St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1879-10-24
"You don't wear the moss agate,

Mr.. Fordyce's eyes rested for an in
stant in Meb's.
She drew away her hand; but Mr..
Fordyce understood that his sympathy
was not offensive.
After this, constraint slightly stiffen-
ed Meb's manner. They talked of agate
and onyx, opal and jacinth and all the
secondary stones. Mr.. Fordyce said a
design once cut in jacinth was never
obliterated. He was sympathetic, and
grave, and tender to the very last step
over the front door threshold. Then he
whisked through the gate and buttoned
up his coat with the comfortable assur-
ance of a man who had successfully en-
acted the part of lady-charmer. His
pay going on all the same.
Meb stepped into an adjacent room
to tain by the mirror how her hair
looked, and whether the cardinal loops
under her chin was not disarranged.
Gentlemen of Mr.. Fordyee's taste were
not inappreciative of cardinal loops
against background of white illusion.
As she turned away satisfied, through
a half-open door she saw pair of coarse
bOOts-heels set against the wall, and
toes pointed accusingly outward. Of a
worse looking pair of boots it would be
difficult to conceive-worn in the wet
and dried hard and red, hard wrinkles
above the short instep. A revulsion,
strong as Nemesis, seized Meb.
She crept into the other room and
sat down alone. What had she said to
that man, Fordyce7 What liberty of
perception had she accorded and he
taken? What sympathy had she been
so deficient in self-respect as to solicit,
and he so daring as to accord?
She sat down again. The snow had
melted off the circular verbena mounds.
Winn helped her set these borders. He
had always helped her. She covered
her face with her hands, conscious only
of her own ingratitude.
The silence gradually began to thrill
with premOnitions. The hushed world
outside, with its unreasonable sunshine
and warmth, seemed waiting for cold
and storms. For what was she waiting 7
Drip of caves, tick of clock, chirp of
canary thing pressed an unintel-
ligible utterance upon her.
The prolonged whistle of a locOmO-
tive at the station startled her-Only a
call for switch.
Suddenly loomed in the doorway a
tall woman with folds of Il black wrap
per trailing behind her, woman with
deep, glistening eyes, and that lumin-
ons intensity of pale face frequently
accompanying Over-wrOught nerves.
Meb's neighbour woman who saw
visions and dreamed dreams.
"Was your husband well when he
left home, Mrs. Wright ~
Meb threw out one hand. ''DOn't
tell me, Mrs. Weir, don't"
The woman turned and trailed back
through the kitchen.
Meb sat for few minutes, her face
buried in her palms: then parted her
hands and looked QUITO see soaked
snow stiffening; water-filled footprints
and wheel marks growing blue and
chilly the street full of returning shop
hands. From out the moving figures one
stood within the gate. OrtOn!
Orton was employed in very humble
capacity at the Office. He was some
times ridiculed for his religious zeal. In
ass-meeting, only the previous eve
ming, he had followed the ejaculation
80, Lord, thou knowest how apt we
are to prone ~ with the fervent peti-
ton: "Remember us not according to
our inkquities but deliver us from all
our transactions :"
Nevertheless, the company had a
habit of falling back upon Orton when
bad news was to be communicated.
Meb had strength to open the outer
hall door then sank back upon the
lower stair.
"Don't tell me Orton; don't Is he
dead Is he dead 2"
''The Lord help you, Mrs. Wright ;
we don't know how bad tits. The Buce-
phalusis off the t1ack--down Deep Gully
thirteen cars down. They hadn't
taken him out when the last telegram
came"
Meb clutched her nails into her cold
palms.
81 must go. Has the wrecker start
ed Pn
"Just gone but Ellis'll find an en-
gine to take you up. Perhaps you'd
better not go, though. 1t may be pretty
bad.n
Mrs. Weir entered, put on Meb's hat
and shawl, drew on her OvershOes, sup
ported her to the door and took the
key.
Meb grasped Orton's arm, and was
conscious in a dazed sort of way of slip
ping over ice and water to the depot.
The "Flyer" was just steaming
through, fred up to go out on the Riv-
erview branch for a few empty cars. 1t
was short work to run her on to the
turn table and come up headed for the
Gully.
Superintendent Ellis handed Meb into
the cab. Engineer Babcock nodded,
speechless, and turned to the engine,
pulled out the throttle, struck the
bell-knell-like in the clear air
and the Flyer shot out across the
plain, the plain with its withered
brown mowings and patches of dark
ploughed land, and shallow pools re-
flecting the purple twilight.
The Flyer had been carrying ninety
pounds of steam. The stoker began
shoveling on the coal. Meb, from he1
perch inside the cab, looked out and
saw dreamily a town or two set away
in it's happiness from the death dealing
track. Early lamps glimmered. o,
Winn, Winn, will the early lamp new
ermore glimmer for you?
With many sharp curve, with many
shrill screech, the Flyer struck in be-
tween the Understanding grade, now
smoke aud sparks flying past the cal
windows-the little pointer of the steam
gauge around to one hundred and ten
They were laundering across the bridge
where LemOyne and Stark lost theil
lives: they had entered the little dell
peaceful as a June Sabbath, where Ar.
ther Bell's young life went out in dread
full holocaust.
''Do you know-did they say-was
the Bucephalus moving any petrole
um ?" Meb's white face quivered from
forehead to chin.