Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1885-10-02
A LITTLE FAMILY AFFAIR.

II LILLE GAMIL1 AIEAlN.
When Eden was electrified by the ap-
pearance upon walls and fences of a
placard announcing that the Cecilia
Club" would give a concert at Haver-
ford (six miles away) and Saul Kit.
tredge was the "basso profondo."
West Eden was far, very far, from the
madding crowd, and the entertainments
that came within its range were wont to
be OF the burnt cork variety. They
savored of the ungodly. and of very
humble social sphere. And Saul was
Deacon Kittredge's only son, and had
been expected to follow in his fathers
footsteps-to be deacon of the church.
president of the Eden bank, postmaster
of West Eden (the postmastership had
descended to the deacon from his father
and grandfather undistuIbed by political
changes, and the deacon regarded it as
respectable heiroom) and for wife he
was to take to himself Mary Willett, the
minister's daughter.
All these plans were waiting for the
baby Saul when he opened his aston
ished blinking black eyes upon the
troublesome world. Alas Almost
from the day of their opening the black
eyes took quite different views of life.
Before their owner was five he had set
little Mary Willett down hard in mud
pie, and run off to play with the disre-
putable children on "the Flats"
'He's alwers been walkin' the down
ward path, " said Deacon Peters (of the
other church, as he stopped for friendly
chat at the undertaker's door on the day
when the placards appeared. "To
think of his thrashin' the schoolmaster
who was discipin' Tidy Slocomb, one
of them Flats children, and then runnin
away with a circus when he WANT
but sixteen And then he left college
against his fathers will and the firstthing
they knew he was playactin' in a theatre !!
And he's courtin Tidy Slocomb, and
means to marry her. They say he prom
ised his mother he'd give up the play
actin, but don't know but this is Jest
as bad. His father has cast him off and
forbid him the house, but he's terribly
broke down by it. Well, he's been a
prosperous man, Deacon Kittredge has,
and you can't expect to fly in the face of
Proverdunce every way"
"Saul want never what you could
call godly given" said Job Fisher, the
undertaken. fat and jovial man, who
was at work upon a willow baby car
riage, cradles and baby carriages being
cheerfully mingled with the Legitimate
products of his craft all over his shop.
"But he always seemed TO me like a
skittish colt; there want nothin' really
wicked about him."
I'm afraid Saul never had any real
lin sense of solum things" said the
deacon. ''But there is Deacon Kit
tredge readin' one of the bills; it is GER
tainly q time to offer Christian sym
pathy."
''It aint playactin'," said the under
taker to himself as the deacon departed,
'ff basso profundo does sound like
swearing, and somehow puts you in
mind of the bad place; and if nobody
else don't, Maria an I'll go over to hear
Saul sing
When Deacon Kittrcdge saw the dea-
con of the other church coming toward
him he hurried away. 81 can't talk
about it--no, can't never talk about it
to anybody but the Lord and Laviny,"
he murmured to himself.
The postoffice was an eXcresence upon
the side of the large low farmhouse
which Deacon Kittredge's grandfather
had built; an ornamental eXcresCence,
for West Eden was not, after all, so far
from the madding crowd but that hints
of the new styles of architecture reached
it, and the postolfice was an aspiring
work box bedaubed with fendish reds
and yellows, of which the solid, respect
able old house looked thoroughly
ashamed. The family stting-room had
been the postoflice, and the new post
Office opened out of it; otherwise she
should have died of homesckness after
it was built, Mrs. Kittredge declared
Mrs. Kittredge had become lame by
reason of chronic rheumatism, and was
unable to get about much, and if it had
not been for the postotiice she couldn't,
as she often declared, have "kept up Sc
with what was goin' on"
She knew whom everybody's letters
were from; she sometimes walked the
deacon in the dead of night with shrewd
guesses as to their contents; and, never
theless, she had hailed with delight the
advent of postal cards.
OF late the deacon had been ponder
! ing deeply the reasons why such judg
ment should have come upon him in thu
! person of his only son, and the suspicion
had struck him like sudden blow tina
Laviny was 'light- minded"
She certainly had not seemed so in he
youth; she had been reckoned mos
discreet and proper wife for an incipien
deacon. Her love of gossip had beer
latent until she had passed middle age
but he could see that it now increased
constantly.
And it was not the gossip alone. II,
had lately found under the cushion o
her chair, in search for ZiOn's Messenger
a paper covered book with the astonish
ing title; "The Stolen Bride, or Til,
Mystery of the Moat."
Laviny was light-minded.
But Laviny was the wife of his bosom
he hurried home to consult with he
about this new trouble that had fallel
upon them.
He found her perchcd upon the higl
stool behind the rows of pigeon. holes il
the postohice scrutinizing through he
gassesth superscription ola letter.