The Canton mail. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 18??-1882, 1875-12-18

olned wb,,nn.nity of the COloners eldest
OF fh ny uncle George; at all events he
rcd to look queer when new servant
was directed to place five extra plates
upon the table for the children in
heaven. At last it broke out suddenly
like a thunder-clap in a cloudless sky,
or like an earthquake to upheave the
proud foundation of this grand old
family. Death had been a sore Attic
ton, but this was really the family's
greatest calamity.
l was then ust entering my teens
and lived with my grandparents, and
one day came home late in the after
noon, and upon opening the front door
heard an unusual noise, which seemed
to proceed from the room at the top of
the stairs.
l ran up quickly, and there in the
front room over the parlor, found my
grandmother lying upon the floor, I'M
conscious, and blood trickling from her
right temple.
In the corner of the room, leaning
against the wall, ghastly pale, his eyes
protruding from their sockets, tremb-
ling like an aspen, stood my uncle
George; he was pointing with his finger
toward his mother, and between his
breathing, which was labored and pant
ing, muttered through his teeth:
s'She has taken away my back! She
has taken away my back But 1 can
stand here against this wall, and this
historic beam shall be my spinal col
umn!"
Before I had time to call assistance
the paroxysm was over, the wild ex-
preston had left his countenance, his
breathing became gradually calmer.
and he fell faint and unconscious on
the floor.
Uncle George had for years applied
himself necessarily to the duties of his
position as Secretary of the Halifax
Marine Insurance Company. The first
intimations that his health was being
undermined, consisted of certain vague
symptoms of indigestion, followed by
impotence, intolerable headache, and
sensations of chillness. Slowly and in
sidiously the disease progressed until it
eliminated in the first crisis-the par
oxysm which have described. A pre-
tracted illness ensued and partial re-
covery: after that, paroxysm after par
oxysm of mental arrangement and
physical prostration till it developed
into a hopeless mania, which made it
necessary that he should be removed to
the asylum.
The mailman had not inflicted a
blow, as supposed. My grandmother
had tainted, her nervous system having
received terrible shock at the sudden
change in the demeanor of the son
upon whom she was accustomed to look
with peculiar maternal pride and the
blood which had alarmed me so much
at first proceeded from a slight cut
which had been inflicted in the fall by
the setting OF diamond ring which
she wore upon her finger.
Inever entered that room over the
parlor that l did not experience an I'M
defined feeling of apprehension and
dread come over me, and imagine l
saw again the CHASTITY visage of the in
sane man, who stood there trembling,
painting and muttering: "You have
taken away my backl' and bolt upright
in the corner of the room seemed to
be depending upon the thick, heavy
beam which formed one of the supports
of this old-fashioned house, to replace
the column which he imagined had
been surreptitiously removed by his
mother, and the PROSTATE form of my
grandmother lying on the floor as if
murdered, the blood trickling from her
temple.
After that / believed the house was
haunted, or else my excited magma
ton pictured scenes and created sounds
that did not exist in reality. l never
looked into the big oven that 1 did
not see the form of John Huss and
other martyrs burning at the stake,
and with eyes directed upward toward
heaven uttering last earnest prayer !;
1 could see creeping things and Lilipu-
tian serpents winding their loathsome
bodies in and out Of the fringed SCOT
which lined the back Of the fire place,
and criminals dangling from the tram
mel; l heard the dishes rafting in the
closets; dogs bowling outside in the
darkness the wind whistling with al
most human voice; and footsteps and
silk dresses rusting on the staircase.
If 1 went up into the attic where there
were old files of papers printed in war
times and yellow with age, and the
military clothing riddled by moths, and
leathern hats with the letter of the COM
pany upon a brass plate in front, and
the rusty arms of members of our fam
lily who had fought in the war of the
Revolution and Of 1912, would hurry
down, pale with fright, for / thought 1
had seen the bodies of wounded soldiers
writhing in agony, and their bleeding,
ghastly heads beneath their hats, wink
ing their eyes and protruding their
tongues, and their pale fingers upon
the old f1intlock.
Ny uncle had been in the asylum
two years, and had not in the least
improved. This was the period of
venesection, the straightjacket, the
brute force, and the golden age of
psychological medicine had not yet
dawned. He was treated like Grim
inal, and when grandmother, who was
a frequent visitor, expostulated with
the keepers, she was warned as she val
ued the life of her son, not to NEEDLE
with the sanitary regulations of the
hospital. She always persisted in her
prophecy that Uncle Georges life
would end tragisally, and seemed to
hold a Pythagorean doctrine that his
own sweet spirit had long ago departed
in peace, and that the body was now
possessed of demon.
One gloomy night in December, the
whole family were assembled in the
sitting room, where cheerful camel
coal fire, which had been blazing and
suffering in the CRATE, was now low
and dying away for it was almost time
to retire. Grandfather, whose locks
now glistened with premature age, was