The Eaton Democrat. (Eaton, Ohio) 1875-1903, 1882-08-24
A YANKEE ATALANTA.

A YANKEE ATLANTA
A chime of tea bells rang out along
the broad street of Charlton as DIR. Ny
rick, perched in his high-swung sulky,
drove YEARLY homeward through the
biting air. To a hungry mar the cheer
full tinkle pleasantly suggested the
thought of creature comforts. But the
thought of creature comforts unpleas-
antly suggested their natural entail of
bills. He recalled the unpaid scores of
these tormentors .rustling in the hollow
bronze globe, by whose weight a bronze
Atlas standing on his Office table seemed
quite bent and overcome. No wonder,
either, thought the care-worn doctor.
His own world often seemed to contain
nothing but bills, and that the stoop in
his own shoulders had come of their un-
lifting load he knew.
1t was Mrs. Myrick's last Christmas
gift to him-that costly inutility. When
he kissed her, with thanks, his prophetic
soul misgave him that the bill would be
sent in at the moment he could least af-
ford to pay, if one hour of his wearing
year were distinguishable from another
in that respect. But he had long since
discovered that his wife had a fiscal
genius unrivalled among her sex, save
by that able financier, Mrs Micawber.
She declared that the explanation of
their embarrassments lay in the fact that
the doctor constantly mislaid his bills,
and so of course paid most of them twice
over. When, therefore, she had APP
pointed to Office, so to speak,
this pagan Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer, and had made it a daily duty
to put all new or stray evidences of debt
into his grim keeping, she really felt
that the Myrick family stood once more
on a sound financial basis, or if they did
not, that it was certainly no fault of
hers.
Meantime she went on as she had
always done, committing endless extrav-
agances in the name of economy, and
heaping up bills against the day of bills.
Had she been one of the ten virgins for
whom the bridegroom called, her lamp
would have been found neither full nor
empty; she would long since have ex-
changed it altogether, much under value,
for a highly recommended self-lighting-
and-feeding perpetual burner, certain
under no circumstance to ignite. This
system of barter and substitution ami
mated the housekeeping, devastating as
it went.
But however spent and troubled DIR.
Myrick might be, he suffered him.
self to be impatient with his wife. He
was eminently a just man. He remem-
bered that she was unaltered from the
smiling beauty of seventeen whom he
had p~assionately wooed, vowing, after
the ann of lovers, that not for worlds
would he have had her other than she
was. No strong-minded, aggressive,
unsexed creature for him, he had gone
SO far as to say, in the wisdom of his
postgraduate experience, but a tender,
clinging, sweet, adorable maiden, whose
strength was her weakness, and who
should clothe his roughness with her
grace. In short, the oak and the vine,
though ~hackneyed as to the metaphor,
seemed to him quite the correct thing as
to sentiment,
At thirty-five his Mary was Just as pref
ty, lust as useless, just as incapable Of
serious effort, just as inane, Just as low.
ing, just as sweet-tempered, as on their
wedding day. TWAS the care-worn man
of forty-two who had left the impulsive
boy of twenty-four so far behind him
that he could no longer comprehend the
passion of that foolish young fellow fol
a beautiful doll. 1t seemed impossible
that he, Arthur Myrick, knowing what 6
wise, careful, high-minded wife might
have done for him in essence and estate
during these eighteen years, could evel
have quoted with approval, to the girl hi
loved, Coleridge's sentiment that the
perfection of character in a woman is tt
be characterleSs.
Yeti he remembered he had perpetrated
that very idiocy, and he acknowledged
that he had no right to whimper now
that his pleasant vice of sentimen
tality had been made an instrumen
to plague him. All that he had rea
son to expect from his Mary-lov,
for himself and his children-he hac
received in full measure. And h,
would have held himself caitiHf indeed
could he have visited upon her blameles.
head his own sins of blinded Judgment
of dull perception, and of an ignobl,
worship which exacted no nobleness o
its object.
Over the cradles of his five daughter
he had suffered pangs of apprehension
and self-reproach lest they had beef
born to make the lives of other men a.
hard and empty as his who had begottel
them. Through each successive yea
his own domestic vine had chung an
clambered closer about its supporting
oak, precisely as he had invitedit to do
He knew that the innocent bloom,
growth had sapped his vitality ant
thriven on his decay. And he vowed
VOW TO Heaven that each of his it'll
maids should grow up strong-bodied
strong-souled, strong-minded, if nee
were, to the verge of ~masculinity, j
only thus could she become a distinc
human being and no parasite.
But as the years slipped by in the com
mon-place disguise of days, he accepte
his girls S they were, with a matter-oi
course paternal pride, and sometime
forgot, and oftener felt too weary, t
shape into conduct his aspirations fo
them. They were all pretty-prettie
than their mother even. They were a
clever in their different ways, well-bre
n intelligent, S a matter of course
Those effects belonged to the Myric
blood, the doctor thought, with som
pardonabIe self-complacency. He fe
SURE that Rose, who was seventeen now
had great executive force. He though
that she might even inaugurate a ne
reign in the housekeeping. if hermothe
would only abdicate in her favor. II
had suggested the change of dynastie'
with a p%eridious pretense of r~elievin
his wife from care. But with perfeC
sweetness she had declined all aid. Wit
her experience, she observed, house
keeping cares were nothing to her-th
lnerest form of occupation; whereas dea
Rose would grow old before her tim
with such a responsibility on her shou
ders. No, no. Every girl learned tbs
sort of thing by intuition as Dor as sh
had a house of her own. She knew sh
did, and Rose had certainly inherited he
capacity to manage well. Let the chill
have her brief holiday. viii Haye
wanted her to be married in the spring
and then she must settle down, of course
Besides, as VIII was rich, Rose woul