Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1883-04-04
AN OLD BACHELOR.

Hes an old bachelor, Susan Kite
SAYS
Mercy on us, Kizzy Jones. Who's
an old bachelor?7
Miss Tillie Bell, had been medi-
tating deeply as to whether scarlet.
orange or green would be best to begin
with in working motto, and evidently
not paid due heed TO the opening re-
marks of her handmade.
Kizzy gave her broom flourish, and
replied to the MISTRESS question.
The feller that's took the cottage
back yonder on the hill | don't reckon
he is overly young.
He's kinder grey, but not very, jest
a leetle grain, an what do you think he's
been a-doin' all the mOrnin'?''
Goodness me, Kesiah, how should /
know"
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 a funny MANI said
Miss Bell.
But as Kizzy hung up the broom and
disappeared the large cardboard motto
slid on to the floor ON one side of her
and the skeins of worsted silk on the
other, all in 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 remembrances, a
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 ewes and there had been promises,
and an engagem5nt-rlng, and little
brown cottage bought, back on the hlll,
with funny. straggly, red-bud tree IN
a corner of bit of front yard, and Ill
lie. who had very little money OF her
own in those days invested five cents IN
a paper of marigold seed to beautlfy the
yard.
For she said, ''marigolds are such
a hearty jolly kind of flowers. There Is
so much satisfaction in them
But Just as they had come up and De-
gun to bloom in huge brilliant masses
of golden-yellow and velvet-Soft, red
brown. three weeks before the wedding
dav. what was it took all the light out
of them-all the suggestive beauty ana
sweetness out of the brown cottage
What but horrible quarrel with Joe
"A quarrel in which they had both act
ed with the wisdom and common sense
of a couple of belligerent children hight
ing over something as important as a rag
doll. and breathing deadly threats
against each other.
And Joe had wound it all up by re-
rairing to the brown cottage III d Ter
rible temper, and pulling up every mari
GOLD bv the roots throwing them spite
fully across the street, as near i lille
home as possible. where they lay, a heap
of bright color. fading and whiting III Tue
sun. :; .
If a straight slim little figure, IN a
grey dress. trying to look as much me
a shadow as possible, had slipped out vi
tho bouse i'm the faint light OF a crescent
moon and gathered up one little velvet
red marigold- from the heap moist wiz,
dew and if that marigold, all dead anu
dry was in one of Miss Tillle 5 poAes
upstairs now, why no one but L iiiie 'i'''
any suspicion of it. -. .rd
And Joe had sold the cottage ano
And he can stay away while tht
world lasts. for all of me" lille i,au
said remembering how he mao oai'1o
her an obstinate little jade, though " ~
sure she called him an ogre.
Tillie was devout little woiiiAh' Gun. o.'s
was bent on walking in the narro~eS :,
heavenward path she could find' YET nc m
besetting sin of temper would gel III INC
way sometimes and trip her up.
And as if she had said, there ar ar
not higher duties in life than thiin."s is,
of an obstinate goose of a man VII"
bad temper. - CHI
And vet how many, many 'eAi. ,, o.
had she'd over that little dead iliai'so''
in the box. .-;,o a
For Tillie was not as uniorsi'"'s :
she had tried to be- ,ou
And now a man had taken 'lle oio" Wv
cottage ON the hill-a pacneiui, is,rt;n
''overly'' young, who had peeii
maripolds all the morning.
Well, Joe could not be o'e'''
Snppose this man should be Joes
Kizzy's head was poked inside !"
door, coi,
Miss Tillie y said she, ''he's a-goh
to be married. the fellow with the l'"'
As the head disappeared, Miss ~. IL
snor,oa tho thread Of her revere, go