Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1883-10-18
The Story Teller.
SMITH BROTHERS.
BY RALPH HUMPHREYS.

You can reau upon ouI sigh oiiii'ii
Brothers," "Smith Brothers" head our
advertisements. We have always been
"Smith Brothers. at heart except for one
brief space. We are in the wholesale dry
goods line, as our father was before us.
When he died he left US his store and his
business, and "Smith Brothers, took the
place of the old sign-"Jonathan Smith,"
We were not young when our father de-
parted this life. 1, Absalom, was thirty
five, and my brother Abijah was thirty
three. Our mother died when we were
children, and her last charge, as they say
in novels, was that we should love each
other and try to console father. We can re-
member her very distinctly, both OF us.
She was fair little woman, with pale
face and gentle eyes, of sort OF broWnlsh
blue. Her voice was very sweet and low,
and she loved us as no one will ever love
us again. 10 this day / can recall her COO
ing, murmurous intonations, as she called
us by a mothers thousand endearing names ;
the warm clasp of her soft arms; the sweet
ness of her smiles; the delicacy OF her bCau-
ty. So can Abijah. 1t is not strange that
after her death, as our lives expanded from
boyhood to manhood, our mother, as we
remember her, became to our dreaming
fancies the type Of all that was lovely in
woman. The future wife, of whom we both
dreamed, was little, fair creature, with
brOWnish blue eyes, sweet voice, and tender
smile. We used to talk about her freely
with each other, and the one who found his
mate first was to marry and take his BROTH
er to live with him.
1t was a queer life which we led, all
through our boyhood and young manhood.
The servants who had lived with US at my
fathers death, two staid, church going
spinsters, all lines and angles, and a grey
haired servingman who looked IKE the
ty. Besides these we had no housekeeper.
NV father did not like Il stranger about the
house, and himself bestowed upon the do
mestic affairs the slight amount of super
vision necessary, until | became old enough
to relieve him. We went to school till we
were shy boys, and besides each other,
made no intimate friends.
When we were sixteen our father took
us into his store. This pleased us vastly
better than longer school life. We were
contemplative, rather than communicative,
and we used to sit, when the days work was
over, and look from an upper window down
the harbor and watch the ships coming
home, bearing to temperate New England
oriental musks and spices and essence ;
shawls and robes wrought with many a
strange eastern device hints of acacias and
Indian palms and dusky women rowing
under them. l speak for us both !, our
tastes were as one taste; what one liked
the other liked also. We used to associate
the gentle woman of our dreams with all
our oriental fancies She should wear the
the quaint, rich shawls; bear the odor of
spices in her soft hair and the folds OF her
garments.
But when my father died and we got
along into our thirties, we were no nearer
the dream wife than in our boyhood. We
saw no company save the people we met in
our business. Year in and year out, no fe-
male footsteps lighter or quicker than James
and Hepsibah's ever wandered up ana
down the stairs, in and out OF the rooms
of our spacious, old-fashioned house. We
dreamed of the future still, with the shy
tenderness of our boyhoOd. We did not at
all realize that we were growing old, grow
ing away from the possibilities of youth
and beauty and tenderness. Our life had
been so quiet. so barren of events, that it
seemed short, unconscious OF the hostages
time was leaving with us in the shape OF
gray hair and wrinkles.
1t was sudden shock, rather than a bit
ter grief, when our father died. His heart
had been buried, twenty-five years ago, in
the grave Of our mother, and since that
time, though kind and just to all, there
had been no sun to melt for him the ice OF
life's long winter We loved him. There
was a saddening sense of loss and absence
when we looked at his vacant chair at home,
or in his counting room when he saw 'Smith
Brothers" on the sign, in place OF the hon
ored name which had hung there for forty
years, but there was none of the anguish St
desolation which rends the heart when one
is taken whom we loved, who loved us.
"It would not have been right to marry
while father lived" | said to Abijah, one
evening, as we sat by the library fire. at
would have panied him to bring home a
wife here where mother died. But now"
eyes, l think it is time now, brother
Absalom; but Of course we must wait till
our year Of mourning is over"
Our eyes met each other, and we smiled.
We made no confessions in words, but the
truth came home to us both that we had
lived so long out of the world it would be
a work of more magnitude than we had
realized to go into society and choose the
household angel we both coveted.
And so it went on for another year-the
house quiet and silent as ever; the old
servants; and "Smith Brothers" growing
old together. Our father had been dead
something over Twelve HloiilllS Mliell thcle
came to us letter superscribed in a female
hand. 1t was very unusual event, and
we speculated a little as to its possible ori'
gin before we opened it. 1t proved to be
from lady of whom we had often heard
as our mothers most intimate friend. This
was what it said:
'sI write to you, gentlemen, as surely
Mary Chelmsford may feel privileged tc
write to the children Of Margaret Smith
Your mother and loved each other witt
q tenderness deeper than most sisters know
All that one woman could have done OF
yentured for another she would have done