Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1878-02-27
TIMOTHY WARE, ESQ.
Harper's Weekly.

MIR. Timothy Ware. stood at his gar
den gate and looked down the road
You might have noticed him, perhaps,
as you passed along-a wrinkled, keen
eyed, elderly man. Now elderlness, I
take it, is further off from the sweet
ripeness and flavor of old age than
youth itself To be elderly presupposes
some thinness of blood, some sort of
inexpressible poverty of nature, such as
there seems to be all about this region
where I. Wares house is located-a
range of long, low-lying, uneasy hlllocks
that could never settle themselves to
any thing: a sandy, incapable stretch of
thread-bare grass and stunted woodland.
1t was not an easy thing to imagine
that just over the south ridge lay smil-
ing and fruitful country, a thrifty settle
ment of Quaker farmers, who held
themselves, perhaps, little too much
aloof from this inhospitable neighbor-
hood.
It was chill October afternoon. and
the low slant rays of the setting sun
looked furtively out from a blue black
ridge of cloud over the garden and the
gardens owner. There had been a
frost overnight. which had wiped out
almost every lingering vestige of sum-
mer-time. A few elderly beans chung
shrinkingly to their poles in the bleak
backgr Jund; a scanty patch of corn
rustled its sere Leaves forlornly in the
wind, with here and there pumpkin
ripening sparsely between, and turning
out its yellow rotundity to the sun, as
resolved to put the best face on things
that was possible; while, tall and stark,
row of sun-howers, Tapping gauntly
above the hedge, overlooked the desola-
ton.
AS old Ware stood there at his gate
and looked about him, with his faded
red cap on his head and his lank dres-
sing-gown clinging about him, he
seemed verify a part of the frost-bitten
scene, illustrating it feebly, like an i'll
cut frentispiece in a badly printed vol
ume. Yet there was tradition that he
had once upon a time been the chief
figure In great concern somewhere in
town, and that In some forgotten period
long ago the old weather-beaten house
had Haunted gayly in new coat of
paint and bright green shutters, and
was bright with new carpets and cur
tains to welcome coming bride But
all that was SO far away now that peo-
pie had forgotten the date, and could
not recall that they had ever been in
terested in any thing concerning old
Ware.
Tin Ware, Esq, the boys called him
"a nickname based, perhaps, on a
floating legend of miser-made wealth
slowed somewhere away in the loose
clap-boarding of his tenement, or per-
haps intended briefly to bear testimony
to the value set upon him in the COM
munity-Tin Ware, Esq, was not a
popular man among the lads in the vii
lage. They had persistent inclination
to boot him, to gibe at him, and to tor
ment his lean, ill-tempered dog, which
followed his master everywhere with
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 sort of balance. I myself
saw one day, as l passed his fence, a
huge charcoal placard, reading thus
3. Ware of The DAWG.
And many bare-legged youngster, I
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 i'll. He seemed to
have slipped from the mind of both
men and fate-an elderly shriveled old
figure whom Time had forgotten to dig
Nifty with gray hair.
He looked up and down the road
keenly with his frosty blue eye, not as
man who expected any thing or any
body, but simply because it was his
habit to look sharply. And yet as this
northeasterly glance swept the road,
there came along it something far from
unpleasant to look upon-a gray figure
IN Quaker bonnet. There would have
been 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
f1inty gray orbs.
Rebecca's well-kept acres Law lust be-
yond him, over the south ridge, and all
about her farmhouse was trim and tidy.
clean and wholesome, as Rebecca her
self 1t must have been the love Of
contrast that brought her in range of
Tmothy's dilapidated surroundings:
but of all living things in the village
Rebecca alone had a good word for
him, and stopped Of an odd afternoon
now and then to wish HIM good-day
over the gate.
have brought thee loaf of sweet
bread, neighbor," said she. I'D an
uncommon good baking this week, and
thought thee might not take it amiss
to try loaf" She held forth in her
white plump hand snow-white nap