Maryland independent. [volume] (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1874-current, 1882-10-13
AT FIFTY.

Yes, tfty is great age-people seem
to think it is half century. | have
felt it as / look back upon the years
have felt it as looked before me in the
glass l have felt it in the society OF
Belle and her mates have felt II
when people treated me with the cool
politeness due their own self-respect,
and that done, have fled to the charms
of little Belle and Alice and If | had
any common sense should not have
felt it with the regret l did.
But | hated all along to be growing
toward fifty. / hated to see that | could
not sit out doors of an evening without
little shawl that 1 could not take the
old rambles and rides of my youth un-
less fatigued that insCead of thrilling
freshly in every nerve to the beauty Of
sunset and scenery as | used to do,
quivercd only in remembering how
used to thrill.
And then, too, l dreaded to be old
thinking of some day-some day
Maskelyn should see me, and pass by
without knowing me, or, if knowing
me, Knowing only to suffer morta
shock at the sight and never thin. .kipo
that Maskelyn also was growing old
All, perhaps / should have dreaded il
all the more if had thought the years
were setting lines in the smooth oliv,
of that face, were dimming the fire OF
those great eyes, were whitening the
darkness OF the locks that fell across
that brow of his, were impairing the
music of that voice. l never did think
it. To me he bad sort of Immortality.
And now-now | am fifty years old, as
I was yesterday but it is not bitter any
more, as it was yesterday, with that old
bitterness of vanished strength aud in
terest fer love life | feel the blood
bounding warmly In my veins, death
seems farther away than ever-it is
only bitter now because have nothing
but this old face, this old heart, these
used-up fifty years, to give Maskelyn.
1t is bitter, too, lest people should smile
at Maskelyn-
was sitting on the porch, thinking
of my years. that day. After all, it
seemed but the day before that had
set there with the delicious o Tor OF the
honeysuckles blowing all about me in
the dusk, and Maskelyn sat at my side
aud the very air we breathed famed to
and fro in the fragrs Dc3 full of the dark
sweet mystery of love. 1t seemed as II
all the world had been mace just to
come to blossom in that evening, stars
and winds and vaults of heaven, the
evening that he first said that he loved
me, although ouf lives had grown to
gether so for years that We bad each
known the thought of the other with
out speaking, and knew that there were
no others on earth that could ever
come as close to either of us as the
other did.
But this crowded the whole with
certainty, and we looked in each
others faces in the CLEANS OF the
starlight as if we were the only two
people on the planet. Alas, we were
notl
For Maskelyn was still very young,
and as the traveller for commercial
house he had his way to make. 1t was
the morning after that hight in the
dark and the dew and the honeysuckle
odor that he left the ring on my inner
and went off on one of his journeys
He was to 90 down the river to New
Orleans before he returned, and he TOOK
the steamer Beautemps at st. Louis
and it was thirty years before heaid
from him how it happened. But the
world is full of tongues, and heard 1t,
all the same, on the Jour winds chat
blow no one knows whittier.
There had taken passage on that
fatal steamer wealthy planter OF
Louisiana, With his wife, an Invalid
French lady, and their young daughter
Adele. She was lovely little thing,
this Adele, and she sang like bird
Maskelyn beard her singing one even
ing. and. passionately fond OF music
he soon made her acquaintance, ana
was singing with her. She was as
childlike, too, as she was young and
pretty : she had soon contded to him
all her affairs, and he, secure in his
plighted love, and never dreaming OF
misconstruction or trouble, became her
hourly associate, and took pleasure IN
her innocent companionship.
One afternoon they sat in their accus-
toned seat, reading, as it chanced, from
the same book. In their occupation
and their talk they had taken no notice
of the excitement of the people about
them, and if they knew they were
racing the Charon, so they had been
doing half the week, and thought moth
ing of it. And all at once shrek OF
countless voices rent the air, there was
a shock and an explosion, as if the
bottomless pit had broken through the
bed Of the river. The air was full OF
flying beams and falling men and
women (; the river was full of them, and
they were among them all, ahoat but
alive.
Ahoat in the branches of huge tree
thai was sailing and swirling down the
river, and in no immediate danger OF