The New Bloomfield, Pa. times. (New Bloomfield, Pa.) 1877-188?, 1877-10-23
Saved by a Piece Of Lace.

MFRS. RUTHERFORD was looking
lVL over her laces. There were many
choice pieces of pointe purchased in
Europe; Mechlin and Brussels pointe,
Limerick pointe, with other Irish laces,
Honiton, delicate d'Alencon, and one
precious piece of antique pointe de Ven
Use, for Mrs. Rutherford was a connois-
seur in laces, and threw away her mon
ey in recklessly extravagant way
whenever fine piece was concerned.
"Hope Rutherford, wish you would
tell me how you happened to take the
lace mania," said, as 1 lifted from the
handsome japanese casket an odd piece,
mixture of lace and embroidery, which
i fancied she had picked up in some out
of-the-way corner of Switzerland.
/" 1 believe was ten years DID," she
replied, "when began my study of
laces. The strip which you hold in your
hand was my first acquisition. 1t has
a rather curious history. Would you
like to hear it ?"
And then Hope Rutherford told me
the following story, which proved to be
not of quantity costumed peasants in
some Swiss Valais, or of some princely
lady of the court of Francis L., but of
her own stormy childhood and first
love.
The daughter of a pioneer judge,
Hopes early life had been spent in the
West, five miles from the little town of
Conflict. Their nearest neighbors were
the Antoines. A shrinking little woman
with light hair and washed-out eyes was
Mrs. Antoine, but she had a furtive
way of glancing from them that seemed
to tell that she might have had ideas of
her own before they were crushed out
by the Colonel, who had never been in
the army, and held his title only as a
mark of respect. OF French descent,
and of a fiery Gallo temperament, he
united to many hereditary vices others
y for whose distinctive originality he
might have taken out patent. Life
with him could not have been pleasant
to him under any circumstances.
The two dwellings stood within few
rods of each other, but long detour was
necessary to pass between them, for,
dividing the wooded knoll, on which
Colonel Antoine had reared his strange
structure, from the broad acres of corn
field, scarcely overtopped by Squire
Mays stockade of logs and mud, ran a
1-ax xyipa hn haI Of
stream called the Wild Cat.
Another gulf separated them, for
though their position as settlers in new
Kansas offered many points of resem-
blance in the trials and hardships which
both met so bravely, yet the heads of the
families when they met, as they did on
their way to and from Conflict, never
recognized each other. Mrs. Antoine
would have explained this in her mel
low accents, "'Taint to be helped, 1
s'pose, sence you uns are from the
Nawth and we uns from the Saouth."
The very houses with their sur
roundings spoke the difference between
them. Squire Mays farm had been as
thickly wooded as the Colonel's estate,
but with his own right arm he had
chopped down the trees, built his home
of two rooms and a loft above them
pried up the stumps, ploughed and sown
his corn field. After three years of Ia
Dor as farmer he was beginning to rear
results. The deserted law books stood
upon the rough shelves against the log
wall of the "front room;" a good libra
ry of miscellaneous literature kept them
company. Above the books hung the
'Squire's carbine, only used against the
prairie chickens, for he was man o.
peace. A rag carpet of Mrs. Mays
workmanship covered the floor. Every
thing bore marks of thrift and industry
Colonel Antoine had preempted hi: