The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1885-01-23
SELECT STORY.
SISTER ANNE.

old. fashioned poets have baptized with
all sorts of names, sooner than degrade
their verses with the fine old Saxon
word "suu'-this planct Of many
aliases was never more splendid than
on she present occasion. There was a
purple edge of hill OIL which be was
lowering, red aud enormous, as if he
were Teconnoitering the huge sleeps
down which he was about TO plunge.
On the serratrd crest Of the purple hill
waved few plumy trees. standing
blackly against the fiery glow, like
watching warriors thrown out against
the flame of some beseiged and burn.
ing fortress. All along the meadows
and creeks that stretched from the base
of the purple hill to the porch where
Sister Anne was sitting, tide of gol.
den light was slowly ebbing. A mo
ment ago it was ripplng over the gar
den walks, making, like second Pac-
tolus, the very gravel valuable, and
now it has receded and washes the
edges of the green meadows below,
and trickles through the thin, trauspa
rent leaves of the motionless maple.
Now the old standard boat on the
shore of the narrow creek suddenly
gltters like Cleopatra's galley, as the
waves of light dash silently over it I;
and 10! ar instant passes, the galley is
gone, and the splitting planks and
Wondering keel again lie sadly on the
sands. So ebbs this wouderous tide.
silently but swiftly, until it reaches the
base of the purple hill; then trembling
an instant on the grass and rocks, it
suddenly sinks, or evaporates, or disap-
pears like fairy sea, and the shores
1t washed are cold, and gray, and
dull.
Sister Anne loved sunsets. There
was an idolen, splendor about the hour
of evening That suited her temperament
an atmosphere of opiate vapar that
seemingly emauated from the retiring
planet, lulling her into dreamy repose.
The truth is, that Sister Anne was
lazy. When other girls were hem
ming the edges ofmysterious garments,
or cutting geometrc figures out of
linen, or stitching pattern dimly seen
through cambria fastened over the pa
per on which they were traced while
industrious maidens were doing all
these useful and ornamental things,
Sister Anne was used to sit In the
window if it was summer, and by the
fire if it was winter, and dream. She
had the air of dreamer. Her feat
ures were still and regular her eyes
large and dark and when she moved
there was drowsy pliancy in her
limbs that made her seem as if she had
lived by the fairy lake on the shores
of which Tennyson's Lotos Eaters
dreamed life delightfully."- away. Her
two sisters looked on Sister Aune as
utterly lost. She was altogether use
less, and did not contribute one lot
into the general fund of labor. There
was not oD all Long Island 50 lazy
maiden. She knew not how to make
pastry or butter. Her sewing was
wretchedly crooked and uneven and
as to knowing anything about cutting
dress, why Sister Anne might as
soon be expected to draw out the plan
of fortifcation as to perform that
nice and intricate branch of female me-
chanics. She loved the woods, how
ever, and the green leaves, and was
very industrious in the line of gather
ing wild flowers and attending on the
birds. Sister Anne was a slave to the
feathered tribe She was not black,
nor did she wear gold rings on her
ankles or any other 81 ign of serfdom,
still she was as much slave as if she
was copper-colored and icttered with
gold. She followed the oriole from
tree to tree anxiously and timidly, as a
courtier haunting the presence of his
king. For hours together she would
lie in the tall grass or the fields watch
ing the blackbird with his crimson
epaulets, keeping watch from a lofty
tree ever his wife as she sat in her nest
built in the swayng forks of the gold
en- rod The cat-bird was to her
source of singular and endless delight
and admiration. His elegant shape,
his jaunty swagger, his splendid con-
fdence, his immense vocul genius, all
captivated her, and she would hide be,
hind a tree and hour after hour watch
his gambols in the branches. / will
not say that the birds knew Sister
Anne, She was no bird-tamer like
the charming dream girl in George
Sands romance of Teverino, and |
Joubt ;E sbo nolloJ o,,o, so lon,. ,,ho,h
er any of her feathered friends would
attend to her; but still think the
birds felt by rare instinct, as indescri.
bable as any of the strange spiritual
phenomena that are disclosing them
selves nowadays, that Sister Anne was
their worshiper. Cat bird and oriole,
it seems to me, permitted the Young
girl to come closer than any other idier
in the fields.
1t may be supposed that these ezra
tic habits were not very much relished
by Sister Anne's family. She was gen
orally up a tree when she should have
been mending stockings, and those
wild. wood sports of hers did not pro-
duce a very favorable effect upon her
toilet, Her gowns were sadly rent,
and her shoes wore out with astonish-
ing rapidity; while the marks of thorns
on her small, delicate hands, ard the
tan on her quiet, dreamy face were not
the most favorable additions to her
personal appearance, She was moral
weed in family of thriving and use
full plants toy in the midst of
whole factory full of industrial ma,
chimes In vain did mother and sis
ters demonstrate in vain did they
point to baskets full of awful shirts
yet unsewn, and terrible handkerchiefs
unhemmed. Sister Anne turned lazy
glance and deaf ear to all, and fled
to the fields, when the singing of
the birds and the breath of the flowers
consoled her for all her troubles.
So Sister Anne sat in the porch and
dreamed. Was it of her friend the
cat bird, or her comrade the oriole I!
Did flowers dance before her minds
eye, or did she wander amidst visionary
forests Sister Anne dreamed of none
of these, much as she loved them, But
two summers ago young fellow, with
blua b,;o,bt a,,as and lonu 1arl ho;r