The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1878-03-14

his master everywhere with a snarling
and Objectionable faithfulness. The
boys, considering all these things, felt
themselves called upon to vindicate the
. claims of justice by robbing old Wares
orchard and breaking into his melon
patch. Things in this way were brought
to a sort of balance. | myself saw one
day, as l passed his fence, huge char
coal placard, reading thus:
B. Ware of the DAWG.
And many a bare-legged youngster, l
have no doubt, hid snickering in the
hedge at the sight of old Ware slowly
deciphering the scrawl in wrathful spec
tacles.
But very few besides the boys ever
troubled the old man with attentions,
either for good or ILL., He seemed to
have slipped from the mind of both man
and fate-an elderly, shriveled old figure
whom Time had forgotten to dignity
with gray hair
He looked up and down the road
keenly with his frosty blue eye, not as a
man who expected any thing or any
body, but simply because it was his
habit to look sharply. And yet as this
there came along it something far from
unpleasant to look upon-a gray figure
in Quaker bonnet. There would have
been a smile of welcome in almost any
body's eye, as the plump, quiet Quaker
face of Rebecca Rhodes approached, but
not a spark kindled in old Wares fintv
gray orbs.
Bebecca's well kept acres lay Just be-
yOnd him, over the south ridge, and all
about her farmhouse was trim and
tidy, clean and wholesome, as Rebecca
! herself. 1t must have been the love of
! contrast that brought her in range of
Timothy's dilapidated surroundings;
but of all living things in the village
/ Rebecca alone had good word for him,
and stopped of an odd afternoon now
and then to wish him good-day over the
/ gate.
81 have brought thee loaf of sweet
| bread, neighbour" said She "I'd an
uncommon good baking this week, and
thought thee might not take it amiss
to try a loaf" She held forth in her
white plump hand snow-white napkin, /.
opening its folds temptingly as she did
SO.
'I'm wanting naught," was the gruf
reply. "Week-old breads good enough /
for me, and make no doubt it might be |
far better for some other folk than the |
dainty trash they're set upOn-wOmen- I
folk leastways."
The blood came into Rebecca's calm !
face, but there was no veXation in her |
answer "Thee'd never set aside an old |
friend like that, neighbour" she said.
"Nay, nay; recommend thee try the
loaf. It's spoken well of, is my sweet .
bread, the country round. Thee will F.
not shorten thy days much by just one |
trial, and if thee likes it not, I'll never I.
trouble thee again.
Even the imperturbable face of old .
Ware shows slight smile at this ming
ling Of acerbity and sweetness, but he .
makes no demonstration.
81 am on my way to see old Betsey," /
says Rebecca, quietly extending her .
hand and placing the loaf on the gate .
post. "She's one of the town poor-or /.
rather the Lords poor, l think, for she /
doesn't belong to this township. Poor |
old Betsey!"
One might have imagined that old .
Ware gave a sort of start just now, as if /
an invisible electric shock had struck /
him. He was not used to hearing SYM
pathetic talk of any kind, 1t tried his
nerves, probably.
Zone of the wretched Migrants that
are pauperizing the community, wan
dering hither ard yon," growled Tim
ochy
Say, ay, neighbour" says Rebecca,
softly and wistfully; ga hard time they
have of it, poor things! And this many
q year has she been wanderer and
vagabond on the face of the earth, has
poor old Betsey " She takes the white
covered loaf absently with her large
shapely hand, looks up and down the
road with thoughtful gray eyes, signs
softly, and goes her way, leaving loaf
and napkin Gaping the gate-post. And
there you might have seen it at night
fall, and long after night-fall, if you had
CHANGED that way; for hadn't Timothy
told the woman he didn't want it? and
was he the man to demean himself by
removing it after that? And your spec
ulating on the singular stubbornness of
the human heart would not have been
lessened had you caught sight of him,
by the Pickering candle in his upper
window, Sitting there mOtionless with
an eye on the gate below. Perhaps he
expected Rebecca back after her gift. |
do not know.
"She's one of the town poor, is old
Betsey," said Rebecca, meekly, and had
said it meekly year after year, striving
to allure the vagrant old woman into
feeling at home on the charity list of the
good towns-folk, and to rest her aching
old bones in the town poOr-house. But
old Betsey was not to be trapped.
If one must be poor and ragged, at
least let one have plenty of fresh-air
leisure, says old Betsey. To be pauper
and drudge both is little too much.
And to be preached to and prayed over
and hedged in right and left, and to
scrub wOrk-house floors and scOur work
house knives, all for bit of bread
bah! that is all unbearable, says old
Betsey, Struggling her beny shoulders
under her ragged shawl, and setting out
warily on her everlasting tramp. She
is an incorrigible vagrant, utterly ire
claimable. Perhaps Rebecca thinks a
half-fedged thought like this when she
finds her prey has escaped her and is
fairly on the road again.
On the road again, untamable, rag
ged, hungry, and free. She walks at
rapid, uneven pace, her thin shawl tlut-
tering in the wind, her untidy slippers
Tapping at her heels. 1t grows dusk
as she steals along; the road is dreary
with cloud and shadow, and with a
hooking moon that CLEANS out now and
then, lodging viciously after this gray
old ghost of a woman fitting below.
There is white object there ahead of
her-something tall and queer, with
round white head. The vagrant swerves
a minute out of her way, surveying it |
furtively. Then she puts forth her
claw-ike hand and clutches greedily |
Rebecca's sweet, dainty loaf.
Aha! what good providence is here!
All! can it be that Fate should come, |
for Opcs in a waV with sweetness and /