Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1885-02-26
New Series-Vol. 25. No. g

= and oysters; and Stout took big arm
chair for the night, prepared to go sound
, asleep as soon as the bedroom doors
closed, and by IL o'clock, feeling they
had doLe all they could in the absence
of the doctor, the family abandoned
. themselves to dreams.
1t was a little past the first of the wee
sma' hours, Stout thought, when be was
walked from his own musical slumbers
by a strange sound, or rather cessation
of sound, and for a moment his flesh
crept. The dying man was sitting up in
bed, and tearing frantically at his neck,
bis wrists, bis ankles, the sOleS of bis
feet, and was talking to himself, as Stout
expressed it, like house afre.
Jerusalem! where've l got TOP he
muttered. Have died? And is this
No. it amt said Stout.
We'll, then, I'm burning up alive. 1
tell your said the stranger, tearing away
at his mustard plasters. Here's the
back of my neck a condemned ciBder;
my wrists are blisters; my feet as if
they'd been walking on redEot gridironsi
If this amt there, where is it?
Its place called BlossOmbanK, said
Stout; owned by the Evanses. where
you were taken in
And done for groaned the man. How
in time am going to walk on these
feet? They are solid blister. How
came l here, anyway ? he roared.
Stout got up and shut the door, and
leisurely told him, enjoying his sketch
of his little neighbor, Mrs. Rose, and
the by-play of the rest of the family.
Drunk, by graciOusP said the patient.
Who'd have thought quart of cider
would do all that? But you never can
tell what cider on clans will do; re+
member that, young man. Especially
when it is seven years old. l guess there
was little stone fence in the cider.
"A little said Stout, dryly. AT least
thought so when we brought you in
Anybody but a meddlesome fool wo'd
have let me alone. However, good Sa-
maritan sort of people here. ! reckonY
as he tugged at his last bandage.
Sort of new at it, said Stout. Good
playing, that sort of thing. Outgrow it
when they find just about how grateful
| ann said the stranger. Setting every
drop of blood in my body into blaZes!
I've half mind to set fire to their old
rookery of a house. What did you say
it was calledY
'BlossOmbank. Tom Evans, you know;
held in his wife's name, Mrs. Rose
'H'mi h'm! Little woman, yellow curls,
brown eyes? I've seen her sometimes
going by-looks like my Nell that died;
and they thought 1 had apoplexy." said
the stranger, after pause. And didn't
know me from a side of sole leather?
And had me fetched into their house for
better or worse? That's about the breadth
of it,
About said Stout.
Put up my horseY
Certain
Look here. 1 suppose for fifty cents
you'd go out and put my horse in. and
help me to limp along? Curse the lucki
| should think I'd been asked upon bed
of hot coalsl That's a Christian fellowl
HIM! Pen and ink round hereY be ask
ed, gazing about. 'H'mi Leave 'em
line to tell 'em what 1 think Of their
tearing the skin off the soles of my feet,
and you give it to EN- in the morning.
4 don't want to be hurting Mrs. Roses
feelings said Stout. We kinder like the
EvaHses.'
You do as you're bid. and no questions
asked. You don't get fifty cents every
day for that Therel' And he flung down
the pen he had been using, and left a
folded paper in Stout's hand. And then
Stout put his shoulder underline indig>
nant persons arm, and helped him thro'
the dining room and passages and the
kitchens, and out the back door and into
his wagon, hitched in the horse, took the
fifty cent piece, bade the stranger good
night, and returned and laid the folded
paper at what he judged ought to be
Mrs. Roses place at the breakfast table,
which Mandy. with her customary pro-
vision, had LAID overnight, after clearing
off the fragments of the previous ban
quet.
1t was at the peep of day that Mrs.
Rose, throwing on her wrapper, thrust
her feet into her little slippers, and crept
down stairs. Her eyes were but half
open, but they sprang wider at the vis'
ion of the reception room. Stout'S chair
was empty. the cot was empty, the bed
clothes were tossed about, the carpet
was strewn with dried mustard plasters
and torn bandages and pins and strings
her sacred reception rOOml For an
instant she stared about her and then
sprang for the back door. 1t was open;
the yard was empty. She bolted the
door, and came back through the dining
room in bewilderment over the abstrac-
tion of the dying paralytic, and her eyes
fell on the folded paper, and she paused.
Do you think Mrs. Rose was a fool,
that she should not know what that pa
per meant when she looked it OverI Had
she not figured to herself thousand
times how such paper would look when
their ship came in? The apparitiOn that
flashed through Sarah's s room and Mary's
room, and would have liked to run over
to Louisa's and startle grandmother, and
that wound up proceedings in her own
room, was 1ourishing a legal document
and crying out: And he was an Angel
in Disguised and l said sol and what do
you think this is? Toni oh, Toni it is
our mortgage, and it is discharged. And
that man was the man that held it, and
had cancelled the whole thing, and with
his thanks, too-think of it, And, oh,
can you call that anything else than an
angel"
"In disguise?" said Tom, presently,
when she had her breath again and the
rapture was momentarily stilled. Ser
taiuly not, Mrs. Rese; and in spite OF my
gratitude 1 must admit. very much in
disguise. Harriet Prescott Spoford, in
Harperis Bazaar.
JOyfully AstOnlshed.