The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1883-10-29
BY REBEccA HARDING DAVIS.

share of Abel Dowrex. He was Tarrvtown
itself. All the bigotry, the intolerable self
conceit, aud the kindly feeling of that noun
tain village, lived and moved in the lean fig
ure of the old bachelor.
The Dowrexes were Tamytown at the be-
ginning; and the beginning of Tarrytown
ran dimly back, we all vaguely felt, behind
prehistoric ages. The cave man, if we had
ever heard Of him, would have been he'd as
modern interloper beside our old families.
IL was President Madison, | think, who
gave the postoffice to one of the later Dow
rexes, and a member of the family had held
the post ever since. Uncle Abel had been
our postmaster for forty years. No other
Democrat would have taken the Office while
he lived, and there was not a Wing in the
town to take it.
The one street of the village ran, as every
body knows, down one steep hill and up an
other. The old Dowrex house, bedded in
its orchard and garden, stood in the bottom
of the cup, in the very centre of everything.
Sitting in his porch under the big sycamore,
tilted back in his hickory chair, Abel could
look up either slope into the front yard of
every house in town. Whenever Squire
Plunketts wife, in the big house on the top
of the hill, had chicken pie for dinner, she
would hang red bandana handkerchief on
the pump-handle, which was the sign for
Abel to come up. Everybody knew how
sent for him when that good Pennsylvania
dish was on the table.
Tarrytown was hospitable place. It was
the universal habit to lay one more cover
than was needed for every meal, sin case
somebody should drop in and we dropped
In on each other necessarily. Nobody was
SO likely to come as the grave postmaster,
his lean shanks lost in the baggy, nut-colored
clothes, and his brown wig set, like a thatch,
atop of the wizened face, and nobody was
more welcome. But when anybody was in
trouble, or "out of sorts,'' and wanted
heartening he was sure to find his way down
to the Dowrex house near to supper time.
Crossing the porch, you came to Uncle Abel
IN his warm, snug little office, seated with
some old crony over the fire. His father
had sat in that splt-back chair, with it's
sheepskin cushion. Abel took it the day
the ola Squire died, and then and there be
came the head of the family. At his back
was the cherry wood case, with its twenty
pigeon holes, in which, time out of mind,
Dowrex had kept the letters of Tarrytown.
Precisely as the clock struck six, the tea-bell
tinkled inside.
& For fifty years." Abel was used to say,
1.-THE tea-bell has rung on the stroke of six.
have brought Sister Sarah into tolerably reg
nlar habits. though she is still inclined to be
giddy. These girls, you knowp'
- Aunt Sarah was two years younger than
door and stood on the threshold with ''Come,
BROTHER dropping welcoming courtesy to
the inevitable "dropper-in.' There were
not many hints of giddiness in the fral old
figure, with ils brown gown aud white hand
kerchief, or the sweet smiling face set in
bands of white hair But it was Abers hui
NOR to consider her as still the gay and friv-
olous young beauty whom our graudmothers
remembered.
The keeping room behind the Office was
Aunt Sarah's domain. There was the gilt
tering brass fender and scuttle (every lump
of coal in it washed and wiped before it was
admitted to that spotless retreat), there were
her geraniums IN the window, and her rock.
ing chair and Bible, and jays Devotions
and there was the cosy table spread, and a
cup OF tea snch as no other pot lever brewed,
and Hannah bringing in her famous griddle
cakes from the kitchen. Hannah was as
gray and feeble as her mistress, but she had
been known as iiowrex's "bound grip for
half century. The dish of gossip waiting
for you was as fine in quality as the tea.
Never had black mark been left on the
character of any human being by single
word of this gentle old couple, yet they
handled in their talk every day the lives of
all Tarrytown for generations. They had
nothing else to think of. They had never
been twenty miles from home. They cared
nothing for books. The United States, Eng
many splashes of color on the maps. The |
word was Tarrytown. Indeed, heaven it.
self, to which their father and mother and |
so many familiar folk-Plunketts and FAIR |
lambs and Bassetts-had gone, was a much |
more real place, and nearer to Abel than
any foreign country. sFather has five chill
dren; Sarah and nae are here, and the others
have gone on to the "Good Man, was his
homely way of stating it.
Being an idle man, for he had little in
come which kept him comfortably, and hav-
ing no knowledge of books, or any science
or craft, all of his energy and large tender
ness and sympathy went, during his whole
life, to his neighbors. The mere fact that
all of their intercourse with the outside world
came through himsgave him peculiar hold
on them. He indexed their lives by his
pigeon-hoes.
''That's the Bassett box,'' tapping on the
gilt "45. 81 used to put the old Judges
love letters in that. One every Monday,
though postage was ten cents then, Miss
Katharine DIX down in Bently was the lady,
mother of Henry Bassett. remember the
first letter he writ to his cousin Susy, her as
he married. Tut, he told me all about it
when nobody in Tarrytown suspicioned a
thing. Abel he says, giving me the letter
privately, wish me good luckp Well, he
had it. Tutl the letters I've stamped and
put in the bag, and threw an old shoe after,
oO W cpcdh! rOlbS HlUSGly GtII lie WudG IHoy
are writing about when it's of importance"
That was quite true. Oddly enough, all
OF the boys and girls in their love affairs
made confidant of the ugly, bewgged old
bachelor, and when there was sickness or
trouble in any house the first messenger sent
for was Uncle Abel.
'tD'ye see that box? Number nine?
There was queer letter came in that once.
The Widow Fairbanks lack ran off to sea,
and left note saying he had gone to embark
on the brig Victory, Haines, master She
was a sickly little body, and lack was all
she had, so nobody had the heart to tell her
that it would be good radiance. But we
all thought it. He was lazy dog, lack.
She got map and she wrote letters to every
seaport where American ships would put in,
directed to United States Brig Victory,
Haines, MASTER begging him to come home.
/ encouraged her. though knowed it was
of no use. But it kept her alive, you see.
l gave her that box, number nine, and |
says, AS sure as letter comes Pll put it in
there She came every mail day, and would
look in and go away without word. So
Sister Sarah and the neghbors they heard
of it, and they fell into the habit of putting
trif1e in, pound of tea, or bunch of
sage or balm, or pie or the like. So it
went on for five years, and that poor soul
had sent out hundreds of letters. l reckon
most of her earnings went in postage. Well
with the mare, who should get out of it but
lack, big and fat, and goatee on his chin.
He hadn't been to sea at all, but had gone
down to Allegheny country and set to |
work rafting to Orleans, and had streak Of |
luck. Pve as pretty farm and house at |
McKeesport as you'd wish to see,' he said, |
land I've come home for my mother. So | |
told him about the box. There she comes,
down the hill,' L said; and then nothing |
would suit him, but he must go inside and
hide. lack always was crazy, joking fell
low. And when she looked in the box
there was his red face staring out at her.
That" Abel would say, taking off his wig to
rub his shining pate, was as pleasant day
as l ever enjoyed. After they were gone
Doc Nipple took the box"
''Oue of the Nipples went astray, think?"
somebody veDtured.
But Abel's face was stolid. "They are all
doing well, the Nipples. Fine, pithy men,"
was his reply.
But everybody in Tarrytown knew that
when Joe Nipple took to drinking, and was
turned out of doors by his father, old Abel
followed the boy and found him in the