The Abilene reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1883-1888, 1884-12-11
TIE RED TASSEL.
E'Is is the Spirit, After All, That
Makes the Man"

As l sat before my open crate to-
night, taking tired mans ease in
dressing-go and slippers, my thoughts
wandered idly back over the events Of
the day and settled. singularly enough,
upon on elegant red tassel that l lad
observed, with physicians distracted
glance, depending from window-cur-
tain in Madame MaystOne's chamber.
Madame Maystone being the wealthiest
and heaIthie,t patient on my list, it is
not strange that, during the detailed
and monotonouS recitals of her physical
phenomena, the choice furnishings CO
her sick-rOOm should sometimes thrust
themselves upon my notice, for | was
reared, not in luxury, but in homely
comfort. upon remote and Jagged
strip of the New England coast. Yet
as / sat and unused this evening, drOwsy
with the genial heat of my dancing
wood-fre. the vision of that swinging
red taSsel passed constantly before my
ewes, not as n type of riches and an
caseful life, but a5 a reminder OF that
talisman which unlocked for me the
door OF my profession and of that one
and ONLY gucrdOn bestowed by my gen.
tie lady upon her ungraced knight. 1t
is too late for work, too early for sleep,
and so. while the golden flame tiickers
cruelty and beautifully, like dream of
love, about the dumb heart OF the log,
|, the scribe of memory, will take my
pen and write.
About forty years ago, rs the uniiat-
tering calendar has it, i awoke one
morning with sudden, vivid conscious
ness of impending destiny under the
weather-stained roof, which is still
pointed out in Skipperville as the ''old
Rainford place" and clambered with
double my usual speed out of the bill
lowy rcccSses of the feather bed, al
though in truth, what with the pain and
nervous frights at night, it was never
my wont to be sleepy-head. For you
may have seen already, if You have the
bad manners to peep in at al old doc
tors Office window, that | am OF small
figure and misshapen-an unpicturesque
circumstance that has long ceased 10
trouble the patients who need my skill
and pay nv charges, but has never en-
tirelv ceased to trouble me. Yet | am
twice the man. let me tell you. in cor
Doreal inches as well Is mental. that |
was ever expected to be. You would
have thought me pitiful youngSter in
deed, If vCu could have seen me on that
gray March morning sacred to recOl-
lection, limping down the old-fashiOneG
staircase, thin and white and twisted to
one side by unSeemly defOrmity, my
wretchcd bit of Il body topped by Il
great. square head, with brown eyes
peering mOurnfully out from under a
thicket of tangled hair. You woul2
have stopped to speak to me tenderiy,
as to a child. maybe. and would have
answered with incredulous gaze my
shrill retort that | was eighteen years
old last Christmas day and wanted no
mans pity.
But if YOU had once heard my mother,
with tears and sobbingS and hidings
of the face in her matronly white apron,
tell the story of her only SOn-hOw she
had dropped him, 4 hearty baby OF
twenty months, from her fainting arms
upon the stones of the wharf, when she
had FASTENED there with her naighbors
to see my fathers ship come in and the
bronzed. rough-bearded sailors, turning
from the embraces of their wives and
-sweethearts, had told her with Stam-
mering speech that she alone should see
her husband never more until the sea
gave up its dead, you would not have
forgotten speedily in what wise it came
to pass that the last of the RainfOrdS
was a weakling and cripple. If | my
self had been able to refrain from brood
ing over that bitter truth. there was one
member of our little household who
would not have suffered me to forget it
for a day. My grandfather, known
to all Skipperville as Old Cap'n
Reuben, was the scourge of my child
hood. being stern of tongue and mighty
of bulk and gifted with a contempt as
huge as his body for every son of the
Rainfords who was found on his twenty
first birthday to stand below the haugh-
ty Rainford measure of six feet one. ]
may as well acknowledge here that in
our village home we were a family of
no trifling consequence and, that mar
Vicious stories of the deeds of my broad
shouldered and sea-faring ancestors
were told on winter evenings by aged
fireSide goSSipS. who did not fail to COM
plete their narration with a melancholy
shake of the head and words too much
like these:
LAY, Az; it was fine old stock. We
shall not see its like in S&ipperville agin.
But it is nigh run out already. for Old
Cap'n Reuben is hard upon his eighties,
an there's nary Rainford left beside
him. save for the N'idder's crooked bow,
who'll no; be Ike to tread the deck O. 2
three-maSter, as long as there church
yard grass TO cover him.
But stung and pricked though often
was by such chance shafts rs thsSe, it
was the sword-edge of my grandfather
contempt that cut me to the heart.
That majestic figure which had rot
learned to stoop in all its eighty years,
that massive head crowned with snow
white hair, that rugged face bearing
still the marks of sea and storm, that
imperious right hand stained-as the
whisper ran-with the mutinous blood
of sailor, that heavy foot so agile
once and fearless in icy riggings, that
deep, gruf voice with never in all its
cadence kindly tone for me, over
Swallowed all my sickly boyhood and
hedged it in with helpless sense OF
shame and misery.
My case was indeed hard one The
RainfOrd spirit burned in my fragile
frame. brt only to consume, not to illu-
",:esl - 9o-S; = 81 ar,eat-