The Republican journal., 1883-07-19
Uncle Abel.
BY REBECCA HARDING DAVIS.

1t is proper, | believe, to symbolic
town or country by the figure of young
woman but if Tarrytown had ever chosen
presiding genius, it must have taken
the shape of Abel DowreX. lie was Tar
rytown itself All the bigotry the intol-
cradle self cOnceit, and the kindly feel
ing Of that mountain village, lived and
moved in the lean figure of the old bach
elOr.
The DowreXcs were in TarrytoWn at
the beginning; and the beginning of
Tarrytown ran dimly back, we all vague
ly felt, behind prehistoric ages. The
cave man, if we had ever heard OF him,
would have been held as a modern inter
loper beside our old families.
1t was President Madison, | think,
who gave the post office to one Of the
later DOwreXes, and a member of the
family had held the post ever since.
Uncle Abel had been our postmaster for
forty wears. No other Democrat would
have taken the office while he lived, and
there was not Wing in the town to take
it. The one street Of the village ran, as
everybody knows, down one steep hill
and up another The old Dowrex house,
bedded in its orchard and garden, stood
in the bottom of the cup, in the-very cen
ter 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 Plum
kett's wife, in the big house on the top
Of the hill, had chicken pie for dinner,
she would hang red bandanna handker
chief on the pump bundle, which was the
sign for Abel to come up Everybody
knew how fond he was of chicken pie,
and everybody sent for him when that
good PENNSYLVANIA dish was on the table.
the universal habit to lay one more cover
than was needed for every meal, ''in case
somebody should drop in;' and we drop
ped in on each other necessarily. NO
body 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 thatch, atop of the wien
ed 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, seat
ed with some old crony over the fire,
His father had sat in that 'splt-back
chair, with its sheep-skin cushion. Abel
took it the day the old squire died, and
then and there became the head of the
family. At his back was the cherry
wood case, with its twenty pigeon-holes,
in which, time out of mind, a DowreX
had kept the letters of Tarrytown. Pre-
cisely as the clock struck six the tea-bell
tingled inside. " For fifty years" Abel
was used to say 1.-The tea-bell has rung
Oh the stroke OF SIX. ! have brought
Sister Sarah into tolerably regular hab-
its, though she is still inclined to be gid
dy. These girls, you know"
Aunt Sarah was two years younger
than Abel. AS the teabell rang, she
opened the door and stood on the thres-
hold with, "Come, BROTHER" dropping a
welcoming courtesy to the inevitable
"dropper-in." There were not many
hints Of giddiness in the frail old figure,
with its brown gown and white handker
chief or the sweet smiling face set in
bands of white hair. But it was Abels
humor to consider her as still the gay and
frivolous young beauty whom our grand
mothers remembered.
The keeping room behind the office
was Aunt Sarah's domain. There was
the glittering brass fender and scuttle
(every lump Of coal i'll it washed and
wiped before it was admitted to that
spotless retreat( there were her gerani-
ums in the window, and her rocking
chair and Bible, and jays Devotions !;
and there was the cosy table spread, and
a cup of tea such as no other pot ever
brewed, and Hannah bringing in her ia
nous griddle cakes from the kitchen.
Hannah was as gray and feeble as her
mistress, but she had been known as
DowreX's "bound girl" for half a century.
The dish of gossip waiting for you was as
fine in quality as the tea. Never had a
black mark been left on the character of
any human being by a single word Of this
gentle old couple, yet they handled in
their talk every day the lives Of all Tar
rytown for generations. They had moth
ing else to think of. They had never been
twenty miles from home; they cared moth
ing for books. The United States, Eng
land, Asia, were in fact to them only SO
many splatches Of color on the maps.
The world Was TarrytOwn. Indeed,
heaven itself, to which their mother and
50 many familiar folk = Plunketts and
Fairbanks and Bassetts-had gone, was
much more real place and nearer to
Abel than any foreign country. "FatheI
has five children, Sarah and me are here
and the others have gone on to the Good
Man " was his horlely way of stating it.
Being an idle man, for be had little
income which kept him comfortably, and
having no knowledge of books or any
science or craft, all of his energy and
large tenderness and sympathy went,
during his whole life, to his neghbors
| The mere fact that all of their intercourse
with the outside world came through him
gave him a peculiar hold on them. He
indexed their lives by his pigeon-holes.
"That's the Bassett box" tapping OF
the gilt "45." 81 used to put the OLD
judges love letters in that. One every
Monday, though postage was ten cents
then. Miss Katherine Dix, down il
Bently, was the lady, mother of Henry
Bassett. remember the first letter Ii
writ to his cousin Susy, her as he mar
ried. Tut he told me all about it wher
nobody in Tarrytown suspicioneda a thing
Abel he says, giving me the letter pri
vately, wish me good luck = Well, he ha(
it. Tut. the letters Eve stamped anC
put in the bag and threw an old shoe
after, so to speak Folks mostly tell mt
what they're writing about when it's o
Importance"
That was quite true. Oddly enough
all of the boys and girls in their love af
fairs made a confdant of the ugly, be.
wigged bachelor and when there was
sickness or trouble in any house, the
first messenger sent for was Uncle Abel
"D'ye see that box? Number nine
There was queer letter came in thai
once. The widow Fairbanks Zack rar
Oft to sea, left note sayin' he had gone