The Sentinel. [volume] (Trenton, N.J.) 1880-1882, 1881-11-19
pot from the shelf and proceeded to

| pot from the shelf and proceeded tt
scald it.
"As sure as I'm living sinner, II
break it if you put it on the fire." sale
Miss Diantha, new grimness in voice
and eye.
"Try it" said Miss Althea, defantly
81 calculate you'll find more'n one kline
O tea kin be drunk in this house. I've
stood you some years too much, an az
fast's you break, I'll buy. You hahn
forgot the will, an that all expenses
has got to be equally shared by the
three, or as many as lives. It II be 8
leetle hard on Chloe, but then she's
used to your imposin' on her, an grain
more won't make much difference"
"Sisters," Miss Chloe began, in an
agony of tremulousness and apprehen
sion, "for mercy's sake Oh, dear
how can you? Why don't we each have
teapot, an why didn't I think of il
before? There's one for each, and a
caddy apiece too-the little ones grand.
father brought home. Oh. don't look
that way, Dianthy, an Althy too! To
think that we're all sisters, an alone in
the world For PHYS sake!"
"Be still!' said Miss Diantha, i'm
peratively. can now, Althy Temple
ton, you hear my last word to you.
When you say you're sorry for this
mornings work I'll say back, an not
before. The Wills fixed soft we can't
split nor divide, an long as we live
there's got to be three in the house.
Well, / wouldn't split if I could.
Folks IL 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-a family priv
lege never destroying certain family
feeling holding it's place under all
assaults. But as day after day went by
without sign she, too, grew more and
more determined, and if an occasional
spasm of desire for the old state-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 filled at
once, the time for some decisive action
on her part seeming to have come at last
beyond any question, and daily she
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 a set long ago scat
tered or destroyed; one tiny Wedg-
wood, a 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 ferment, till a
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
rlmmed 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 I 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 overlooking 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 equlva-
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 asshe 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