Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1881-05-20

dunno's he'ever gave me cross word in his
life, even when he's been Drinking
| Here the driving sleety ram, and pierre
ing wind pounced down upon Nabby with
renewed ferceness, hustIing her madly in
/! fiendish glee.
| IAN awful nighG to be homeless, Nab
by, something seemed to say.
II don't care" said Nabby to herself,
beginning to feel cross again, and gener
ally ill-used as she grew wetter and colder.
1T serves him right. He's made his bed
and he can lie in it,
At the Corners" the light streaming out
cheerfuly into the night from other homes
made Nabby's little house particularly
gloomy and uninviting. Nabby fumbled
under the mat for the door-key, fumbled
with stiff fingers for the key-hole, and
finally succeeded in unlocking the door,
and felt her way through the little entry.
| There is always something ''uncanny"
| about going alone at night into dark and
shut-up house. Even persons of the best
regulated minds experience vague sus-
picion of something behind them, sense
of possible ghostly hands about to clutch
them in the darkness. Nabby was wo-
man like Mrs. Edmund Sparkler. with mo
nonsense about her, but nevertheless a
cheerful tale she bad read only Yesterday
about burglar and lone woman kept
coming into her head, and she carefully
avoided the blackness of the corners and
the pantry door as she CROPPED around the
kitchen for candle. Of course the fire
had gone out.
1.-TWO heads are better than one, if one
is sleeps head" Nabby might have
been heard mattering out in the wood
house, as she stopped painfully down, pick
ing up chips; by which oracular utterance
I suspect she was thinking what good
supply OF kindlings Josiah always kept on
hand for her, and how much more COM
Portable it was in the old times, coming
home to house bright with light and
warmth, and Joslah's welcome.
For JOSIAH cherished the most profound
admiration for Nabbv-an admiration not
unmingled with awe. He thought her
most wonderful woman. She was just as
beautiful to him now as in the old court
ing days. before the brightness and quick
ness Of the black eyes had degenerated into
sharpness; before the smiling mouth had
acquired its hard. frmly-se expression:
before there we're any wrinkles in the
smooth forehead. People thought Nabby
| had done we'll in marrying Josiah Could
a pleasant, good-natured young fellow
hot III hor1ia
not very rich yet. it is true; but with a
good trade and such a wife as Nabby,
there seemed to be nothing to prevent his
| figuring as zone of our first citizens"
! Anybody can be somebody in this coun-
try if he is only determined But that
was the difficulty with Josiah. He never
was determined about anything. He fell
! into the habit of drinking because he
| lacked sufficient strength of will to avoid
| it. Then Nabby's sharp words and his
| own miserable sense of meanness and self
contempt, of utter encouragement and
despair, drove him lower and lower into
| the slough of despond without effort or
| hope.
| By beautiful dispensation Of Provi-
| dence. whenever a poor. shiftless, good
| for-nothing man is sent out into our world
some active. go-ahead little woman is in.
variably fastened to him to tow him along
through and keep his head above water
1t is for the best, of course. What would
! become of the poor fellow without her?
! At the same time. she finds it little
| hard ..
Nabby was ambitious and proud-spirited,
willing to work hard, to save, to do her
| part-anxious to get on in the world and
stand we'll among her neighbors. The
! fact, gradually realized, that in her hus-
band she had no support, only drag and
| burden, and finally a disgrace. had been
| a disappointment embittering her whole
nature. To have a husband that no one
| respected, that even the boys around town
called Isl Could" was dreadful to Nabby.
| Perhaps it was hardly strange that she
grew hard and bitter.
| Meantime Nabby had succeeded in start
| ing the fire, and. having changed her
! dress, sat down to dry her feet until the
| tea-kettle boiled. But even the ruddy light
| and warmth with which the kitchen now
glowed could not send off the dreariness
Of the night. The rain slapped with
ghost finger upon the window pane" and
| the wind howled and walled around the
house like the spirits of the lost pleading
| to be once more taken back into human
| life and warmth. Such a wind stirs in
even the happiest heart vague sense of
| loss of change of Ill that goes to make I'D