Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1883-06-16

the agents in the neighborhood. /
looked at impossible houses-houses
like the Doctors, but with rents that
reached to the thousands. 1 found I'd
my blushing horror that we had absol
lutely been living partly upon the Doc
tors bounty-the rent we had paid for
his house vas ridiculously small. Al
mere farcical sum, which he must have
known long ago. He could not have
been unconscious of his reckless gener-
otslty, and the advantages we were reap
ing from it. My cheeks tingled with
every knew knowledge l gained, but nv
chief sorrow lay in the fact that we
could no longer go on living in the old
bllsstnlly ignorant way. The Doctor.
could afford it, seemed rather to enjoy
it, and | had no longer that indomitable
spirit that chafes under even a sus-
pected obligation. If that spirit had
ever existed, it had long ago oozed out
OF my weary toes, and every aching
joint in my body.
But it was useless to mourn over lost
happiness. The only thing to do now
was to get a house within our means
and live in it. I resolved to spare nv
people all the misery that I could and
let them enjoy their last days at the
dear, comfortable, roomy, sunshiny.
never-to-be-forgotten house of the Doc
tors. 1t was necessary to prepare them
a little for the plunge downward they
were to take. Mamma was the only
one that suffered in the anticipation.
Fred was at that happy period of a male
existence when the ''malious mischief
OF a boy begins to merge in the crack
cts" of adolescent youth. He was alb
sorbed in the transition-didn't r
what kind of a shelter 1 secured so long
as it would serve the necessity for suS-
ficient sleep to tide him over from day
to day.
Blanche was still less interested, She
laughed to scorn all my efforts to pre-
pare her pride and begged of me not to
borrow trouble. Once in a while she
babe me to remember that she was not
an absolute drone in the hive and had
her own schemes for our mutual ad-
vancement. 1 shuddered when the
conversation took this turn, for she was
more beautiful than ever, and conse-
quently there were more matrimonial
rocks ahead.
Poor mamma began to look gray and
old and took double doses of her nerv-
GUS medicine. Her constant recurrence
to that day at the sea-shore made the
bleak winds of March seem to be beat
ing about my ears like pitiless waves
against a ship in the trough of the sea,
and her haggard and anxious s%urveil-
lance of every movement of the Doc
tors drove me at last to securing a
house. 1t was a cofin-shaped building
that savored of sewer gas a little, and
OF mold and mildew very much more;
the paper was hanging from the walls;
the ceilings were cracked and danger
ously bulgy; cobwebs Enthusiastically fes-
TONED it from the draughty garnet to
the gloomy kitchens down in the bow
els of the earth. 1t was unhandy, dis
NAL to desolation, on the damp and
shady side of the street, andh had the un-
canny reputation of lately being occu.
pied by a clairvoyant who had
never come back from one of her
frances. But the agent spoke vaguely
of repairs, and it was absolutely the
only house in the whole metropolis that
seemed available to our family.
There was a final humiliation to suf.
fer-security was demanded for the
rent. There was nobody to ask it from
but the Doctor. I began to think he
might be so glad to get rid of us that
this would be a trifling favor. For the
Doctor, after the first shock, had APP
peared to be quite resigned to the idea
of u separation. His house yet hung
upon his hands; it was neither let moi
sold; but the Doctor went upon the ever
tenor of his way, apparently undis-
turbed by the rise or fall of real estate.
March happened to be going out as a
lion on the day that [ secured the
house. The heavens opened, the rain
fell, and beat upon my defenseless head,
that had ached and ached for many a
day. I had almost lived in the streets
for the previous fortnight, and ought to
have grown accustomed to my nomadic
miseries. But they seemed to culmi-
nate in my final success, and when the
agent handed me over a document
WHICH ue Sdlu WOulu secure me Inc
house if properly signed, a cold shudder
went to the marrow of my bones, and
felt as if it was my death-warrant. ]
staggered home, resolved to have done
with the whole torture that day, and
found a moneyed-looking person on the
doorstep anxious to negotiate with the
Doctor about his property. This was the
la : turn to the thumb-screw, but
fastened to the Doctors study and asked
him his price.
ga hundred thousand dollars, cash
down." shouted the Doctor, without even
turning his head.
I thought I had misunderstood him.
I was so faint and weary that every
voice I heard went humming in my ears
like q spent bell.
81 beg your pardon, Doctor" I fall
tered: "what did you say?"
He turned and looked atme, got upon
his feet, and reached me just as il
seemed to me 1 could no longer stand.
He carried me to an easy-chair, undid
my bonnet strings, dropped some liquid
in a little glass, and pushing back my
head, poured it down my throat.
The bell rang loudly. The party al
the door had waited all this time te