Millheim Journal. [volume] (Millheim, Pa.) 1876-1984, 1885-07-02
The Bug Man.

metaphorical camel's back. The patti
ence Of Charlotte Brantome, usually
equal to the exigencies of the occasion,
was exhausted. The twins, rs mat.
ter of course, were the culprits. They,
However. with the complacency natur-
al TO boys of six or thereabouts, were
Indifferent to the tempest of despair
which ragged within their sisters breast.
They had considerably refrained from
adding deceit to the guilt, but had con-
fessed, fully and unreservedly,t rifling
the canary's nest, to tearing a jacket,
and losing hat down the well, To eat
ing the Strawberries that were saved
for supper. and to catching their most
faithful hen with fish-hook. The
fish-hook represented the straw Char.
lotte the camel. She could have borne
anything better than downright cruel
ty developed so early in ons of her own
blood. She Eever was boy.
"And a man was here" said Popsey.
"a big man." volunteered Wopsey,
the other twin. "And asked us a.
bout everything, and we said our moth
er wasn't very well and our sister was
an old maid school ma'am."
Charlotte WINGED. Where had he
picked up that expl ession ? And had
it come to that ?
"You must not talk to strange men
about mother or me. What did he
want ?"
'He wanted to see you"
"Me ?" Visions of tramps, of spy
ing burglars, only they had nothing to
"burgle," as Popsey had said one day,
came into her mind. "How did he
look ?"
"He was beautiful" SHE was dread
full" said the twins in duet.
Further questioning elicted these
facts : He was young he was old lie
was short !; he was tall A; he wore
spectacles he wore mustache, and
was a bug-man. In the last and
crowning fact the boys agreed.
Practice had made Miss Brantome
tolerable clairvoyant, so far as reading
those two small minds was concerned.
She jumped at the conclusion that
some wandering naturalist chasing an
elusive bug had chanced that way, aud
gave the subject 40 more attention.
She had other things to think of than
''bug- men" or any men, aud the prob.
lem of how to provide new hat for
Wopsey and how to instil remorse into
the hearts of her charges drove other
thoughts away.
Sitting down on the low doorstep of
the house that had been home to her
for six and twenty years, she tried to
reason it out. The sun was yet high,
the days were at their longest. Behind
her flowed the tireless river in front
of her across the prairie, the hills were
green. In the fieli of rye oyer the way
cleaned a white wooden cross. Her
grandfather, in whose veins flowed
some of :he blue blood of France, had
bought home in this ives stern country
when the remnant of an Indian tribe
had still property to sell. The deed of
sale provided for the preservation of
their little burying ground. The
grain grew thick around, but the tiny
Villages of the dead was never disturbed
by spade OF plough.
Old Pierre, however, had never pros
pered. Neither did Pierre the younger; !;
and one night, when riding home. his
horse SHE'D in the moonlight and threw
him with his head against stone /; he
left no legacy but the home stead and a
debt to his wife and children. There
was gap of twenty years between
Charlotte and the twin babies, and she
really had a third infant on her hands,
for her mother was nothing more use.
full than that after her husbands death
She was not feeble-minded exactly, but
painfully gentle-strange and unac-
countabIe.
Charlotte shouldered her Lurdens
with a brave heart. Her French ac-
cent-for Grandfather Brantome' 's
blood had never filtered throughCanada
brought her employment in a school
town near by. The long walks back
and forth kept the roses blooming in
her cheeks, the boys were good-some-
times-and she, being busy, was happy
1t requires leisure to be successfully
miserable.
The burying-ground typihed to her
the "daily martyrdom of private life. u
And now, looking at it, her heart grew
light. The new hat would cost but a
trife. Surely there were moro straw.
berries ripe in the garden. the canary
would lay more eggs, the jacket could
be nended, and old Speckle had prov
ed superior to the fish hook. But wha
could the boys be screaming about ?
''The bug man the bug-man !" they
were SHOUTING, trotting toward her will
al tha;r nioht on their SANDY lttl