The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-12-22


fattering herself that the heart of a miserly
old uncle would be touched and thath would
! lift us all out of the slough of poverty into
which we had fallen. Her white fingers
| trembled with eagerness as she tore open the
coarse yellow envelope and proceeded to
read the scrawling, black, spidery lines. AT
first her face was full of perplexity; then, as
a realization of some awful truth dawned on
| her mind, her expression instantly changed
to widest CONSERVATION. At last she sobbed
! out:
"Oh, girls! what shall we do? never, never
| dreamed of this!'
Ruth seized the paper as it fell futtering
from mammals hand and read it aloud:
"NEw YORK. May Is, 1877.
| "Mrs. Laura Barclay:
"Madam-T write this to notify you that the
| mortgage of S4O0 on the small cottage and five
acre5 OF land about three miles from the village OF
| Brookdale will be due the 28th of next Decenl-
Der. shall need the money at that time, and
unless it is paid, will be under the painful ne
| cesslty OF foreclosing Respectfully,
JOSHUA GRUMBLEDON."
"The man is either an impostor or luna
ticP' Ruth exclaimed throwing down the pa
per contemptuously.
He's neither my dear" said mamma
mortgage until now. Indeed, L surely
thought your poor, dear papa had set
tied it long ago. never
dreamed that the place wasn't clear and free!
| Now L remember, it was just five years ago
that Mr.. Grumbledon was at our house. You
girls were away at boardng-school. Your
papa needed a little ready money, and
thought he would get it off this out-of-the-
way property. So he asked me to sign away
my third, and l did it. l never did know
much about business you see, and I IN sure
l never supposed that putting down my
name to that bit of paper would make any
difference. Mr.. Grumbledon dined with
us. l remember him very we'll. A tall, bony
man, with thin lips and nose like hawks.
| Very ill-bred-ate with his knife. A misery
fellow, [ should judge, and not the kind OF a
man to be a bit yielding in money matters.
| But, my dears what shall we do?' help
| lessly.
We were all too bewidered to suggest any
plan just then. 1t did seem very hard, now
that we were just getting on to have this
new trouble. AT last Ruth said, IN a voice
which she strove hard to make cheerful:
Come, don't let us look so bluel Wen
pull through somehow"
! But four hundred dollarsl 1 groaned.
1T isn't so great sum, after ali. The
mean part of it is to have to pay it out when
we thought we didn't have debt in the
world!'
well, we have hundred and thirty-three
dollars to start towards it," said Agnes.
And then this terms salary will be fifty
more"
And Mrs. Rogers owes for that twenty
pound crock of butter" Aunt Betsey OBJ
served
well, the long and short of it is that we
shall have to make about two hundred dollars
in six months We've got to oit," solemnly.
We must cut down every expense"
And so the summer wore away in hard
work and self-denial, for, on counting the
| bills and coins in the old gray stocking we
found that we had at last the requisite sum.
And in three days the mortgage would be
| due, and on the morning of the daY Ruth
was going down to the city to pay off the
dreadful burden.
But how we did worry over that money!
For fear it would get stolen, you know! We
were very foolish, for everybod knew we
were poor, and not at all likely to have so
| large a sum about us in our humble dwell
ing But our alarm was mainly caused by
the fact that there had been of late several
daring robberies committed in the neigh
borhood.
Lawyer Griggs down at the village, had his
house entered and large amount OF money
distracted. Mrs. Peters's gold watch and
Widow Parsons's earrings were also taken
Another night the thieves broke into the
house of Mr., Elias, the mill proprietor, while
he and his wife were away at a party, and
took a rich silk dress and a set of furs
Smaller robberies were constantly taking
place, such as spoons, preserves, poultry
clothing-nothing, in fact, escaped the hands
of the predatory rascals. The universal
opinion was that there was gang of them
who came up nightly from the city There
was talk, too, of their selecting various
| houses, and making a certain mark on the
door or gate-post.
Yes they do make a mark-regular
tramp style" said Miss Tabitha Tucker, the
village dress maker, to Ruth and me, when
one day, we had stopped in her shop to bor-
a" gTea dss big < f E's Ras when H. was
went over to cut out her new
polonay. Ny dress ketched in the gate.
latch when l went in the yard and as
stopped down to get it out my eyes lit on
that ere mark, and 1 says to myself, says l,
1 wonder what that's furP but furgot ali
about it when [ got up to the house, cause
Miss Perkns's little Tommy was jest took
with an awful nose-bleed, and everything
was in hubbub fur one while. But that
night sure enough, Miss Perkins's cellar was
broken into, and two dozen jars of preserves
best kind of sass, put down pound fur
pound-was stolen. And a quarter of beef
taken out OF The pickle tool Tell you what,
folks has got to keep lookout fur marks
nowadays. You'd better take care, Ruth,
you live in sech a lonesome place.
We laughed at her warning; still, think
we all felt little bit timid, and I'll venture
| to say that after this there was not one of us
who did not occasionally examine the gate
posts.
And at last, sure enough, on the morning
before Christmas jamie came running in her
black eyes wide with excitement. as she ex-
claimed:
ooh, girls" she cried, there's mark on
our ate-post-truly there is! A great white
chalk X"
At this we all rushed out of the house,
Aunt Betsey even leaving her pancake grid
die with batch of cakes on it, and ran
down the frozen path to view this new and
startling discovery
And there it was sure enough! A big
white X, freshly made, too!
WELL" said Ruth, after we had stared a
while at it, cts lucky we have seen it,, for
now we can be on our guard. But, for good
ness sake, don't say anything to mamma
aboutit She would be so frightened that