The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1880-10-16
HOW EMILY SAVED HER FATHERS
PROPERTY.

Il
PROPERTY.
EMILY VANE lived with her father in
a great old country farmhouse. Hel
mother had died when she was born,
and she was her fathers only compan,
ion, merry, fearless girl of ten, with Q
spirit of adventure that was always get
ting her into mischief. Her father loved
her dearly, taking her into all his conf
dences, talking TO her of all his labors
and pleasures, and treating her as the
little mistress of his farm, while her
brightness and thoughtfulness for others
endeared her to all its occupants.
The farmhouse had been an old fash
Toned manor in its day, and on its ruins
were built most of the barns, granaries
and outbuildings which abutted on the
modern house, q stiff Dutch structure,
like great cube of red brick dark with
age. The front door opened into pas
sage that pierced through the house,
and ended by another door which led to
the farmyard. On either side of the
front door were two high narrow win
dows, and above them on the second
floor were five equally narrow and stiff.
Heavy cornices hung over these win
dows, from whence rose the steep roof,
covered with undulating red tiles. The
roof was surmounted by kind of tur-
ret house of wood, eight or ten feet
square, with windows on all its four
sides. The little chamber in this tur-
ret was called the observatory,
and was reached by trap
door through the ceiling of the
great garnet which was formed by the
whole roof of the house. The garnet
could only be entered by another trap
door that entered into Mr.. Vane's room.
There was just space enough in the OBJ
servatory for Mr.. Vane's writing desk,
and here he kept his accounts and wrote
his letters, which were infrequent;
while samples of corn, and indescriba-
BILE odds and ends were to be found in
the dozen drawers of his old-fashioned
and commodious escritoire. Against the
walls hung rusty guns and pistols, an
old sword that had been handed down
in the family from Revolutionary times,
different agricultural implements, dis
used saddle, and an ancient pair of bel
lows. The windows commanded an ex-
tensive view of the farm lands, from
whence Mr.. Vane could exercise dis
tant supervision over his men.
He was a kind-hearted, easy Young
man, unsuspicious to fault, which had
caused him to fall into some careless
ways, not over-wise, but hallowed by
their antiquity. Such one was the
habit he had of bringing his rent money,
the day before rent was due, from the
bank in town, and depositing it in his
desk in the observatory over night. As
all the farm servants and laborers had
lived with him for many years, and
knew his ways as well as he did himself,
it never occurred to him that this care
less habit might be temptation to any
among their number for robbery, for the
custom was one of long standing, and
openly alluded to by every one.
The evening my story opens, Mr..
Vane had just returned from his trip to
the bank, from whence he had brought
his rent money in weighty silver dollars
tied up in a leather bag. All the farm
hands were sitting at their supper in the
big old-fashioned kitchen, where Emily
was waiting her fathers arrival to take
her supper with him. AS he came in,
catching his little girl in his arms, and
saying CHEEKY word to those nearest
him, Emily noticed that the leather bag
he was swinging in his hand was empty.
go! father" she said, ''where is your
money!"
Where is the money, little Missile
Why, as | climbed the observatory to
get the keys l had left there in the
morning, the bag caught in the end OF
the desk, and tumbled all the money in
to the drawer, where it may lie, for it's
too dark to gather it together again to-
mig INT, and any way it's safe enough"
As there was hush throughout the
room when MIR. Vane entered it, every
body heard the question and its answer,
and in another hours time Emily had
given her father her goodnight kiss
and hug, and had gone to her own little
room. But not to sleep, for she was
singularly restless that night, and lay
long awake hearing the servants mount
ing to their rooms, and the noises OF
closing the house for the night. She
could distinguish her fathers step bar
ring the two doors of the passage, and
ascending in his turn, stopping mo-
ment outside her door to listen if all was
safe and well, before he retired to his
own room. Still she lay awake and
restless, thinking, as the house grew
quiet and still, OF all she had done that
day, and of all she intended to do the
next. How Hannah had promised they
should go away to the trout brook and
fish there, so she had been cutting q
new, beautifully long and straight rod
for the occasion, which she had taken
into her sanctum in the old attic to fin
ish off and tie her line TO. And where
was the knife she had been cutting and
trimming it with, she thought suddenly
with start! The beautiful, sharp, new
knife, that her father had brought her
from town six weeks ago, and that she
loved so fondlyP How careless to have
left it on the floor of the atticI Oh
course no one would 60 there and gel
i, but it was wide open, and the pretty
bright blade would rust in the damp