The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1878-04-04

makes no demonstration. 4&sx :
t---'I am on my way-te see old Betsey,o y
says Rebeecsa, quietly. ( extending her
hand and placing the loaf on the gate
post. ssShe's one of the town poor-or
rather the Lords poor, | think, for she
doesn't belong 70 this township Poor
old Betsey!n
| ? One might have imagined that old
Ware gave sort of start just now, as if
an invisible electric shock had struck
him. He was not used to hearing SYM
1 pathetic talk of any kind. 1t tried his
nerves, probably.
g One of the wretched. Migrants that
4 are pauperizing the community, wan
dering hither and yon," growled Tim
ochy ss&
GAY, ay, neighbour says Rebecca,
softly and wistfu1ly ss a hard time they
have of it, poor things And this many
a year has she been wanderer and
7yagabond on the face of the earth, has
poor old Betsey.r She takes the white
covered loaf absently with her large
shapely hand, looks up and down the
broad 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 itsafter thatp 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 u 4ti1os's .='-s
t'she's one OF the town poor, is old
Betsey, U said Rebecea, 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.
II Ii one must be poor and ragged, at
Ileast let one have plenty eff fresh-air
| leisure, says old BetseY. To be "A pauper
and a 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 sceur work.
house knives, all for q 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-hedged thought like this when she
1 Is ba3. hoy. =,
fairly on the road again.
On the road again, untamable, rag
ged, hungry, and free. She walks at q
rapid, uneven pace, her thin shawl flut-
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 yiciously after this gray
old ghost OF woman fitting below
There is white object there ahead of
her-something tall and queer, with
fround white head. The vagrant swerves
a minute out of her way, surveying it
furtively. Then she puts forth her
claw-like hand and clutches greedily
Rebecca's sweet, dainty loaf.
Aha! what a good providence is here!
All! can it be that Fate should come.
for once in a way, with sweetness and
luxury in her hand for an old pauper,
and night and darkness to devour it in
Bewildered with pleasure, old Retsey
hugs the dainty under her faded shawl.
There is crash then, as if the heav-
ems We're falling; a shout that curdles
her thieVish blood; a rough hand is laid
upon her with vise-like grasp. Law and
justice seem to have come down bodily
upon the marauder; but it is only old
Ware, who has been watching from his
window. His hand is raised to strike
the thief-the thief with vagrant and
yagabond written all over her; in her
vulpine eyes, her long blue nose, her
skinny, claw-lke hand The woman
shrinks back covering, against the gate
post, with a Wheezy cough; the old
shawl tails away from her face. Out
comes the moon, and sails along with
sinister ray pointing right down on the
Eshivering, crouching figure and on the
| countenance that for one. instant up
turns toward the assailant.
My God!" cries Timothy. And
thai is all. His hand fails at his side,
he turns and walks back to the house,
leaving the wretch to her plumber.
| The wretch is u mere animal, after all
"a hunted animal, it is true, with all
the greed and cunning of such. She
make her way somewhere with her prize |
1t doesn't much matter where. But
there comes up storm at midnight, a
binding, biood-chaling stornls that
might make the veriest tramp thankful
tor shelter. Old Ware, sitting motion