The Eaton Democrat. (Eaton, Ohio) 1875-1903, 1884-12-11

1OoAo - - AAAAO IA y4O
corner of the south porch, where my
grandfather, needing me no more than
the dog at his feet, sat upright in his
chair, his two powerful
hands clasped over the head of his stick
and his wistful eyes turned seward,
yet my attendance at the little school
house on the hill was decidedly desulto-
ry. This arose partly from my aversion
to the society of other lads of my own
age, SO much larger and more vigorous
than myself, and partly from the unsat-
isfactory character of the instruction,
dispensed by fiaxen-headed young fell
lows from a neighboring academy, who
fogged only as much arithmetic and
geography into the small boys on the
front benches as was compatible with
their keener sense of duty toward the
large girls on the back settee.
But this winter a lady had taken her
place behind the ~ink-stained desk
a girl of some twenty summers, dark
haired and graceful, and my devotion
to school had received an unprecedented
impetus. As / put the matter to myself,
with the delighted sense of the final, the
predetermined, the inevitable, l had
found my destiny, l had met my coun-
terpart, [ had fallen in love. 1 was a
worm beside her. Be it granted. If
the sun shines on a worm, is he not
warmedP The blood of a dauntless
race was flowing through my veins.
With hat pale face as a guiding star,
the path to fortune might open even yet.
In point of fact, in me the Rainford
energy, my legs being disabled, had gone
to the brain, and many a romance had /
spun in consequence through the long
and idle hours of my childhood. My
deformity and my feebleness were so
repulsive to the sturdy instinct within
me that I lived in an ideal world apart
from these. In my daily lot lay weak
ness, seorn and bitterness. These were
too airy materials for freakish fancy to
build with, and thus, although left to find
her own straw, she had wrought so
gaily and so well that had grown quite
wonted to the image of myself as a
gallant young mariner, the crown of all
the Rainfords, who by one swift turn of
the fateful wheel had won inches and
graces, wealth and fame, a lovely bride
and a grandfather's blessing and who
should bear himself. in his old age,
with the most exemplary consideration
toward all less fortunate seions of his
blood.
So there sat fancy, like a roguish
spider. spinning cobwebs in the crippled
boys young brain, just as she has some
times spun them since even within the
gray pate of a respectable old doctor of
my acquaintance, and weaving with
every one the vision of a sweet, grave
face. And so, when in the course of that
nemadic existence known as boarding
round, highly cherished by the educa-
tional fathers as a device at once social
and economical, Miss Celia Lincoln
knocked at my grandfather's door, ]
acted scarcely a more extrayagant part
than many taller youths of eighteen
summertides, in slipping my first poem,
a fervid if occasionally numerical dec
laration of my sentiments, under the
bead-embroidered ~pin-cushion that my
careful mother had drawn from the
camphor-chest and placed upon our Wis
itor's bureau. 1t was the remembrance
of this decisive act which made my thin
hand shake upon the rafting latch as
opened the kitchen door next morning,
but once within the influence of that
CHEEKY spot, the one room in the house
where my mother reigned supreme,
dropped upon a cricket and gave myself
up to the expectation of breakfasting
with the teacher:
It must be confessed, to begin with,
that the Widow Rainford, to make use
of village phrase, was preparing a break
fast much more elaborate than usual.
The little, widespread table, carven in
strange fashion from understanding
woods that never grew on honest Yam.
kee soil, stood snugly on its twisted
legs before the dumpy cookingg-stove,
much at a loss to understand why it
should be thus called upon to support a
platter of bony behring's and a dish OF
chubby doughnuts, in addition to its
customary morning burden of buck.
wheat cakes and coffee. The pictured
jug, also, too ugly for ugliness and SC
perforce called beautiful, brought from
Japan as it was by the youngest Captain
Rainford, on his last home-returnine
voyage, was equally put about in mind
to understand for what reason it had
been SO abruptly emptied of the reluc.
tant molasses and filled to the brim, in.
stead with golden maple syrup.
But whatever perplexity may have be-
set such stray articles of foreign furni-
ture and crockery, the bright little
kitchen, in general, seemed well content
with these indications of festivity. The
kettle sang a jovial song. The flat
irons, standing in an even row on the
mantel shelf, with their black noses
turned up disdainfully toward the cell
- -1-n,4I,nlnno alHau-aI QUO a.othar
in secret excitement. The portrait Of
George Washington above the clock,
albeit somewhat dimmed by the smoke
of many a broiling, smiled through its
stains benignantly. Yellow Tabby,
shifting the delicious odors that hung
upon the air, wrapped her ecstatic tai
more tightly about her paws and shu'
her blinking eyes against temptation
But the most comfortable sight of al
was the face of my comedy mother her
self, as she finally raised her flushed
cheeks from the fire and said, in a vote,
musical with motherly tenderness ant
household cheer:
Snow, Ralph, run and call YOU
teacher to her breakfast,
Dear mother! she would always for
get my years and treat me like a baby
but I obeyed her command, blushing tt
the roots of my brown hair as L opened
the parlor door, But Miss Lincoln
turned her quiet eyes upon me and nod
ded without change of color, prompt!
closing the door of n of the quain
cabinets that lined the walls, where sh,
had been serenely lingering all manne,
of time-worn curiosities. brought b,
four generations of Rainfords from owe
the sea.
There were corals, shells, arrows
vases, ostrich eggs from South Afric;
and shoes that had pinched the gentee
feet of some by-gone Chinese belle
books in outlandish tongues, devil fisl
and flying fish, models of strang,
canoes and low, ill-ventilated huts
teeth of Arctic whales, birds of brigh
plumage shot on South sea isles, grin
bowls claiming to have graced tn
board at cannibal repasts, barbara
stuffs and ornaments, a savage spea
GILL cfaioad with RainfOr1 blood and