The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1883-10-18
PIERRE BRANTOME'S GRAND.
DAUGHTER.

DAUGHTER.
The proverbial straw had broken the
metaphorical eamel's back. The pa
tience of Charlotte Brantome, usually
equal to the exigencies of the occasion,
was exhausted. The twins, as mat
fer of course, were the culprits.
They, however, with the complaeency
natural to boys of six or thereabouts,
were Indifferent to the tempest of de-
spair which ragged in their sister 8
breast. They had CONSIDERABLY re-
Trained from adding deceit to their
guilt, but had confessed, fully and un-
reservedly, to rifing the canary's nest,
to tearing a jacket, and losing a hat
down the well, to eating the strawber-
ries that were saved for supper, and to
catching their most faithful hen with a
fish-hook. That fish-hook represented
the straw; Charlotte the camel. She
could have borne anything better than
downright cruelty developed so early, in
one of her own blood She never was
boy.
'And man was here, went on Pop
sey; "a big man." volunteered Wopsey,
the other twin. Sand he asked US
about everything, and we said our
mother wasn't very well, and our sister
was an old-maid school-ma' am
Charlotte WINGED. Where had he
picked up that expression ? And had
it come to that /?
''You must not talk to strange men
about mother or me. What did he
want ?"
''He wanted to see YOU"
''Me ?' Visions of tramps, of spy
ing burglars, only they had nothing to
"burgle, as Popsey had said one day,
came into her mind.
''How did he look p''
''Hew was beautiful, ''He was dread
ful, y said the twins in duet.
Further questioning elected these
facts: He was young; he was old; he
was short; he was tall; he wore specta-
cles; he had a mustache, and was bug
man. In the last and crowning fact the
boys agreed.
Practice had made Miss Brantome a
tolerable clairvoyant,. so far as reading
those two small minds was concerned.
She jumped at the conclusion that some
wandering naturalist chasing an elusive
bug had chanced that way, and gave
the subject no more attention. She had
other things to think of than ..bug-men''
or any men, and the problems of how
to provide a new hat for Wopsey and
how to instill remorse into the hearts
OF her charges drove other thoughts
away sfa
Sitting down on the low doorstep of
the house that had been home to her for
SIX and twenty happy years she tried to
reason it out. The sun was vet high,
the days were at their longest. Behind
ner flowed the tireless river; in front of
her, across the prairie, the hills were
green, In the field of rye over the way
cleaned large white wooden cross.
ner grandfather, in whose veins flowed
some OF the blue blood of France, had
bought home in this western country
when the remnant of an Indian tribe
nad still property to sell. The deed of
ssie provided for the preservation of
.aerh little burying-ground. Here among
Inc sinking graves Pierre Brantome had
ouiit the cross. 1t had been renewed
several times since then, but had always
seemed the same, and was ever the pa
aent protector, solemnly holding it's
Wnite arms out as if to defend the mold
efihg sleepers. The grain grew thick
around, but the tiny village of the dead
was never disturbed by spade or pillow.
oid flerre, however, had never pros
pered. Neither did Pierre the Younger;
anu one night when, riding home, his
morse SHE'D at the sight of the white
cross in the moonlight and threw him
witt, his head against a stone. he left no
iagaey but the homestead and debt to
MS wife and children. There was a gap
y twenty years between Charlotte and
.ae WIN babies, and she really had a
snifu infant on her hands, for the mother
nS nothing more useful than that after
aer husbands death. She was not
.eeaie-minded exactly, but painfully
seneie-strange and unaeeountable.
Snarlotte shoHldered her burdens
WIN brave heart. Her French ac-
Selt-for Grandfather Brantome's blood
haa never filtered through Canada
~ .saeooght her employment in a school in
uo Town near by. The. long walks
Saek and forth kept the roses blooming
- ner cheeks, the boys were good
bsa bellseimes-and she, being busy, was
ppy 1t requires leisure to be sue
eeSsfully miserable.
,.l me cross typiied to her the ..daily
sosi yroom of private life. - And now.
asas ,v0slng at it, her heart grew light. The
"" aaEwoqld cost but trifie. Surely