The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1885-06-11
THE BUG MAN.
BY FLORA L. w. sTANFIELD,

BY FLORA L. W. srANFIELD,
The proverbial straw had broken the
metaphorical camers back. The patti
ence Of Charlotte Brantome, usually
equal to the exigencies of the occasion.
was exhausted. The twins, as 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 re-
Trained from adding deceit to their
guilt, but had confessed, fully and un-
reservedly, to rifling the canary's nest.
to tearing jacket, and losing a hat
down the well, to eating the strawber
ries that were saved for supper, and
TO catching their most faithful hen
with a fish-hook. The fsh-hook rep
resented the straw; Charlotte the cam
81. She could have borne anything
better than downright cruelty develop
ed so early in one of her own blood.
She never was boy.
"And man was here" said Popsey.
"a big man." volunteered Wopsey.
the other twin. "And he asked us
about everything, and we said our
mother wasn't very well and our sister
was an old maid school ma'am."
Charlotte WINGED. Where had he
picked up that expression? And had
it come to thatP
"You must not talk to strange men
about mother or me. What did he
want?"
"IIe wanted to see you"
"Me?" Visions of tramps. of spy
.ng burglars, only they had nothing to
'burgle," as Popsey had said one day,
came into her mind. "How did he
look ?"
"He was beautiful" "He was dread
tul," said the twins in duet.
Further questioning elicted these
facts: He was young; he was old; he
was short; he was tall; he wore spect-
acles; he wore mustache, and was a
bug-man. In the last and crowning
fact the boys agreed.
Practice had made Miss Brantome a
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, and
gave the subject no more attention.
| She had other things to think of than
bug men, or any men, and 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, sho tried tc
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 field of rye over the way
cleaned white wooden cross. Her
grandfather, in whose veins flowed
some of the blue blood of France, had
bought home in this western coun-
try when the remnant of an Indian
tribe had still property to sell. The
deed of sale provided for the preserva-
tion of their little burying-ground.
The grain grew thick around, but the
tiny village of the dead was never dis
turbed by spade or plough.
Old Pierre, however, had never pros.
pered. Neither did Pierre the young
er; and one night, waen riding home,
his horse SHE'D in the moonlight and
threw him with his head against a
stone; he left no legacy but the home
stead and debt to his wife and chill.
dren. There was gap Of twenty
years between Charlotte and the twin
babies, and sho really had third in
fant on hor hands, for her mother was
nothing more useful than that afteI
her husbands death. Sho was not
feeble-miuded exactly, but painfully
gentle-strange and unaccountable.
Charlotte shouldercd her burden
with brave heart. Her French ac
cent-for Grandfather Brantome's
blood had never Uttered through Cana
da brought her employment in
school town near by. The long walk
back and forth kept the roses blooming
in her checks, the boys were good
sometimcs-and sto. being busy, wa
happy. 1t requires leisure to be sue
cessfully miserable.
The burying-g ground typifled to he
tho "daily martyrdom of private life
And now, looking at it. her heart grew
light. The new hat would cost but
trifle. Surely there were more straw
berries ripe in the garden. the canar.
would lay more eggs, the jacket coul
be mcnded, and old Speckle had prov