Dodge City times. [volume] (Dodge City, Kan.) 1876-1892, 1877-12-01

y l.
must stop and stare at us. But the
music sounded loudly, the dancing went
on. and no one seemed to heed us. As
we went down the steps | SAW ''Jigger
JIM" the village idiot, grimacing and
gesticulating and mimicking the dane
ing, with group of village folk nod
ding and applauding and urging him
on, and / was glad that no one had
heard Jake's words.
For to me those words were appalling.
This was the first time since we had
been married that | had ever heard Ja-
cob utter any thing approaching an
oath. II startled me like the light OF 4
flame suddenly glaring up red and lurid
in the midst OF a quiet woodland.
Jacob had been reputed a little wild !;
a good many wise old folk had shook
their heads when we came together. Ii
was said he had run through with all
his thrifty fathers money, had been
wasteful and speculative and dissipated.
and had none of the thrifty qualities and
forehandedness deemed so essential
among the orderly farming people of
Laurel neighborhood. Some said
would surely repent if l married him.
Had the time for repentance come now?
Well, we had not been prosperous this
year, and Jacobs farming had been
married by drought and blight.
Well do | remember the aspect of that
blighted corn-field, from which we had
expected so much. Ii reminded me of
a troop of weather-beaten soldiers that
| saw once returning home in the latter
days of the war, jaded, dispirited. and
with ragged banners trailing in the dust.
No music, no cheers of welcoming
voices, no hats of, 10 welcome their re-
turn. So, YEARLY, with detected heads
and thin long leaves uplifted, our corn
field trailed ON the hill side.
Something of this decentralization had
perhaps entered into our household
sort OF nameless shadow, a bleak and
blighting something, against which no
energy and no activity could avail. We
were young, you see, and had, as it were,
Just commenced life, and it was hard to
know that things We're going wrong
with us from the beginning.
But Jake was still hero in my ewes,
and l loved him well, and it was to lure
him a little from the impalpable gloom
that was settling around us that had
proposed this evening stroll. l did
not take naturally to moodiness, and
that sort of quiet that settles like mold
or some married lives; and the music,
the moonlight, and the stirring people
were like wine to me, and should have
gone back to our quiet little cottage
gay as a lark if it had not been for those
words. They seemed like lead to my
heart of hearts, and weighed it down
as we walked silently homeward.
1t was late when we returned. but
Jacob seemed in no wise inclined to re-
tire. He walked about, restless and ret
icent. The place seemed too small for
him; his tall figure seemed to contract
its limited space, as he moved TO and
fro, till it was almost 4 relief to see him
step from the doorway and silently
stride down the road. 1t was no new
thing for him to walk off the {. blues in
that way; and | never intruded upon
these moods, when he appeared to men
tally set me aside as one who could not !
share in the thoughts that were urging !
him. Generally he came back to me |
out of these morose fits more loving and
kinder than ever, and this was joy
enough.
But tonight | was restless too. L
wandered down to the gate and watched 1
his tall figure as, with a deep shadow
stalking after it in the moonlight, il dis I
down the turn of the road. | I
fell into reyerie standing there-a rev. /
erie of | know NOT how Iouo duration | 1
was reused from it by the appearance
on the road OF Jigger Jim's distorted
figure. We were very good friends, jig
ger Jim and myself, and he had once sig
nified his high appreciation of our friend
ship by presenting me with huge brass
button. His glee. when pinned this on