Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1877-02-01
1ailp Sirnncbrt SoUrnaI.
ROMANCE o! BARNARD.

was blowing over US, the birds were Dart
ing low here and there, and the bantams
and the spring chickens and the big BLACK
Cochins were clueking and picking IN the
grass, watched over by the old hing
Charles. who redeemed us from vugarlty,
and il was a scene of domestic comfort as
Aunt Helen said Aunt Helen, blythe
way, became very pleasant addition to
the comfortable appearance of the scene,
as she said it. She was lust as plump as a
woman ought to be when her next birth
dav is maybe her fortieth. She had a
soft flush on her cheek. where the dimple
was vet as fresh as when she was girl,
and the flush deepened sometimes into "A
real damask: her teeth were ike rows oil
seed-corn for whiteness, and her eyes Just
AS brook water; only her hair-that was
quito wtts:::s;s..-lsa fely hair, though Tor all
that she parted it evenly over her t,'y
level forehead and above the vet black
eyebrows; and we all declared. every
day of our lives, that Aunt Helen was
beauty IL used to be, she had replied;
'.but that's all gone now. ! have put my
youth behind me-"
Perhaps she had. But we Young people
used to think differently when we saw Mr..
Thornton coming up the road. and Aunt
Helen's eyes resolulely bent on her work.
but her color mounting and mounting. till
the reddest rose that ever burned in the
sunshine was not 50 rich. Mr.. Thornton
saw it too, no doubt, for he always looked
intently all the way by. But the truth
was shall have TO tell you all about il
IL tell YOU any--tnat W taeii Ami Helen
was twenty years younger. she and Mr..
tf..x- i,..l l,.,.r
lovers ever since they could remember.
They had built their house at last, and her
wedding dress was made. II she was n
beauty, he was every inch her mate
know he was, because he is to-day-one OF
the men it does you good to see, who look
AS if they could hold up the world il need
be. and inspire you with confidence in
their power. Now what in the world do
you suppose that, with their house fur
nished, aud the cake baked, and dozen
years of intimate affection 10 bind them,
Aunt Helen and Mr. Thornton found to
quarrel about She declared She wouldn't
Keep hens And he declared that then he
wouldn't keep house
That was the whole Of il, to condense
the statement; one word led to another,
and another led to more, and finally. in
towering passion himself, he told Aunt
Helen that she bad better learn to control
her temper if she didn't want to be 4 viz
in entirely, and Aunt Helen took the ring
off her finger and laid it on the table with
out word and sailed out of the room,
and refused to see him when he called in
the morning, and sent back his letter I'M
opened, and cut the wedding cake and
e 10 ha Oh al
The rest to the fair. Perhaps on the whole
Mr.. Thornton might have been right. Ex-
acily one week from that night Mr.. Thorn
ton was married to Mary Mayhem, an in
offensive little body who would have
married any body that asked her, and she
went into the house that had been fur
nished according to Aunt Helen's taste :;
and Immediately afterward a hen-house
of the most lancful description of archi-
lecture, with gilded vanes and scarlet
chandeliers bristling all over it, rose on
the hill behind his house, full of fancy
fowl. and the little lawn was all alive
with its overflow, and you couldn't 90 by
the place without meeting a flock OF crop
pie crown, or partridge Cochin, or white
Leghorn, or black Spanish. flying up on
each separate piece of fence TO crow out
Mr.. Thornton's triumph-reversng the
old tradition of the grower, and crying,
mo women rule hereI p
They say Mr.. Thornton grew very old
in few years. His inoffensive little thing
of wife turned out to be a smart terma-
giant, who led him pretty dance. Per-
haps she was dissatisfied with her piece Of
heart but then she knew that was all
hnp cha ooh Ia saI h.. L.,
gen.ly-perhaps feeling he had done her
some wrong in marrying her--and graft
fled her every wish, although, having
cared nothing for her in the beginning, il
is doubtful if he cared any more for her
in the end The end came after eighteen
years, when Mrs. Thornton was killed il
a railroad collision, and her husband was
left with four children on his hands, rude,
noisy, iil-faring cubs, as all the neighbors
said II Mr.. Thornton had ever impa-
tiently CHANGED to think that his punish
ment had lasted long enough, he thought
now il was just beginning, when left alone
with those children. He wondered that
his wife had any temper left. He grew
more bent, more vexcd and worried every
day, and one would hardly have recog-
nized, people said, the dark and splendid
Stephen Thornton of his youth, in this
middle-aged, gray-haired man: and yet.
to our eyes, he was still quite remark
able-looking person. perhaps more So from
our associating him with the poetry in
Aunt Helen's life, and making him an OBJ
lect OF wonder as to whether or not now
they would ever come together again
But there was little chance of that. We
had met Mr.. Thornton elsewhere. but he
had never come across our threshold since
the day he went out with his bride 5 ring
And Aunt Helen's popularity was that
she never forgot. Could she, then. for
get the words he spoke to her in his an
ger? Could she ever forget his marry
ing another woman 10 less than a week
II mad been in that week aud a few fol-
lowing that her bair had turned white
She had suffered inexpressibly she had
never slept a night; but she kept up
gay face. Perhaps she would have suf-
tered longer If 1t had not been for our
growing up about her. Her life was thus
filled, every moment of it; she had but
very little time to be lonely. to brood. or
mourn. She forgot herself in US. 1t gave
her quiet happiness, and kept her come
ly. And then she was too proud when
ever the thought thrust up its head, she