Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1881-11-11

Dinntha pronounced them in that condition,
mot fit for pigs" Miss Althea demanded
Orange Pekoe, stepped Miss Diantha,
Ooong, boiled. Miss Chloe in her private
mind clung to Young Hyson, but would have
drunk gall and wormwood rather than make
any difficulty-in fact may be said TO have
done so in any case. Miss Diantha, as eldest
threw out the Orange Pekoe, rinsed the tea
pot viciously, with expressions Of deep dis
gust at the fatal blindness of any creature
who would drink such stuff, and stood guard
over the stove until the tin teapot gave out
the rank steam she loved to sniff.
With many desires for revolt none had yet
come but one morning Miss Althea, having
watched the operation up to boiling point,
both for herself and teapot, determined up
on active measures, and suddenly seizinR it
ran across the road and threw it with all her
force over the fence bordering the ''gully
wood road" where, bounding from stone
to stone in the almost sheer descent, il lay at
last in the brook below.
Miss Diantha for the moment speechless
poured out, MS breath returned, a torrent Of
rage on the triumphant Miss Althea, who
took down an earthern teapot from the shelf
and proceeded to seald it.
"As sure as I'm living sinner, I'll break
it If you put it on the fire, said Miss Diantha,
new grmness in voice and eye
TRY it," said Miss Althea, defantly. II
calculate you'll find more'n one kind o. tea
kin be drunk in this house. I've stood you
some years too much, an as fasts you break,
I'll buy. You hain't forgot the will, an that
all expenses has got to be equally shared by
the three, or as many as lives. It'll be a
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
cf tVar attl lrYfufn oV,1
mercy's sake Oh dear how can you ? Why
don't we each have a teapot an why didn't
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 Diantha, an Althea too to think that
we're all sisters, an alone in the world For
PHYS sake !"
"Be still said Miss Diantha imperatively.
"An' now, Althy Templeton, you hear my
last word to you. When you say you're sor-
ry for this mornings work, I'll say back, an
not before. The willis fixed so't we can't
split nor divide, an long as we live there's
got to be three in the house. Well, wouldn't
split il could Folks II 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. II direction was needed, she wrote
on a slate and handed it to Miss Chloe, who
acted as a mediator and interpreter. Conf
dent 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 privilege new
er destroying a certain family feeling holding
its place under all assaults. But as day after
day went by without a sign, she too grew
more and more determined, and if an occa-
sional spasm of desire for the old state-or
perhaps a 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 10 have come at last beyond any ques-
tion, and daily she took down the three tea
pots, hidden for years in the recesses of the
upper shelf of the china closet-one old blue,
the last piece of set long ago scattered or
destroyed; one tiny Wedgwood, g 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 sus-
picion as in some way accountable 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 body, exhorting, and threatening sus-
pension of church privileges, and the parish
was in a ferment till new cause for discus
sion arose in another quarter, reverting to this,
however, with surprising constancy.
By degrees Miss Althea had grown almost
as silent as her elder sister, whose life seem
ed a black shadow, darkening even the sun
shine of summer or the golden light of au-
| tumn on the hills.
Miss Chloe grew more haggard every day,
and her forlorn blue eyes, red-rimmed with
much crying, brimmed over for months, as
she looked appealingly from one to another
| Anything was better than this hard, grim ST.
lenee, and the two faces always with averted
| eyes.
'Oh, why didn't ever think of these three
| tea-pots before z" Chloe moaned to the old
minister. ''Such an easy way out of all the
trouble An there l let it go on, an now 1
shall always be responsible"
| No argument availed against this conclu-
| sion, and no length Of time proved sufficient
TO overthrow it. Months ran into years at
last, but time seemed never to deaden the con-
tinuous self-reproach of this Templeton, who
| had absorbed the conscience of the whole
| generation, and who sought vainly to recon-
| cile irreconcilable forces
"When an irresistible wave encounters an
immovable rock, what is the result ?" had
| questioned Leander Lamson, home from Dart
mouth and oyerhowing with sophomore logic;
and old Lamson, after pause for reflection,
answered, "Tarnal smash for whatever comes
| between"
Miss Chloe had come between, and her looks
indicated something equivalent to ''tarnal
smash"
Lucinda Weatherbee, once the owner of a
small but profitable farm, had 'signed" for
her brother, a luckless scamp, who fed to the
| West when the final crash came, leaving Lu-
cinda at sixty 10 face it as she might The
| end was the town farm, where the poor crea-
ture went for life, too crushed by the sudden
cessation of all the small activities that had
made her world TO think of other methods
Her mind failed partially, and she appeared
periodically at houses she had been aocustom-
to visit complaining that the society at the
town farm was not what she had been accus
toned to or expected, and that she had "comG
to stay a spell, an git the taste out of heI
mouth"
When Miss Chloe had made the arrange
ment and agreement to exchange, she refused
to tell, answering every inquiry in the same
unvarying words; ''We thought we'd eacl
hev a change"
She took up her life on the hill as if borI
to the place, and, to the astonishment of eve
ry one, Miss Diantha accepted the change will
no break in the immovable silence. But wheI
the selectmen appeared, and appealed to he
to end the scandal and go in person for he
sister, who had banished herself in the hop
Of bringing about peace, she listened unit
even old Lamson had said his last word, an(
then, having written for few moments, lait
the slate on the table and left the room.
''She's got dumb devil" said Deacon Pi
per, as he read slowly:
"Chloe has made her own bed, and she cal
lie in il. She chose to go, and she can stay
| Tf will OOt haVa her other | vii
pay her board"
Miss Althea went to the town farm but once
fury of anger possessing her as she crosses
the wretched threshold, and venting itself il
words that brought terror to every one withi
hearing distance. Underneath the storm, hur
feeling and affection really lay, but Chloe ha
passed beyond any power of Interpreting tn