The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1885-05-09

"story without an end,nI guess, for after
this party there will be nothing more pleas
ant to tell.
Hark. there are the sleigh bells, and
mother is calling me.
AT THE AD-MIDNIGHr.-Aunt
| Nora told me to go to bed and to sleep, but
can't. NY head is too full of the evening,
and feel haunted by ghosts Of Aunt Nora's
past, but still more of her future. When l
got here this afternoon had chat with
Aunt Nora, and told her how was fret
ting, and she said with sad, sweet smile
| "The future isn't such a bugbear at sixty
as it is at nineteen, my dear" But good
gracious, she may live to be ninety-her
grandfather did. Think of thirty or even
twenty years. exile from the only home she
ever knew, with the exception of that
| dreadful year with the sham Professor.
feel like a Gagged thing-beating against
| the bars of wrong that / can't right, but
only hurt my wings. | ,cU think of
other things, and may be In get sleepy. !.
All, this dear west room-it is called
''Hazel's room" because am so fond Of it
and to think that shall never go to it
after those usurpers take possession.
| I'd like to photograph 1.-THE high four
posted bedstead, its curtains gay with i'm
possible birds and flowers and beasts of the
dragon family. The window and dressing
table have the same hangings. One has
4
| drapery-it is like spying ones self in a
deep pool surrounded with shrubbery.
| For my part I'd like more looking glass
and less upholstery, especially after what
Charlie Fairfield said about my color this
evening. Well might have color, feeling
so mad-to say nothing of my sleigh ride.
And there are the droll pictures hung
half way up to the moon-paintings on
satin by Fairfield danes of century ago,
| and that spooky picture of a cemetery in
| hair--that hid with the screen. Best of
all is Aunt Nora's portrait as a child. She
wears huge Marlborough hat, and the shy
| blue eyes look out from under thatch OF
yellow hair. Tonight she looked like this
picture, just as childlike and innocent, only
the gold is turned to silver. That is the
way things grow cheap with time.
This evening before the company came
Charlie would talk to me, though / showed
him plainly enough that didn't wish it.
| He, too, remarked that Aunt Nora looked
like her old portrait.
Yes" | said, turning hot and wrathfui,
"she looks as though she didn't know that
wrong could be done her."
He smiled so provokingly and said:
"Dont judge the dead, Hazel--a will may
| yet be found"
st isn't the dead I judge, but the liv-
"If it is my father you are judging,
please don't even in thought associate
wrong with his NAME" His eyes flashed,
and be drew himself up till he looked eight
instead of six feet tall. But / only tossed
my head. 1t is all very well to be so high
and mighty, but facts are facts.
There, have been crying, and blotted
my journal. At this rate / shall nerer get
| sleepy.
Everybody came tonight, and the par
lor did look charming. They all had a
lovely time-alI but MEETINGS went awry
with me. Nothing could be prettier than
that Flower Game. On the comfortable
were quantities of natural flowers, all tied
with little nosegays, each kind of flower by
| itself. Mr.. Howe read from his paper
quotations from poems, each one naming
| some flower or plant, and the company
were to tell the name of the author. Miss
Howe and Charlie were umpires to decide
who spoke first, and Charlie handed the
flower named as prize to the winner.
1t was very amusing to see how the most
familiar lines puzzled us, and to hear the
right answer when one least expected. /
was so surprised to hear bashful Lucy
Brown pipe up "Hamlet" to "Pansies,
that's for thoughts" i was glad she got
the bunch to reward her courage.
Seneca Evarts guessed so many, that it
was quite provoking, and he was invited
to join the umpire committee to save the
spoils.
Gussie Flint outdid herself in beaming
upon Charlie. The girls said she had been
examining poetry for q week, and she got
several nosegays. How she simpered
when Charlie gave her the pinks for Burns
And will pu' the pink, the emblem o. my
dear,
For ,, shes the, the pink O. womankind. and
She may have her peers-but her match /
hope there is not.
To make variety some of us girls had
painted a few flowers not in season on
cards or simple plaques, like "aower-de-
luce" that was Longfellow's, and Honey
suckle" out of the "May Queen.o
1t was very nice for poor lame Herbert
to get the branch of coral for his cabinet.
No one but he seemed to know Moore's
- crimson blossom of the coral tree
In the warm isles of midas sunny sea-"
Three things were cut and dried before
hand, everyone being in the secret except
Aunt Nora.
Mr., Howe read very quietly "Consider
the lilies" No one spoke, and at last Aunt
Nora said: "There is no harm, children,
that can see, in using the Makers COM
mendation of His work. Those are our
Lords words in Matthew 6: %, believe.r
Thereupon beautiful Wedgewood urn
was brought out in which grew an annun-
citation lily full of blossoms and buds. 1t
was birthday gift, and how pleased and
touched Auntie was!
After awhile she was trapped by another
long pause, and came to the rescue of her
beloved Wordsworth, ON the lines ssMy
heart with pleasure" etc. That time she
received a china plaque with exquisitely
painted daffodils.
She said, half laughing and half CRYING.
that she wouldn't open her mouth again
but she did.
Mr.. Howe read the whole of mistress
Nary" ending with ''pretty maids all in a
row."
"Shame on you ALL" exclaimed Aunt
Nora, at last-"have you forgotten your
old Mother Goose?n
How we shouted and clapped, as she was
presented with a framed photograph,
group of the twenty poor little girls she has
come to her house Saturdays to learn
needle. work, a branch of education SO
neglected, she laments, in schools nova
days.
All the time, as far as the game went, / |
seemed tongue-tied, again and again COM
ing to the point just too late, when knew
the poem like a, be. did manage to speak |
up when they gave
THAT which we call a rose
by any other name would smell as sweet"
Several said shakespeare" but said |
"Juliette," and so l won. As Charlie |