Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1877-07-14
GUILDHALL VT, SATURDAY, JULY H. 1877.

for beauty, Clara, 1 should like to hear
any one compare the beauty of any coal
with that of a drift-wood blaze, rolling
all manner of splendid alkaline-dyed
flashes of color up the chimney -
"Oh, well, said I, "if you think it
will be nice to have baskets of these
poverty-stricken chips standing round
the hearths, making no end of dust and
litter, the fire fed every two minutes, or
else all out, and the little sparks snap
ping everywhere, you'd better try it.
There's no excuse for wood fire any,
way, unless it's of whole logs, with a
tremendous core of red heat, in a huge
chimney big enough to warm castle. 1"
" But they'd certainly burn in the
kitchen stoves"
I'd like to hear you asking Nora to
burn them instead of her Lackawanna
and Franklin. They'd have time to do
nothing else in the kitchen but feed the
fire. 'Tisn't even in the right shape for
kindlings there"
"Clara, 1 believe you disdain the very
idea Of economizing anywhere.
81 don't see any economy in it. If it
were necessary, it would be q very dis
agreeable necessity. But if we can't
afford to buy our coal, we had better
shut up the house, and dismiss the SER
wants, and live in tent, and burn our
chips outside it, under the bake kettle. 4"
every practical. I'm glad to see
that you know what bake kettle is"
We'll, did you marry me for q cook ?"
"What little fraud you'd have been
if 1 had Come, don't be silly. I didn't
marry you to beruined by careless waste
and extravaganza.
cob! oh ohw
"What do you call it, then j? Here
are cords of drift-wood thrown up with
almost every other tide, and instead of
harvesting it, we let it wash away with
the next, and you laugh at me and get
angry and call me names if 1 propose to
save some of it. "
"Call you names ~
eyes, you do. You think it's mean
and sordid."
"I never said SO, anyway. That's
your guilty conscience. Oh, pshaw |!
L think it's silly and very inn practical. {"
"Well, / don't care what you think !
Here's the beach covered with this light
wood, and I'm going to call the servants
and have it gathered before dark"
"You can't; for Terence is waiting
with the horses at the other station for
the colonel, and you gave little Jim
leave to go to his grandmother's, and it's
Hannah's evening out, and Kitty must
be in readiness to wait on table; and so
there's nobody but Nora, and she's busy,
and it isn't her work, and she'd refuse to
do it, and that would make you angry
and l should lose good cook"
Five servants to wait upon two
people! It's shameful p groaned Rex.
They're not waiting on two people.
They're taking care of the grounds, the
horses, the house, and cooking for COM
pany more than for us.
"Well, then, if there's nobody else,
I'll do it myself" he said, desperately
"I'll do it myself.
"And I'll Sit down here and see how
long it will be before you're tired of it. !"
81 dare say you will p he exclaimed,
savagely. 81 suppose it would break
your back to pick up one of these chips. :"
ooh, if that's what you mean," cried
I, in an answering fury-we did fight
just like children-"i you want your
wife for a drudge, I guess I can pick up
wood as long as the next one p 1 de-
clare I didn't seem to know Rex any
longer, and Tn very sure he didn't know
me. l doubled up my skirt and pinned
it back like fsh-woman-I didn't have
another pin about me than that long gold
one with the diamond head that you
used to admire so, but / quilted it i'll !;
and I tied knot in my scarf-it was my
old rose-colored and gold India mantle !;
and ran and caught this stick and that
stick and hurled them up the beach, and
Rex was tossing them up too; and before
/ knew it there was stack of them, and I
was determined that my stack should be
as big as his; and presently he stopped
and slapped the dust off his hands and
looked at me and laughed.
"What do you mean to do with your
pile when it's done ?" said he.
"Set fire to it, and run away by the
light of it," said I. .'
"No, I wouldn't" said he. cit would
be great deal better to kiss your hus-
band and make up" And so we did
there was never anybody to see on our
Long beach. "Now," said Rex, "I
don't want you to do this. Tn just going
to finish these piles myself to show Ter
ence what he could do in spare hour,
and what he's neglecting."
ooh, I think it's good fun," said L ;
and at it we went again, each trying to
outdo the other; now gathering the dry
splinters, now growing greedy and trying
to fetch in some big stick floating in a
little blight, and reaching out for it, I
sure to lose my balance and plunge in
over shoes and scream and rrn-my
beautiful new French boots that I had
piid twenty dollars for the last time L
was in town, and they wouldn't even do
for Kitty now But no matter, we were
having royal time, and had forgotten
all about old Colonel M'Manus.
If you knew how it made you look,
you'd take such exercise every day." Rex
stopped long enough to get breath and
say. "Your cheeks are like two red
roses"
And of course 1 didn't stay at that !;
and gay half hour it was. All at once
I felt wet to my skin, and I looked, and
there was the skirt of my dress that
had pinned up so carefully all down and
drabbled, and the front of it wet through
with the dripping of the last wood l had
saved, and the pin ooh, I've lost
the pin p exclaimed" my beautiful
long diamond-headed pin p
"You have? Well, charge it to profit
and loss," said Rex. "It would be idle
to look for it on this sand and shingle-
a needle in a haymow, and dark hay
NOW, too, presently. It's gone to keep
company with my cuff button"
"Oh, Rex One of your wonderful
cuff buttons !" | cried, standing still
with nv armful. Thev were antioues-