The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1881-11-17

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there's got to be three in the house.
Well, 1 wouldn't split If l could.
Folks III ask, an you kin tell. I'm
DONE"
Done, truly. Eight years had passed,
and not one word had Miss Diantha
been heard to speak. If direction was
needed she wrote on slate and handed
it to Miss Chloe, who acted as mediator
and Interpreter. Confident that day
would end it Miss Althea had gone her
way, missing more than she would have
told the war of words which, after all,
had been only words-s family privi-
lege never destroying certain family
feeling holding its place under all
assaults. But as day after day went by
without sign she, too, grew more and
more determined, and if an occasional
| epasm of desire FOR the old stato -or
perhaps better state-of things visited
her, she put it sternly away. Daily the
two faces settled into harder and harder
lines; daily Miss Chloe's eyes grew
more apprehensive.
The three caddies she had filed at
once, the time for some decisive action
on her part seeming to have come at last
ueyOuu any qucooioh, ahu uaiy oue
| took down the three teapots, hidden
for years in the recesses of the upper
shelf of the china closet-one old blue,
the last piece of set long ago scat
tered or destroyed; one tiny Wedg-
wood, great-aunt's property, and last,
the bronze-colored earthen their mother
! had sometimes used. The three had
each its own place on the stove, and
curious neighbors, who had heard there
was something beyond the common
goin' on at the Templetons' looked at
them with suspicion as in some way ac-
countable for the difficulty and at last
with a shake of the head as the silence
refused to yield. The minister argued
and pleaded, the deacons came singly
and in a body, exhorting and threaten
ing suspension of church privileges,
and the parish was in O ferment, till
new cause for discussion arose in
another quarter, reverting to this,
however, with surprising constancy.
By degrees Miss Althea had grown
almost as silent as the elder sister,
whose life seemed black shadow, dark
ening even the sunshine of summer or
the golden light of autumn on the hills.
Miss Chloe grew more haggard every
day, and her forlorn blue eyes, red
trimmed with much crying, brimmed
over for months, as she looked appeal
ingly from one to another. Anything
was better than this hard, grim silence,
and the two faces always with averted
eyes.
ooh, why didn't I think of these
three teapots before ?" Chloe moaned
to the old minister. "Such an easy
way out of all the trouble; an there I
let it go on, an now shall always be
responsible"
No argument availed against this con-
clusion, and no length of time proved
sufficient to overthrow it. Months ran
into years at last, but time seemed never
to deaden the continuous self-reproach
of this Templeton, who had absorbed
the conscience of the whole generation,
and who sought vainly to reconcile ir-
reconcilable forces.
"When an irresistible wave encounters
an immovable rock, what is the result?"
had questioned Leander Lamson, home
from Dartmouth, and overfowing with
Sophomore logic; and old Lamson,
after pause for reflection, answered:
"Tarnal smash for whatever comes be-
tween"
Miss Chloe had come between, and
her looks indicated something equiva-
lent to "tarnal smash
Lucinda Wetherbee, once the owner
of small but profitable farm, had
signed" for her brother, luckless
scamp, who fled to the West when the
final crash came, leaving Lucinda at
sixty to face it as she might. The end was
the town farm, where the poor creature
went for life, too crushed by the sud-
den cessation of all the small activities
that had made her world to think of
other methods. Her mind failed par
TALLY, and she appeared periodically at
houses she had been accustomed to
visit, complaining that the society at
the town farm was not what she had
been accustomed to or expected, and
that "she'd come to stay a spell an git
the taste out of her mouth"
When Miss Chloe had made the ar
rangement and agreement to exchange,
she refused to tell, answering every in
quiry in the same unvarying words:
ave thought we'd each hev change"
She took up her life on the hill as if
born to the place, and, to the astonish-
ment of every one, Miss Diantha &C
cepted the change with no break in the
immovable silence. But when the select
men appeared and appealed to her to
end the scandal and go in person for
the sister, who had banished herself in
the hope of bringing about peace, she
listened till even old Lamson had said
his last word, and then, having written fer
few moments, laid the slate on the
table ana left the room.
"She's got a dumb devil" said Dea-
con Piper, as he read slowly:
"'Chloe has made her own bed, and
she can lie in it. She chose to go, and
she can stay. If you will not have her
any other way, 1 will pay her board"
Miss Althea went to the town farm
but once, q fury of anger possessing
her as she crossed the wretched thresh-
old, and venting itself in words that
brought terror to every one within hear
ing distance. Underneath the storm
hurt feeling and affection really lay, but
Chloe had passed beyond any power of
interpreting the perverse and tumul-
tuous manifestation. She lay back in
her chair with closed eyes, her patient
face little more patient, and slow
tears falling one by one.
"When Diantha comes for me, I'll
go back" was all she would say, and
Miss Althea, worn out with her own
vehemence, went unwillingly away.
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