Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1877-06-07
NO. 1874.
Gales and Sketehss.
OZARK" DENNIS AND HIS GRANDSON.
BY TIE AUTHOR OF "EPIsoDEs IN AN OBJ
sCURE LIFE"


railing, which serves as gymnasium for
the ragged youngsters of the neighbor-
hood, there runs narrow paved footwav
in front of row OF low. dark, old-iash-
ioned cottages. They were rural cot
tages once, with front gardens. perchance,
slOping up to the level of the then much
narrower roadway, and the top of apple
trees in the bigger gardens behind show
ing over their low roofs of sweeping
tiles Git may have been matched in those
times) with branches of white and pink
blossoms, or ruddy fruit cleaning forth
from still green leaves. Citizens setting
forth for a country walk may have glanced
gratefully at the honeysuckles on the
porches or the hollyhocks standing sentry
beside the garden gates, as first taste of
the treats IN store for them. There is very
little rural now about Fleming's Row.
London has spread four miles beyond it.
The respectable quasi private houses of
the neighborhood, as l have intimated.
have put on shabbiness and they have,
too, the unhomelike look which springs
from joint occupancy and the turning of
front parlors into workshops and offices,
and first-hoor bedrooms into warehouses.
The front gardens are utterly gone. The
back gardens have been amputated into
built-in little back yards. The cottages
have acquired very sluttish aspect, TO
match the appearance of their tenants,
who may be described as people whom
you never see with clean faces and in Sum
day clothes. The first house OF the row,
however, and its inmates, were some
time ago an exception to this rule OF
dreary dowdyishness. A side view of the
little back yard, somewhat longer than
the others, could be got by the passers
by, and it showed that the small enclo-
sure tried-a hard struggle-still to be
garden.- Theie was disproportionatel
big summer house at the bottom, with
some dull, green trellis work about 1t,
up which the vividly green, round leaves
and blazing blossoms of the nasturtium
managed to climb. The garden walls
were green and red in the season with
scarlet runners hung here and there, in
autumn, with tlaccid, open, yellow pods,
displaying very respectsbly mature seed
beans OF amethyst and jet. In spring,
mustard and cress came up in strangely
fresh looking letters from the cindery soil,
and later there were flowers In the bed
chiefly wall flowers, Tom Thumb mas
turtiums and London pride. But the front
of the house, as long as flowers could bear
the air, was bright with their blossoms.
The two or three little front windows
were fenced with miniature gates and
palings, painted green and white, ever
which musk plants billowed and creeping
jennys cascaded in downy light or dark,
glossy green and glowing g0id. Within
stood balsams, sweet-williams, fuchsias
and geraniums. In front of one window
stretched box of mignonette, which the
weary London air sometimes reused it.
self to wander over, sending abroad the
scent like the sweet, mysteriously uncer-
tain sounds of an Eolian harp. | should
have said before that one OF the old ap-
pie trees still fingered in the old garden,
long past fruit bearing, but able still to
put forth blossoms in May, each spring
more scanty, and yet each bloom almost
as beautiful as if il had opened in Here
fordshire, and pathetic with "a tender
grace of day that is dead" which no
cider county orchard could rival.
The house inside was humble conserv-
atory. Here The alabaster spathe and the
golden spadiX of an arum lighted up a
dusky corner. and throughout the little
home which otherwise in such neigh
borhood in spite of the cleanliness of
Dennis daughter, might have been musty,
floated in summer the sweet breath of
stocks. The very kitchen window was
shaded on the inside with broad leaves,
between which little clusters of fruit were
sometimes coaxed to peep, the stem of
vine, rooted in the garden, having been
brought through the wall.
1t was strange that the dingy cottage
should have been draped SO abundantly,
both within and without, with brightly
or softly beautiful color, inasmuch as Dem
mis-, as may have been inferred from his
name. was blind. But he could drink in
the fragrance of his flowers, and seemed
to feel by private sense their visual love-
illness. The song of thrush, in fine
weather hung outside the house or on the
apple tree, gave another proof of the old
mans gentle tastes.
Its cage was of Dennis own construc-
tion, for basket making was one of his
trades; the white specimens of his wick
erwork which dangled beside his door
way, atfording another pleasant contrast
to the grimy gloom of Fleming's Row.
The old man made nets, mats, mops,
brooms, brushes, clothes pegs, and re-
caned chairs, sometimes at his own house
and sometimes in the streets outside the
houses of his customers.
But still better did Abel like to have the
dog with them when he went out with his
grandfather, since Cincnnatus freed each
entirely from the responsibility of looking
after the other. Cincinnatus was a shaggy
mongrel that had been given TO Dennis by
a wag, who told him that Cincnnatus
meant "curly-haired,n and that he would
find him dictator" Cincinnatus GER
talnly was dog OF great determination of
character, but he almost always used it 10
good purpose. Having learnt from his
master the general route that he was to
take, he insisted on taking it in his own
fashion, and thus saved Dennis more than
once from being run over. Woe beti1e
any one also-however big. however small
who attempted to insult or in any way
i'll treat the blind man or his grandson
when they had Cincinnatus for their pro-
tector. A graceless fellow having splash
ed the old man one day with mud inter-