The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-06-16

mamma upon that dayat the beach; but how
could l? 1t was impossible. l got upon my
feet. He picked up his gloves and followed
me out into the hall.
You must persuade your mother to aban-
don this idea of moving" he said, gently.
''Oh, please, nor' i exclaimed. y can not
Doctor. We must GO"
81 can not force you to stay" he said
colby then turned to his man John, who
watched his horse outside. go get a bill, !"
he said, and put it upon the house"
ITO let?' said john with curious surprise.
Yes" said the Doctor. MOTOR sale.
FIJI sell everything out" he added" and go
to the de-desert of Sahara Then he leaped
into his buggy and drove away, leaving me
to ponder over the wretched Illustrations of
this miserable world.
DIR. Steele had lived twenty years at least
in this dear old home, for he had often said
that he came there when a boy of fifteen,
and he could nos be far from fifty now. He
was the only child OF a widowed mother
who had idolized him. When she had died,
two years before, the Doctor had put an ad-
vertisement in the paper that, l we'll remem-
Der, seemed very attractive to mamma. Our
arrangements with him were indeed very
satisfactory He was generous to a fault,
simple in his tastes, punctual in his habits,
From boarder he had become a friend,
almost benefactor. Had it not been for the
beauty of Blanche, or the ambition of my
mother, or the extreme warmth of the
d octor's politeness or perhaps tenderer
sentiment of his that he scarcely dared
n no, for so young and bea p;
it not been for one or all of these,
We might have lived happily here for years
Now we must go adrift again, Heaven knew
where and how. l went out that very after
noon upon my dreary quest, and grew sick
at heart when l saw the signal of misery and
disintegration hanging at the doorway:s"Fo
sale; inquire within" l read it, and ac-
knowledged to myself then that the deed
was dons. We were houseless. homeless
wanderers again upon the face of the earth
| wished Blanche was not so beautiful; per-
haps it would have been better as the doctor
had said, if she had been as ugly as a stone
fence, whatever style of ugliness that might
be-, For, wherever we went, my mother
would begin again plotting, manmuvring
hoping fearing, despairug. 1 went to all
the agents in the neighborhood. looked at
impossible houses-houSes like the Doctors,
but with rents that reached the thousands
found to my blushing horror that we had
absolutely been living partly upon the Doc
tors bounty-the rent we had paid for his
house was ridiculously small. A mere
farcical sum, which he must have known
long ago. He could not have been uncon-
scious of his reckless generosity, and the
advantage we were reapng from it. My
cheeks tingled with every new knowledge
gained, but my chief sorrow lay in the fact
that we could no longer go on living in the
old blissfully ig norant way. The Doctor
could afford it, seemed rather to enjoy it.
and l had no longer that indomltable spirit
that chafes under even suspected obliga-
ton. If that spirit had ever exi5ted, it had
long ago oozed out of my weary toes, and
every aching joint in my body
But it was useless to mourn over lost hap
Win III; Il
a house within our means and live in it. |
resolved to spare my people all the misery
that | could, and let them enjoy their last
days at the dear, comfortable, roomy, sun
shiny, never to-be-forgotten house of the
Doctors. 1t was necessary to prepare them
little for the plunge downward they were
to take. Mamma was the only one that suf-
fered in the anticipation. Fred was at that
happy period of male existence when the
malicious mischief of a boy begins to
merge in the "rackets" of adolescent youth.
He was absorbed in the transition-didn't
care what kind of a shelter l secured, so long
as it would serve the necessity for sufficient
sleep to tide him over from day to day.
Blanche was still less interested She
laughed to scorn all my efforts to prepare
her pride, and begged of me not to borrow
trouble. Once in while she babe me to re-
member that she was not an absolute drone
in the hive, and had her own schemes for
mutual advancement. l shuddered when
the conversation took this turn, for she was
more beautiful than ever, and consequently
there were more matrimonial rocks ahead
Poor mamma began to look gray and old,
and took double doses of her nervous medi-
cine. Her constant recurrence to that day
at the sea shore made the bleak winds OF
March seem to be beating about my ears like
pitiless waves against ship in the rough of
the sea, and her haGgard and anxious sur
xvail Ofa Nff h0
drove me at last to securing a house. 1t was
a coffin-shaped building that savored of
sewer gas a little, and of mould
and mildew very much more; the
paper was hanging from the walls;
the ceilings were cracked and dangerously
bulgy; cobwebs Enthusiastically festooned it
from the draughty garrett to the gloomy
1t was unhandy, dismal to desolation, on the
damp and shady side OF the street. and had
the uncanny reputation of lately being occu-
pied by clairyoyant who had never come
back from one of his frances. But the agent
spoke vaguely of repairs, and it was abso-
lutely the only house in the whole metropo-
lis that seemed available to our family.
There was a final humiliation to suffer-se-
curity was demanded for the rent. There
was nobody to ask il from but the Doctor |
began to think he might be so glad to get rid
of us that this would seem a trifing favor
For the Doctor, after the first shock, had APP
peared to be quite resigned to the idea Of our
separation. His house yet hung upon his
hands; it was neither let nor sold; but the
Doctor went upon the even tenor of his way,
apparently undlsturbed by the rise or fall of
real estate.
March happened to be going out as lion
on the day that | secured the house. The
heavens opened, the rain fell, and beat upon
my defenseless head, that had ached and
ached for many day l had almost lived in
the streets for the previous fortnight, and
ought to have grcwn accustomed to my no.
madic miseries. But they seemed to culmi-
handed me over a document which he said
would secure me the house if properly
signed, cold shrdder went to the marrow
of my bones and felt as if it was my death
warrant. l staggered home, resolved to have
done with the whole torture that day, and