Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1878-02-27
TIMOTHY WARE, ESQ.
Karper's Weekly

Karper's Weekly
Mr.. Timothy Ware stood at his gar
den gate and looked down the road.
You might have noticed him, perhaps,
as you passed along-a wTsnkled, keen
eyed, elderly man. Now elderlmess, L
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
iinexpressible poverty of nature, such as
there seems to be all about thus region
where T. Wares house is located-a
range of long, low-Iying- uneasy hlllocks
that could never settle themselves to
any thing: a sandy, incapable stretch of
ithread-bare grass and sNnted woodland.
1T was not an easy thing to imagine
'thatjust over the south ridge lay smil-
ing and fruitful county, Il thrifty settle
ment of Quaker farmers, who held
themselves, perhaps, a little too much
,aloof from this iniacspitabIe neighbor-
hood.
1t was chill October afternoon, and
the low slant rays Of the setting sun
looked f,rtively out from q 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 westige of sum-
mer-time A few elderly beans chung
shrinkingly to their poles lin the bleak
backgr )und; scanty patch of corn
rustled its sere leaves fGrlornly 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,
a 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 frostbitten
scene, illustrating it feebly, like an i'll
cut frontispiece in a badly printed vol
ume. Yet there was n tradition that he
had once upon time been the chief
Inquire IN great concern somewhere in
town, and that in some forgotten period
long ago the old weather-beatem house
had Haunted gayly in new coat of
paint and bright green shutters, and
was bright with new carpets and cur
talns 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 III
terested in any thing concerning old
Ware.
Tin Ware, Esq, the boys called him
"a nickname based, perhaps, on n
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-rin Ware, Esq, was not Il
popular man among the lads in the vii
iage. 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 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 Il sort of balance. l myself
nv way lIdSsSu liiS lcllCt, IL
huge charcoal placard, reading thus
b. Ware of The DAWG.
And many a bare-legged youngster |
have no doubt, hid snickering in the
hedge at the sight Of old Ware slowly
declphering the scrawl in wrathful spec
tacles.
But very few besides the bows ever
troubled the old man with attentions,
either for good or ill. He seemed to
have slipped from the mind of both
men and fate-an elderly shriveled old
hgure 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
nlortheasterly glance swept the road,
there came along it something far from
unpleasant to look upon--a gray figure
IN a Quaker bonnet. There would have
oeen smile of welcome in almost anv
oodys eye as the plump quiet Quaker
lace of Rebecca Rhodes approached,
out not spark kindled in old Wares
ttinty gray orbs.
heoeccas well-kept acres lay Just be-
sond HIM. over the south ridge. and all