The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1883-10-27
PIERRE BRANTOME'S GRAND.
DAUGHTER.

mctdVuOflCdl Ctiucl y OoCks No lSn-
thence Of Charlotte Brantome. usually
equal to the exigencies of the occasion,
was exhausted. The twins, as mat
ter of course, were the culprits.
They, however, with the complacency
natural to boys of six or thereabouts,
were Indifferent to the tempest of de-
spair which ragged in their sisters
breast. They had CONSIDERABLY re-
Trained from adding deceit to their
guilt, but had confessed, fully and un-
reseryedly, to riding the canary's nest,
10 tearing a jacket, and losing hat
down the well, to eating the strawber-
sries that were saved for supper, and to
catching their most faithful hen with a
fisI-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
s'You must not talk to strange men
about mother or me. What did he
want p'
'.He wanted to see YOU"
..Me?' Visions of tramps, of spy
ing burglars, only they had nothing to
'sburgle," as Popsey had said one day,
4 came into her mind.
Show did he look P"
ssHewas beautiful, sHe was dread
full 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 amustache, and was bug
man. In the last and browning fact the
boys agreed.
Practice had made Miss Brantome q
tolerable clairvoyant, SO far as reading
those two small minds was concerned.
She Jumped at the conclusion that some
: wandering naturalist chasing an elusive
I bug had Glanced 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 new hat for Wopsey and
how to instill remorse into the hearts
of her charges drove other thoughts
away.
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
her flowed the tireless river; in front Of
her, across the prairie, the hills were
green. In the field of rye over the way
: CLEANED a large white wooden cross.
Her grandfather, in whose veins flowed
z some of the blue blood of France, had
bought home in this western country
when the remnant of an Indian tribe
had still property to sell. The deed OF
sale provided for the preservation Of
( their little burying- ground. Here among
the sinking graves Pierre Brantome had
built the cross. 1t had been renewed
several times since then, but had always
seemed the same, and was ever the pa,
ticnt protector, solemnly holding it.
white arms out as if to defend the mold
ering sleepers. The grain grew thicl
around, but the tiny village Of the dead
was never disturbed by spade or pillow
Old Pierre, however, had never pros
pered. Neither did Pierre the younger
and one night when, riding home, his
horse SHE'D at the sight Of the white
cross in the moonlight and threw him
with his head against stone, he left nc
legacy but the homestead and debt to
his wife and children. There was gar
of twenty years between Charlotte and
the twin babies, and she really had q
third infant on her hands, for the mother
was nothing more useful than that after
her husbands death. She was no,
Predetermined exactly, but painful,
gentle--strange and unaccountable.
Charlotte shouldered her burdens
with q brave heart. Her French &C
cent-for Grandfather Brantome' blood
had never filtered through Canada
brought her employment in school in
the town near by. The long walk.
back and forth kept the roses blooming
in her cheeks, the boys were good
sometimes-and she, being busy, was
happy. 1t requires leisure 70 be sue
cessfully miserable.
The croos typified to her the ..daily
martyrdom Of private life" And now
looking at it, her heart grew light. The
new hat would cost but trife. Surel,
there were more strawberries ripe in the
garden, the canary would lay more
eggs, the jacket could be mended, and
old Speckle had proved superior to the
fish-hook.
But what could the boys be scream
ing about!
The bugsman! the bug-man" they
were shouting, trQtting toward her viii
~ their m,Rht oa theiF sandy little feet