Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1876-03-04
AUTUMN BLOSSOMS.

How was it that l came to be bach
elor? Not because of hating women,
am sure, for [ liked them very much,
and never could have spoken to one
rudely or discourteously for my life.
AS nearly as [ know, twas in this wise !:
My father died, leaving family of
children, a wife, and an old father and
mother, of whom only myself was able
to earn shilling. He had never saved
anything.
So, after the first great grief, when
we had calmed down and were able to
look matters quietly in the face, there
was wretched sort of prospect for US.
| was only an accountant, and had a
young fellows habit of wasting my
small salary IN thousand different
ways. l had been paying attention, "
too, to Elsie Hall, who, young and
childish as she was, had a way that
some girls do have of leading their ad-
mirers into extravaganza. Of all the
trials of that never-to- be-forgotten
time, l think the greatest was ap
pearing niggardly in those baby blue
eyes. | did not mind wearing plain
suits, discarding kid gloves and re-
nouncing the opera; but not to lay
those bouquets and books, and music,
and dainty bits of jewelry, and multi
tudinous trihes at Elsie's feet, was a
very terrible ordeal. | passed it,
though; and if ever man had reason to
be thankful | had for the acquisitive lit
tie beauty Tilted me in month for Tom
Tandem, who was rich and lavish of
gifts, and who ran away from her after
a marriage OF ten months.
worked day and night, and managed
to keep the wolf from the door.
Sometimes | used to think how we'll
it was for Elsie that she had not really
loved me, for she could have had moth
ing but a dismal prospect of wearing
out her youth in dreary, hopeless en-
gagement to one too poor to marry.
That was until Tom ran off. Then |
thought it would have been even bet
ter for her to have shared our humble
home and poor fare and the love |
could have given her than to be desert
ed so. And [ pitied her, as if she had
not proved herself heartless. But |
never went near her, of course; and l
never even spoke of her to my mother.
| grew no younger all this while,
and every year seemed to add five to
my looks. [ had never been very
handsome or very merry, and soon l
became conscious of a peculiar middle
aged look, which settles down upon
some people very early.
Strangers, too, began to take me for
the head of the family; and once, in
new neighborhood, the butcher alluded
to my wife" | found out that he
meant my mother, and only wondered
that it was not dear old grannie.
She was eighty, grandfather ninety.
and they died one bright autumn day,
before prosperity cametO US, died with
in an hour of each other-for grannie
just said, II think I'll lie down bit,
Lemuel don't need me. I'm very
tired"
Then she kissed me, and said,
You We been a good boy to your grand
pa, Edward. You'll have that to think
Of"
And when next we looked at her
she was dead, with her cheek upon her
hand like sleeping child.
80 two were gone, and we we're sad
der than before. And then Jean, my
eldest sister, married at sixteen a
physician, who carried her off to Hin
dostan in her honeymoon.
And we could none Of US feel the
wedding happy thing.
But prosperity did come at last. l
had worked hard for it, and anything
a man makes his sole object in this life
he is very sure to attain,
We were comfortable-easy. All,
what word that is after years of strug-
gle At last we were rich. But by
that time | was five and forty-a large,
dark, middle-aged man, with face
that looked to myself in the glass as
though it were perpetually intent on
figures. The girls were married. Dick
had taken to the sea, and we saw him
once year or so, and Ashton was at
home with mother aud myself-the
only really handsome member of our
family, and just two-and twenty. And
it was on his birthday, | remember,
that that letter came to me from poor
Hunter-that letter which began
when these lines reach you, Ned
Sanford, shall have my six feet of
earth-all | ever owned or would if |
had lived to be hundred"
We had been young together though
he was really older than l; and we had
been close friends once, but a rowing
fit had seized him. and We had not met
for years. l knew he married young
Kentish girl, and knew no more; but
now he told me that she was dead, and
that his death would leave a daughter
an orphan.
She is not quite penniless," he
wrote; "for her mother had little in
come, which, poor as | was, | was never