The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1884-02-01

er looked at it now for buds. She
never even looked at it to day; she
only looked out uneasily at the darken-
ed sky, and knit on her stocking. She
was always knitting stockings; in fact,
it was all the kind of work she could
do, and she never had been an idle
woman with her brain or her fin
gers. So she knit stout wooden
stockings for her husband and William
Barstow from morning till nighl. Her
husband kept the house tidy and did
the cooking. No one looking at the
room in which Mrs. Reed sat would
have dreamed that it was not the field
of action of a tidy housewife 1t was
plain rather cherries kind of room.
There was large-fgured, dull-colored
ingram carpet on the floor; there was
shiny table, and some fag-bottomed
chairs and stiff hair-cloth sofa. A
few shells on the shelf, lamp mat
Abby Weaver had made, and framed
wreath which had lain on William
Barstow's fathers coffin, were all the
ornrments. Take a room like that,
and set it on a rock in the ocean, and
the wind and waves bowling round IT,
and there is not anything especially en-
livening about it,
Mrs. Reed had been rather good
looking In her youth, and was even
rather good looking now. She had
bright, alert, blue eyes, and pretty,
soft, gray hair. But there was an air
of keen unrest about her, which
could jar on ones nerves like a stri-
dent saw. In repose she would have
been sweet old lady. Now she look
ed, and was, as people said, hard to
get along with. Jackson Reeds light
burning meant more to the Lord, per-
haps, than it did to the sailors.
AT o'clock the storm was fairly
there, and the old lighthouse keeper
had not come home. A heavy tempest
twilight was settling down, and it was
almost time the lamp was lit.
Six o'clock came, and it was darker
yet; and still she sat there alone, her
knitting dropped in her rap. Seven
o'clock, and quite dark now, and a ter
rible night, hot and pitchy, and full of
mighty electric winds, and fires, and
thunders. A conglomerate roar came
from the ocean as from a den of wild
beasts. Suddenly an awful thought
struck the wretched old woman at the
lighthouse window, and swift on its
track rushed another still more awful.
The first was, her husband bad a
turn" somewhere on that lonely road
from Rye. Turns" as she called
them, Jackson Reed had once or twice
before, but they had never interfered
with his duty. He had fallen down
insensible, aud lain so for two or three
hours. This was what had happened
to him now. And the second thought
was, her darling, William Barstow, was
out on that dreadful sea, and there was
no light to guide him to port. Strange
that she had not thought before. Yes,
it was Tuesday. Was it Tuesday :?
Yes, the very day he was going down
to Lockport with Johnny Sower. He
was out on that sea somewhere in a
boat, which could not live in it min
ute. Yes, it was to-day that he was
going. He and his pretty little wife
was talking it over Sunday night.
She was lamenting, half in sport and
half in earnest, over the lonesome day
she would have, and he promised to
bring her home new bonnet to con-
sole her. Yes, it was Tuesday, and
Jackson Reed had told Abby Weaver
about it yesterday-that was on Mon
day. He had forgotten that she was
no longer so interested in Willie Bar
slows movements. Aud when he told
his wife what he bad done she scolded
| him for his thoughtlessness.
Yes, it was Tuesday, and he was out
on that sea, and there was no light lit.
Nothing to keep him off those terrible
rocks that the light had been set there
to show. In the morning he would be
thrown dumb and cold, where she
could almost see him from her window
1t would be with him as it had beer
with his father and granfather, and
maybe with his wife as it had beer
with his poor young mother. All the
strong, bafhed, but not suppressed ma
ture of the woman asserted itself witt
terrible force.
"Oh, my darling! my darling my
darling !" she shrieked, in a voice
which was in itself both prayer and q
curse.
"You out there, an all the love il
your mothers heart can't light ye
home! Oh, the black water rollin
over that beautiful face, an those
laughin' blue eyes that looked at me
when you was baby, an those black
curls I've kissed--puttin' out that low,
in soul Oh, Lord Lord Lord !"
"He's been a good boy" she went OF
in curious tone, as if the mighty eal
of the inexorable God she had half be
lieved in, was become now reality t.
her, and she was pouring arguments
unavailing though they be, into it
"He's been good boy; never had an,
bad habits, an what's worse than baC
habits, never had any mean little ac
tions. There's Abby Weaver, l know
but look at the face of the girl he mar
ried. Oh, Lord, love is the same be
hind homely face as a handsome one
But while you keep on maxim folk
think roses is prettier than potatoes, al
pearls than oysters, the love that look
out of pretty face will hold the long
est and the strongest. He want t
blame-Oh, Lord, he want to blam,
Abby was good girl, but you mad
this other one as pretty as pictur
He want to blame, Lord, he want t
blame, Don't damn him for that.
amt right to drown him for that OIL
Lord Lord Lord
She sat there, shrieking on in
, strained, weak voice, half in pra
= err half in expostulation. II h
, The wind rose higher and higher, an
the sea Numbered louder and longe
A new terror seized her. If her hu
band should recover from the bad tul
which she suspected he had had, al
I attempt TO cross the bridge now, |
I would be killed, too. God only kne
{ what new rents might be in it. VIII,
5 her sitting room clock changed out
above the roar of the storm, she we
into o ,,o,font fn,,, oc