News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1882-08-24

it L reckon, it try"
He unlocked the frame containins
the wire screen which protected the
window and pushed it outward. Then
procuring wash tub and climbing
from it to the window sill he thrust hi:
head out and dragged his body through
When he reached the front pavement
his face was covered with cobwebs and
his clothes with coal dust; but he ex.
ulted in the thought that he was free
man.
He took his dead-latch key from his
pocket and was about to open the
front door, when he remembered
that he had locked the door and put up
the chain bolt. There was no use try
ing to ring the bell. The wire was
broken, and Mrs. Whitaker wouldn' t
hear the bell if the wire hadn't been
broken. There was but one last hope
of making her hear, and that was by
throwing stones against the window.
Mr.. Whitaker tried the experiment.
The first handful produced no effect.
The sleeper did not hear it. Neither
did she hear the second handful, nor
the third, nor the tenth, which was
dashed against tile glass with such
violence that Mr.. Whitaker expected to
see it shivered to fragments.
Mr.. Whitaker was at his wits end.
There was faint light burning in the
room, and as he looked up at 1t and
thought of his wife slumbering quietly
on while he was in such great trouble,
his wrath grew so fierce that he felt
capable of doing something really ter
rible. But what should he do? The poor
lady was as much beyond his reach,
for the time, as if she had been
in China. He thought for a
moment of trying to borrow a ladder !;
but where could he get ladder in the
middle of the night? No; as his sense
of personal ininry deepened he more
and more firmly resolved that he would
punish Ellen somehow or other for her
indifference. As he could not obtain
admission to his own house, why should
he not fly? Why should he not go off
somewhere and give his wife something
to worry over in repayment for all the
wrong she had inflicted upon him by
persisting, against his earnest and re-
peated remonstrance, in sleeping with
her deaf ear up?
Mr.. Whitaker turned passionately
away from the house and walked rapidly
down the street. He had no particular
destination in his mind, and he hurried
along with a vague notion that he might
perhaps go to a hotel when he felt
calmer. In few moments he came to
the railroad depot not far from his
dwelling. 1t was brilliantly lighted,
and as he looked at it he remembered
that train started for New York at
midnight. He walked into the waiting
room. The minute hand on the huge
marble clock indicated three OK four
minutes of twelve. Mr.. Whitaker
rushed up to the ticket Office and bought
ticket for New York. Then he hurried
into the car and took a seat. He had
upon his head his velvet smoking cap,
SO that his appearance did not excite
remark. Presently the train started,
and Mr.. Whitaker actually felt kind
of malicious Joy as he thought he would
soon be far away from his wife.
=, 1t was slow train, and he had plenty
of time to think, and as he thought his
passion began to cool, and the convic-
ton began to press in upon him that he
had been behaving very foolishly. How
absurd it was to blame poor Ellen be-
cause he had locked himself in the
cellar He pictured her lying by the
side of the baby, calm in the belief
that he was still sitting in the library.
This recalled to his mind her
deaf ear and her fondness for sleeping
with it up. Then he had revulsion of
feeling and he began to grow angry
again. But this was a mere flash.
Steadily he advanced toward a more
reasonable view of the situation, and
as he did SO he concluded that it would
be great act of folly to go all the way
to New York. He asked the conductor
the name of the next station. It was
Bristol. He made up his mind to get
out there and to go home early in the
morning. He really felt badly to think
how much alarmed and distressed his
wife would be when she discovered his
absence.
When he stepped from the train a
Bristol rain was falling quite rapidly,
and one feeble light In front of the sta
ton shone through the deep darkness.
Mr.. Whitaker inquired of the man upon
the platform the way to a hotel, and
then he started for it.. In descending
the wet and slippery steps of the plat
form he lost his footing and fell. He
was very much hurt and found that he
could not rise. He called for help, and
when the railroad man-the only man
who was anywhere about-came to him,
he discovered that further assistance
would be required, for Mr.. Whitaker's
leg was broken.
The man soon brought three other
men, and placing the hurt man upon
board they carried him to the hotel and
sent for doctor.
If Mr.. Whitaker, sitting in the Car,
had thought himself very foolish man,
what did Mr.. Whitaker, lying far away
from home in wretched hotel, with
his leg broken, think of himself? Mr..
Whitaker thought that if there was q
colossal idiot on this earth, he was that
parsonage.
Early in the morning he sent tele-
gram to his wife, urging her to come to
him at once, and right speedily came
reply from her, saying that she would
take the train which ordinarily reached
Bristol at 9 o'clock.
From the window of his bedroom in
the hotel the invalid could see the sta
ton and the railroad, and as he watched
them, while he longed for the train to
come, he tried to arrange in his mind,
for his wife, an explanation of his con-
duct which would present it in the best
possible light.
Senseless anger is one of the
things that defies justification,
and mans very sense that his
wife's love makes her capacity for for
giveness almost illimitable only tends