining room, put
| the muzzle of the pistol against his heart as
| near as could under the circumstances, and
pulled the trigger once, twice, thrice. 1t
| was dark save little moonlight struggled
through the crevices in the curtains, and that
Manx was a ball of fame enveloping my arm
| and hand, that died out as he ceased TO
| struggle.
Lighting lantern, I carried the body to
| the office, where dressed my arm and re-
pewed my linen. Molly slept through it all,
and, when returned, little Job, awakened
by the melee and the repeated reports, had
cried himself to sleep again.
/ an old man now, and very nervous and
| WhlluolCdis COu 10 otuuJluS lUI but pfOl6o-
sion, and will continue my hunt after the g.
The old sign-board and are waxing aged TO-
| gether, with a strange sympathy, daily
Strengthening, that binds the one to the 9th.
er, and often fancy, as stand in che Office
door of a sunshiny day. and listen to the three
little graves calling 'papav' that the weather
| worn parallelogram takes the cue and puts on
an expression of sadness in sympathy with it:
master. There are Agnes, Willie and Violet
over again, younger than Job, and the grass
is still rank on a little spot by the ofice-dool
where Manx lies buried. As near as l car
trace his history in my mind, enlightened by
later and more minute observations as to the
| physiology OF cats, he was subject to attacks
of epilepsy, and must have wandered far out
of his native neighborhood, as no doubt Kas.
par Hauser did during larvated spasm o.
the disorder. His depraved tastes, his singu
lar electrical properties, and the hame-like
aura that enveloped him at times, were all
seQuelg and opponents of his malady.
From the date of his last andseverest spasn
in my Office, SO far from really recovering, his
fits were transformed by one of these inexp
cable turns incident to nervous affections in
to larvated and nocturnal attacks, and Manz
became somnambulist. In these attacks
habit directed him TO the trundle-bed; but
whether the babes were actually smothered
or died of a process akin to that of mesmer
ism, in consequence of the peculiar electrical
and nervous properties developed in the
throes of the disorder, is question I shall
have to bequeath to DR.. Needham, jr., who
no doubt will solve the mystery of the uni
verse one of these days-at least he thinks so
I did not like to begin, ! dislike TO conclude
my story-it seems SO like ending life. Blu
it must be so, for 1 hear the voices callins
from the old graveyard under the hill, 'Papa
! ms nc MOI p,-opH iS mr.
one is Willie, and one Violet. 1t is the same
always. The old doctor is never too bus,
by day, never too sound asleep by night, moi
to hear the three little voices calling from thu
three little trundle- beds under the grass.
hear them at this moment, and, begging you
pardon, reader. for the interruption, must
stop just long enough to answer, 'Lie still
little ones, papa'l be there presently."-Ap
| plet0n's Journal