The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1878-06-13

good while, and, when IN the klnOneSs
Of her heart she let them 60. set Faro
barking at their heels. They did moi
dare to come again; the villagers them.
selves avoided passing the enchanted
tree, and Misery and Faro lived rs hap.
Nv as one can live here below.
Toward the end of the autumn, Mis-
cry was enjoying herself in her garden
in the sun, when she heard voice cry.
ing, Misery! Misery! Miseryr' The
voice was SO mOurnful that the good
woman began to tremble in every limb
and Faro howled as though there had
been corpse in the house.
She turned around and saw man,
tall, lean, yellow and old, old as a pa-
triarch. This man carried scythe as
as long as a hop pole.
Misery recognized Death.
''What do you want, man of God?''
said she, in an altered voice; land
what have you come for with that
scythe?''
II come to do my work. Come, my
good Misery, thine hour hath struck;
thou must follow me-"
Already"
"Alrcady! But thou shOultlst thank
me. thou who art SO poor, SO ord and 50
crippled"
mot SO poor nor so old as you think
for master. l have bread in the cup
board and wood in the pile; l shall be
only ninety-five come Candlcmas, and
rs for being crippled, am rs straight
rs you on my legs, without offensc be it
said"
go to! Thou wilt he much better
off in Paradise"
1--WE know what we lose, what we
gain by change we know not" said
Misery, philOsophically. Beside, il
would grieve Faro so much"
Faro shall follow thee. Come, make
up thy mind"
Misery sighed. "Grant me ut least
II few moments, till tidy up a bit. I
should not like to make the people in
the other world ashamed of me-"
Death consented.
Misery put on her best gown of flow
cred Indian muslin which she had had
for more than thirty years, her white
bonnet and her old Silesian mantle, all
worn but without u hole or a spot,
which she never wore except on the
great Saints days.
While dressing herself. she cast a last
glance upon her cabin and called to
mind her pcar-trce. A strange thought
came into her head, and she could
hardly keep back smile.
''While am getting ready, will you
kindly do me Il service, man of GOd?"
said she to Death. IF you will get up
into my pear-trce and pluck me the
three pears which are left, ! can cat
them on my journey
s'De it sO,' said Death, and he got
up into the pear-tree.
He plucked the three pears, and at
tempted to come down, but, to his
great surprise, he was unable to stir
from the tree.
"Ho! Miseryr' cried he; help me
to get down. believe this cursed tree
is bewitched.'
Misery came to the doorway. Death
was making superhuman efforts with
his long arms and long legs, but every
time that he got himself free from the
tree, the tree, as if it were 4 living
creature, took hold of him again and
folded him in its long branches.
my soulr' said she, 81 am not at
all in a hurry to go to Paradise. Thou
art very well off. Stay where thou art,
my good fellow. The human race will
owe me debt of gratitude.
And Misery shut her door and left
Death perched up in her pear-tree.
At the end of Il month, rs Death no
longer did his work, everybody was as
tonished to find that there had not been
a single loss of life at Vicq, ut Fresnes
and at Condo. The establishment was
rcdoubled at the end of the next month,
especially when it was learned that it
was the same at Valenciennes, at
Douai, at Lille and throughout all
Flanders.
A like thing had never been heard of,
and when the new year came in, it was
known by the almanac that the same
thing had happened in France, in Bel
gium, in Holland, as well as with the
Austrians, the Swcdes and the Rus
slams.
The year went by, and it was set
tied fact that for fifteen months there
had not been throughout the entire
world single case Of death. All the
sick had got we'll without the doctors
knowing how nor why, which had not
at all prevented them from taking to
themselves all the credit of the cures.
This year rolled round like the pre-.
vious one, without any deaths, and
when it came to st. Sylvcster's Day,
from one end of the land to the other
men embraced one another and con-
graduated themselves on having be-
come immortal. There were public
rejoicings, and they had a fete in Elan
ders, such as had not been seen since
the world was.
The good Flemings no longer having
any fear Of dying from indigestion, or
from govt or apOplexy, ate and drank
their fill. 1t was calculated that in
three days each person ate bushel OF
grain without counting meat and veg
etables, and drank a barrel of beer, to
say nothing of Geneva and brandy.
l confess for my part that l find il
hard to believe this, but all the same
the world was never 50 happy and no.
body suspected Misery of being the
cause of this universal felicity; Misery
did not boast of it, from modesty.
All went well for ten. twenty, thirty
years; but, at the end of thirty years il
was not rare thing to see old men o1
10 and 12O years, which ordinarily is
the age of the most extreme decrepi
tude. Now, these last, loaded dowr
with infirmities, with memory gone
blind and deaf, deprived of taste, feel
ing and smell, insensible of the slightest
enjoyment, began to find that immor
tally is not at all the great blessing
which it had been at first thought t.
be. They were seen dragging them
selves along in the sun, bent doubl,
over their staffs, with hoary locks
shaking heads, sightless eyes, coughing
lettering, their flesh gone, outof shape
withered up, like SO many enormous
snails. The women were even NOR,
horrible than the men.
The feeblest of the old men kept theil
beds. and there was not house wher,
you did not find five or six beds whcr,
the ancestors babbled, to the grea
WEAKNESS of their great-grandsons an,
the sons of their great-grandsons.