Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1881-11-11
THE MISSES TEMPLETON'S TEA
POTS

I-OI ..
"well ef it don't beat all I'm struck all
of heap !"
"An what's more" pursued the striker,
leaning little farther from his wagon, and
speaking through tightly shut teeth, as il
thereby the sound would be prevented from
passing beyond the listener, there amt no
backin' down, as you might think If ever
you see a face sot, you'd seen it this
mornin' an she lookin' back all the time too,
as if 1 was carryin' her to the vault in the
lower graveyard l declare I'd just about
as soon. hain't got over it yit"
"But for the lands sake Why didn't
Dianthy stop her Z"
Past stoppin'. These still folks, when
they do take the bit between their teeth,
don't stop for whoa Dianthy wasn't up
nuther. You'd ought to hev seen her when
druv up with Lucindy. She come higher
speakin' out when handed in that hair trunk
than she's done for ten year. But guess the
town'll be in an uproar when it knows. 1t
amt a-goin' to allow it."
How'll it hender it, Lamson, I'd like to
know p
Don't know" said the first speaker 'but
there's got to be way found Why, this
mornin' Hiram come out an his wife too
They're good sort o folks eff they do run the
town farm, an Hiram sez, Now, Miss Tenn
pleton, told you before, an l tell you now
| agin, faint no use. You amt pauper, and
| you Jest can't an sha'n't change off, I've
settled it,, sez she, hard an stiff as Dianthy
herself. You're bound to keep Lucindy, an
ef choose to change places with Lucindy,
it's nobody's business but my own. Ef you
wont let her 60, I'll stay here whether or no.
Town meetin' amt till spring, an I've made
up my mind. There amt nothin' but death
can change it, Lucindy clim up to the
seat before Hiram could interfere, an l druv
off, an how they'll settle il can't say, but
there she is. The last word l heard her say
was, Hiram, there's no peace for me any
where's but here, an here l mean to stay"
shes out O. her mind, " said old Hubbard,
picking up the rake dropped in his first sur
prise. "There'l hev 10 be a special meetin'
called, an Ill see about it this very day"
Better let folks manage their own affairs, "
returned Lamson, gathering up the reins, II
don't know as I'd a druv her over if I'd un-
derstood exactly what she wanted, an then
agin l don't know. But will say / thought
I'd like to see how Danthy would take it. 1t
beats me. Chloe Templeton in the poor
house, an them Templetons 18th money
enough to buy you N me out this minute"
"Twouldn't take no great to do that" said
old Hubbard, returning to his work. astonish-
ment still predominating in his leathery face;
and Lamson drove on, the tall figure of wo-
man appearing in the open doorway of q
house above, as il she had been watching the
interview and were half disposed to speak.
Hubbard made a step forward as If uncertain
whether to speak or not, but retreated sud
denly as the door shut with bang ITEM
pleton temper" he said shaking his grizzled
head; but who'd a thought Chloe had any
| of it? l cal'late she got desprit, an struck
out for any kind o a change, an don't won
der nuther :" and with another shake he set
tied to work, pausing at intervals to calculate
"Well, it beats me!'
Half way up Breakneck, so towering and
assertive hill that anywhere but in New
Hampshire it must have been a mountain.
Even now its claims to that title were not to
be disregarded. Year after year the select
men threatened TO labor no longer on a road
more and more given over to gullies and sud
den small land-slides and big stones, which,
appearing mysteriously in the way, could new
er be accounted for save by diabolic agency.
Year after year the two or three farmers who
| tempted Providence by permanent wrestle
| with the thin layer of soil barely hiding the
granite below, gathered to work out the road
| tax, the patient oxen painfully marking out
the deep furrow on either side, and ponder
| ing why human beings should make so much
| evidently useless work both for men and
oxen. For road-making in the New England
| hill country is simply piling of clods and
Jumps and loose stones down the centre of
the winding way, chance wagons in part dis
| tributing it, and rain and wind soon return
ing all to the original position, ready for the
next annual upheaval.
Why Isaiah Templeton had chosen Break
neck pastures, when river meadows fat with
corn and wheat lay below, he never told, but
the choice had been made. Half way up the
| hill. turn in the road and between two
rocky pastures, where sweet-fern and brake
disputed place with every root of grass, a
strip of land, every stone long ago laborious-
ly removed, and entering into the we'll l-built
wall on either hand. On the pasture side
raspberry bushes and wild grapes and ram
bling vines in general had it all their own
way, but Isaiah Templeton's lifelong fight
with weeds had not been unavailing, and
Diantha, his eldest born, pursued them with
an even greater vigor and determination, af-
frming that had every farmer done his duty
half as well, Canada thistles would have been
confined to Canada and daisies have become
an extinct species.
Diantha, Althea, and Chloe-strange names
for the three middle-aged women in the
weather stained house with sloping roof,
where MOSES grew in spite of Miss Dantha,
and on whose sides a faint red still fingered,
though sixty years had passed since it first
showed bright against the dark wood behind
and above it. Whatever latent poetry in the
had died with him, Watts's Hymns being the
nearest approach TO such frivolity tolerated
by either Dantha or Althea, two grim and
determined females, with faces as hard as the
stones that made up the most of their patri-
mony, and who, through Miss Chloes girl
hood, had carefully repressed the tendency to
sentiment less sedulously hidden then than
now
Years had thinned Miss Chloe's hair, sharp
ened still more the nose sharp in the begin
ming, tipped it with a frosty red, and printed
crow's-feet about the faded blue eyes, always
a little perplexed and troubled-alway gentle,
apologetic, and filling with tears as quickly
as in her silent and sensitive girlhood. Life
held small leisure Books were a waste Of
precious time, and more and more butter anG
cheese the chief end of woman and thus
Miss Chloe's sentiment found no outlet save
in the flower bed, which, in spite of Miss
Diantha's arguments, held its place under the
south window, and in summer filled the little
sitting-room with a perfume altogether out Of
place in those upright quarters.
In the old hair trunk, well hidden between
towels and pillow-cases, lay Miss Chloes chic
treasure time-worn copy of Mrs. Hemens
l bearing on the hy-leaf in cramped letters thu
) inscription; ITO Miss Chloe Templeton
: from her well-wisher, Josiah Green"
! Something more than a well-wisher Josial
. would willingly have been, but Miss Dianthf
: had set her face against it, and Josiah, afte
a short period of detection, married prett.
, Sophy Downer, and slept now with his faith
ers in the old graveyard. For years Mis-
Z Chloe kept the little book folded in tissue-pa
per and laid away, but with the funeral tool
! it out as if death gave a right, unclaimabl'
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