The Benton weekly record. [volume] (Benton, Mont.) 1880-1885, 1883-08-25
THE MAJORS SECRET.
(CONCLUDED.

So 1t went on for years. There was al
ways strong smell of cigars and printers
ink in the air the child breathed and no
doubt when she came to be young lady
she learned to think in a scrappy, itemiz-
ing newspaper way; but Madeline's life
was in fact as cleanly, and sweet and ten
der among those men as if she had been
one OF any rosebud garden of girls, per-
haps more so. Whatever garment of lies
the Major chose to put on rs armour, or to
perk and vaunt himself in out among other
men. He never wore itinto the ''cock loft. y
Nobody could account for thealmost path
eLic tenderness of his love for the girl. 1t
was more than seemed due for her fathers
sake or even her own.
Once, however, he said to her: "You
came to take the place of child that |
lost.' That was the only time he had
limited at the secret of his former life. He
kept it hidden even from himself.
1t came TO him. to-day, and would not be
thrust aside. In few hours it would be
known to all the world.
John Proctor was his son. %
lie remembered well now the
last day when he had called
called the boy by that name. 1t was a
dreary, rainy season in November, three
or four years before he took Madeline. He
sat by hotel window with Jack on his
knee. 1t was week since he had come
from Richmond, leaving the child's moth
er dead there. He had spent the week go
ing from one newspaper Office to another,
vaunting and vaporing and drinking hard,
but with still cold consciousness all the
time of standing by her grave, on which
the rain pattered, with her child's life left
in his hands to do with it what he would
Mary's boy would have grown into a
truthful, God-fearing man if she had lived :
a gentleman, too-the class which Standish,
with all his tawdry Dragging, watched far
off with jealous awe. Now what could
lie make of the boy? He took the little
chaps hand in his, and pulled him closer,
trying with his bleared eyes to pene-
trate the future. Like father, like son; il
was SO always. For himself, whether
it was the faint Of the butcher shop,
or some flaw in the making up, he did not
know, but he was labelled everywhere for
contempt. Even here, where he was a
stranger, he was marked already, he saw,
as disreputable, vulgar, frothly bubble
Of man. He was sore and CALLED by the
snubs he had met with to-day. He sat
quiet in the gaudy hotel parlor holding
Jack close while the servants lighted the
lamps and people came and went. He
looked steadily at the cost of what he
meant to do.
''Fll take the weight Of your old father
off of you. jack" he said, at last, stoop-
ing TO kiss the fat, red little face. Good
bye, my son.
lie did take ii off. He entered the boy
under the name of Proctor at fashion
able boarding school, setting aside the en-
tire sum he had saved TO start neWspa-
per in Philadelphia. II can scratch for
myself,' he said
"Let the lad have everything he wants.
he urged the governess one day. His
father had the best blood in Virginia in
h's veins, madame, and teach him religion
Ills mother---;" but he broke down
here. "she's yonder," he said quietly.
at last, glaneing up. The governess nod
ded and understood him.
30 the feint succeeded. or what II cost
himself, he said nothing; ii had lifted the
boy At once, lie thought, into a
pure region Of fashion, and
refinement and salvation. The glores Of
the Proctors in course of years grew and
multiplied readily In the Major's handling.
There We're times when he became con-
fused himself, SO real had Jacks illus-