Litchfield enquirer., 1878-05-09

1T 6ov Inf vour fathers funeral. The weather hSro is fine. but we supposeis furdifferent wLtn you in fine east. as your deceased mother OIteh Ie marked to the writer. Business IS dun ana ores running light, most of the claims on JIG North Fork sharing the fate-of your late Iatn- CTS property You see" contlnned SaPla,li Rats, with the glow of successlul authOIslp mantling his cheek ''that kind or Iel.e, .".,. no he written so that by the time she got through with if if would seem as if she knew it all be- fore, and she couldn't get nary soul 70 syn,- pathize with, and help her take on. The Ieel ing of the majority was so strongly m iaVOf Oi the last composition that they all turne1 Hil- patientlv to the only dissenter-Joe Fleet But at this moment knock on the door checA- ed further discussion It was Jack Foster, eX- pressman- alert, vigilant familiar and fateIuf' holding letter.
 sFor John Meritoe." said the Serran Mercu- ry, crisply. "As we don't have no ofiis at his present address, we deliver at his last rest dence." He tossed the letter On the table, wink | ed, and was gone,
 1t was for the dead man-the great first cause of their perplexity. For it'lay there un- disturbed, while the men looked at each oth- | CT in silence Then Captain Rats, with de- | cision and independence new to him, took n up. ''Thars no one, boys, heZ better right to it than we has" he said. 'I propose that | we open it here afore each other and read 1t. | ~As to opening it, I second the motion" | said Joe Fleets voice, ''but we'll see who it's | from, before we read it, added that honorable | man.
 The letter was opened. It was signed Fan | ny Meritoe."
 ''The girl herself" said Fleet promptly tread it."
 With hesitating voice, that at last seemed to almost simulate what might have been the hesitating youthful accents of the writer, Cap tain Rats began.
 HOW shall describe it {? It was simple, it
 was girlish, it was affectionate it was real.
 Against its candid frankness and simplicity,
 poor Rats previous rhetoric assumed the ap-
 pearance of the most monstrous duplicity and
 deceitful sophistry. It was evident that the
 writer had seen but little of her real father,
 and that the rather common place, homcly,
 often somewhat despicable figure known to tho
 men who now listened to her yearnings was
 not the ideal parent ot her dreams At last
 Captain Rats finished. There was a slight his-
 kiness in the Captains voice, slight dimneSs
 in his eyesight as he ended, and a blur upon
 the fair page that was not there when he be-
 gan.
 The colonel had dropped his head between his two hands. Horton never lifted his eye from
 the paper. Fleet, who had walked to the win
 dow and had been apparently absorbed in
 staring at the stariug sunlight without sudden
 ly turned advanced to the table, and held out both his hands. In another moment they lock | ed in his companions, and the four men, hold ing hands, closed round the table aud the letter
 that lay in it's center.
 ''We don't want no letter of condolencc,
 Captain Rats," said Joe Fleet, sturdily, flor
 there's nothin't condole for. l don't sec just
 how it is, or how we can fix it, but kHo,o now
 that girls parents a3a't dead, ez long, please
 God as we are living "
 The men pressed each others hands in si-
 lence, until Captain Rats, with burst of rev
 elation disengaged his, and suddenly brought
 it against his, his right leg with resounding
 emphasis; ,.,.
 clar. We don't write no letters of coincidence
 for why We goes straight on and writes
 ez if we was the old man. He's let on enough some about hisself and his affairs to make it
 as easy as fallin' off a log We'll just chip in
 and we'll take his hand as it is, play out his little game, win or lose, and if four sharps
 like us can't make it easy for that child and } rake in the pot every time, we'll leave the } board. Yes, gentlemen" continued Rats, ta-
 king up the letter, ''Ill answer this tonight,
 myself. I, Captain Rats, late Meritoe, deceas-
 ed"
 PART II.-How THE TRUST WAS FULFILLED.
 When the combined guardians of Lagrange
 first practiced to deceive, they did not fore
 cast the tangled web whose pleasant inirica-
 cies and ginuosites they were presently Co
 weave. And when Captain Rats calmly an-
 nOunced to his gentle confederatcs his inten- ton of writing his first letter--in l0cJ ydreatis to the orphaned girl with his left hand, ex-
 plaining to her the thereby changed chirOgra- phy through the ingenious fiction of an acCi-
 dent that had happened to his right-it was : accepted with exclamation. ''You seec, said
 the captain, sententiously, "every man slings
 ink with his left hand at about the same gait. The style ain't SO pretty nor plain, but she'll never find out it ain't the old mans" The possibility of detection thus obviated-
 and indeed, it afterward appeared that the
 simple minded girl dwelt more anxiously up- pon the discomforts of the accident to her fa-
 ther than on his changed and almost illegible hand-variOus other gentle frauds and deccits
 were introduced in the correspondence.
 certain emulation of the eaptain'ssxill and inl- portance as a correspondent grew up among
 the other guardians They began to make
 suggestions of their own until at last steamer day brought them generally together, in con clave in the back room of the saloon, where the fortnightly epistle was dictated finally by
 all. Captain Rats pride, which at first resent ed this interference, was finally placated by the compromise that the composition Or wording of the letter should be his own,
 although the subject matter might be various contribution.
 The result of this unhallowed collaboration
 was a series of the most extraordinary letters every inflicted on a single correspondent. lt
 was not long before their fame passed beyond
 the horizon of their fair recipient. Do you know papa dear," wrote the simple girl from , he seclusion of Mme. Brimborion's academy i; ''dO you know your letters are very, very in-
 teresting I could not help showing them tO some of the girls here? Your account (tbo colonel's) of the fight with the bear was Te0L that l almost saw 1t. laughed tili cried over that funny story of the Chinaman mending your clothes Ca characteristic contri-
 button from Horton), but then 1 did cry really
 too, papa, over what you (FleeD said about your feelings that Sunday you saw the sunset
 from the poor little forlorn cemetery on the
 hill Oh, papa? it was just lovely-and 30 sad-so very sad! Mary Ricketts said 1t was
 just like Shakespeare, and she knows, oh, sO
 much, and is considered very, very smart They all think ought to be so fond of my
 dear papa, as if wanted anything to make : me love him! She, Mary, asked me if you were very old, and 1 said you couldn't be very : are you? Then that was very good about
 the mines that you (the coloneD wrote. Mme. . Brimborion asked permission to copy that paM where you (the coloneD describe the man ner of reducing ores; she said it was SD in- ! structive and valuable. Dear papasphow much yeu do know! But think like you better : when you're HICie-JuSC nttie sa'i, u"u sn such sweet things about the landscape and
 your longings. Pm sure you're real poet,
 papa-aint you" w It is scarcely necessary to say that when this } letter was read Fleet coughed slightly, colOred perceptibly, ruttered something vaguely about ''really having forgotten it all," but re- membered only that he had dictated to Cap tain Rats some suggestions that he thought might please the young thing" etc; nor that
 slight feeling of jealousy crept into the breasts of all but the complacent captain. In- . deed, the Colonel is said to have afterward re- l marked aside to Horton, that he was of the B opinion that Fleets flap doodlc' and ''purp stuff" wasn't exactly the thing ito ladIe out
 to a young girl that was already 'overdosed