The news and herald. (Winnsboro, S.C.) 1877-1900, 1883-04-19
An onu,BAuHELOK.

eS. -
"lre's an old,baehelor, Susan Kite
says" ( : |
"Mercy on us, Kizzy Jones. Who's
an old bachelor?" " q! ! .,'{ i :
Miss Tillie Bell, had been medi-
tating deeply as to whether. scarlet,
orange or green would be best to begin
with in working n motto, and evidently
not paid due heed to the opening re-
marks of her hand-maid. g. ........,.
.Kizzy gave her broom a flourish, and
replied to the mistress IS snuestion, ,...
t'The fellef that's took the cottage
back yonder on the hill. don't reckon
he is overly young. ...'t .-
Giles kinder grey, but not very, jest
a leetle grain, an what do you uthink he's
been a-doin' all the mornin'?"
"Goodness me, Kesiah, how should [
know2" - ,.... .. ,.,
''Been a-plantin' marigolds in his
front yard all the blessed morning.
Bought whole lot of packages Of seed,
Susan said, every one marigolds."
'Dear me, what funny man!' said
Miss Bell. trE.. ...gi..
But as Kizzy hung up the broom and
disappeared the large cardboard motto
slid on to the floor OH one side OF her
and the skeins of worsted silk OH the
other, all in a tangle Of vivid color, and
Miss Tillie forgot them, forgot the
present entirely, and sat with her hands
folded and her soft eyes looking out to
the line of hills across the fields.
1t was the word ''marigoids" that
had sent her thoughts wandering, so
often will one simple word waken a
whole train of recollections.
There was sadness mingled with
these freshly-stirred rcmembrances, q
sadness that had come to her through
her first and only romance. ....
She was young when that happened.
Even now she was pretty aud plump
and pink.
: Then she was slender and pale, and
Joe Clifford had seen the wide world in
her eyes and there had been promises,
and an engagemont-r and a little
brown cottage bought, back on the hill,
with funny, straggly, red-bud tree in
a corner of a bit Of front yard, and Til
lie, who had very little money Of her
own in those days invested five cents in
q paper Of marigold seed TO heautify the
yard.
!'For," she said, ''marigolds are such
hearty jolly kind of flowers There is
80 much satisfaction in them-' +"
But just as they had come up and be-
gun to bloom in huge brilliant masses
of golden-yellow and yelvct-soft, red
brown, three weeks before the wedding
day, what was t>took all the light out
of them--all the suggestive beauty and
sweetness out Of the brown cottage.
What but a horrible quarrel with Joe
"a quarrel in which they had both act
ed with the wisdom and common sense
of couple of bclligerent children fight
ing over something asimportant as a rag
doll, and breathing deadly threats
against each other.
And Joe had wound. it all up by re-
pairing to the brown. cottage in a ter
rible temper, and pulling up every mari
gold by the roots throwing them spite
fully across the street, as near Tillie's 3
home as possible, where they lay, a heap
Of bright color, fading and willing in the
sun.
If u straight slim little figure, in q
grey dress, trying to look as much liz e
shadow as possible, had slipped out of
bo boroo IL, 4bo 20 inf lir.l,t of n
moon and gathered up one little velvet
red marigold from the-Aeap moist with
dcW, and if that marigold, all dead and
dry, was in one of Miss Titles boxes
upstairs now, why no one but Tillie had
any suspicion of it.
And Joe had sold the cottage and
gone away. E H N
"And he can stay, away while the
world lasts, for all of me-" Tillie had
said, remembering how he had called
her an obstinate little jade, though to be
'3isure she called him an ogre.
|, Tillie was deyout little woman, and
was bent on walking in the narrowest
heavenward path she could find, yet her
besetting sin Of temper would get in her
way sometimes'and trip her zip.
"And as it," she had said, "there are
not higher duties in life than thinking
of an obstinate goose of a man with q
y bad temper" ",f 5s5I
q And yet how many, many tears she
had shed over that little dead marigold
in the box. 4