The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1882-03-02

opinions. | think, moreover, that he
knew where they all were at one time,
but dropped them here and there as he
travelled, happy if his journeys end
brought him to a previous deposit of his
beloved green bags.
As for his grammar, it never seemed
much nearer completion than at first ];
although now and then he published, in
an abbreviated form, a sort Of precursor
of what would follow when his anxious
labor should be at an end. Did he pur
posely delay their end, recognizing dimly
that even possible fame would not take
the place of the work for which he had
sacrificed every other passion of bis life ?
At any rate, he still wrote and travelled ;
was still familiar, if exceptional figure
in his circuit of a hundred miles or So.
Years only added emphasis to the oddi-
| ties of his nature. and numbers to his
bags. He grew daily more sensitive to
offers of charity, and more restlessly in
dustrlOus in his pOntless work. His
personal aversions, always Marked were
low often ludicrously prominent. But,
strangely enough, as he approached the
end Of his life, the studied reserve, which
had always made his nature a mystery,
seemed threatening to desert him. He
said sometimes that there was something
which, at the proper time, he should like
to communicate" but too urgent respon-
siyeness only provoked him to answer
that, cat present his attention was occu
! pied with other Matters And, as if this
instinct of confession were harbinger OF
the time when Old Greenleaf must make
his own great confession, his restless life
was, indeed, now drawing near its close.
| The household with whom he happened
then to be staying, found, one winter
morning, that Mr.. Greenleaf had died
quietly in his bed. Fortune favored his
whim of independence to the last, In one
of the pockets of his coat vas found
money enough to pay his funeral eX-
penses, and in three days the only lasting
impression which Charles Greenleaf had
left on humanity was an uneasy sense,
among his former benetactOrs, that some
! thing ought to be done with his cd
papers and his pathetic old coats and
hats But his bags gradually took their
| places in neglected garrets, and were
soon as dim and cob webby there as the
memory of their owner in the minds Of
| .
However, revelation hangs upon a slcn-
der thread. My cousin Emily, a girl of
| large imagination, and, in this case, small
store of facts to found it on, was one
| day rummaging in the gar1et Of the
house where Mr. GTeenleaf had bTcathed
his last. Suddenly her curiosity was
reused by the sight of some queer green
shapes III musty corner, and she emp
| tied one the bags which, in the owners
| lifetime no strange hand had dared to
touch. disappointment Nothing there
but some old manuscripts, disagreeahly
suggestive of rats. Emily was about to
turn away, when her eyes fell upon a
| package which soon realized all her
! dreams of concealed horror in the life Of
the departed Greenleat. Written on a
muSty parcel were the words, "a curse
on the one who shall open this What
could it mean? Had the hand of the
dead been reused to sudden action, pro
voked by her dcsecrating touch? Or had
Old Greenleaf committed this awful sen
tence to paper, foreseeing the sometime
intrusion other curious eyes Too scared
to answer these questions for herself,
cousin Emily rushed down through the
chambers to the parlor. The package
was torn open in the hope OF finding some
| clue to the old mans family, who it was
conceived, might be glad to hear tidings
of an eccentric relative for whom they
could grieve with the happy conscious
ness of discharged responsibility.
Snugly wrapped in yellow paper, which
was traced with delicate womal's writ
ing, was child's picture. Only com
monplace, chubby child whose baby face
contrasted oddly with its faded surround
ings; but what was its connection with
the spare celibate? Only faded letter
worn with much handling, but could it
have been touched by the old mans pas
sionless hand
1t is only by their relations that facts
are verified, and here was a possible com
binatiOn that stirred the blood. The
letter was dated at a remote country
town, and this clue was followed up in the
faint hope that it might unrayel the mvs-
terry of the old mans life
Strangely enough it did. In an Oh
scure village the inquirers found white
haired, sad yed old lady whose daughter,
sorry faced widow of forty, held in her
arms the counterpart OF the picture in Mr..
Greenleaf7s green bag. A grand child
had come to comfort the sad-eyed woman
Charles Greenleaf's wife, whom he had
deserted thirty years before.
The story of this woman was brief but
tragic IN its anxious sorrow. She had
begun her married life happy, as the wife
of the principal of the village school. For
several months she had been uninter-
ruptedly happy in the cares and at1ec-
tons Of home, husband and child. Her
husband was successful in his profession
of teacher, and almost as the young wife
thought, too thoroughly devoted to his
work. But this, she argued was happy
fault, and would bring them fame some
time; for he had even then begun his
work on the grammar. When their child
was three months old, Mr. Greeneaf's first
prolonged absence occurred. This, he
explained to his wife, was wholly on ac-
count of his book, for which it was
| necessary to collect material. He STAYED
| away some weeks and after this the wife
was often made anxious by his myster-
Gus absences from home, each succeed
| ing one longer than the last, his com
| munications with her growing each time
| more irregular and uncertain Two years
| passed IN this way, when the trouble,
which she had dreaded, came upon her.
| From one of his journeys Mr.. Greenleaf
| did not return. She wrote and re- wrote
in vain TO the last address which he had
given her,-to any and every place which
| she knew or fancied he had visited. Her
| poverty forbade the elaborate use of de
| tective means which wealth secures, and
she never saw or heard from the husband
of her youth again, until she received
from strangers the history of his strange
life and lonely death. But any fact, how
ever sad, came as relief to her, and her
daughter had been too young at the time
of her fathers desertion to feel any but
sympathetic sorrow.
As for Charles Greenleaf himself, who
can explain the motives of mind which
prompted him to his strange and wander
ing life How was it that the fond hus-
band became the treacherous deserter !?
By what subtitle processes were the forces
of his conscience turned toward the ac-