Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1885-02-05

Abram sent her just before he went
away
Sue, who sat nearest the brass-bound
trunk, thrust her hand under the mass
of papers, and after a slight search,
brought up the box. She opened it.
1t contained pinch of dry dust.
Most things are dust after a hum
dred years" said Aunt Pen, cheerfully.
And She went on. .Well, on the morn
ing of St. Valentines Day, just at
dawn, Molly was awakened by slight
rustling at her window. Her dove
fiuttered in upon her bed, and under
his snowy wing, in the old place, was a
note tied with a bit of blue ribbon.
Molly loosed the ribbon and down fell
the valentine which you hold in your
hand. Marjory. Read it, please" And
Mallory. sitting up among the ruins of
the spider-leg chair, read:
go Molly, Molly fair and sweet
As is the blithe Tomorrow
That brings you to your lovers side,
Far, far from grief and sorrow!
Once more unto your easement, love,
My messenger comes dying;
Fling back the lattice-take him in
Your Valentine espying.
"Come, come, my Molly, here wait,
The good ship spreads her sails;
Bearing such precious freight as thou,
She'll fear not storms nor gales.
Good bye to England's f1owery fields,
Her hawthorne, eglantine;
Come with the springtime's fastening
MY life long valentinep'
''Our ancestor rhymed better than he
drew" remarked Sue, peeping over
Mariory's shoulder. .'Those cooling
doves look precisely like two fighting
crows"
What deligtfully dreadful facility
you have, Sue, for taking the poetry
out of everything, said Beatrix.
.'Silence in the assembly," said Aunt
Pen. There was another slip of
paper. signed by John Hunt, Abrams
brother and contidant, saying that
carriage with post-horses would be in
waiting the next night, at a certain
place, to convey Molly with the great
est possible speed to Portsmouth,
whence the ship was to sail on the
following day. Her escort was to be
John Hunt himself. who, recently mar
ried. was going with his wife to seek
his fortune also, in that distant New
England.
':Molly dropped the valentine and
note almost with a feeling of dismay.
She was loyal-hearted maiden, as her
truth to her lover shows, anu it was
not without a deep pang of regretful
love that she turned at the door that
night and looked her last upon the
little turret chamber wherein her
twenty happy years had sped. Very
sunny and happy she then felt, not
withstandng certain threatening shad-
ows. She left tender little note for
her father, in which she pleaded for
giveness, and dwelt upon her love in
such way as softened his obdurate
old heart in spite of himself. And so
with her faithful Phoebe, and her tame
dove folded in the kerchief at her
bosom, Molly sped down the avenue
under the fitful light of the waning
moon. and turning again at the point
where the castle turrets are last seen,
looked long and lovingly on the home
of her childhood and young woman
hood. She never saw it again. For
though her father ultimately forgave
Molly. and visited her in the New
World after the Revolutionary War,
she never revisited her old home which
her oldest son inherited.
''After some three weeks of buffet
ing and storms, the ship which carried
our Molly sighted Cape Cod, and as
she sailed steadily onward through the
Narrows into our beautiful harbor of
Boston, the first object that caught
Molly's eye was not, as now, the gilded
dome of the State House, but tall
mast. with long arm or crane, from
which hung huge iron pot-the bea-
con upon that hill called Beacon
''Molly's destination was with q
friend of Abrams, who lived on what
is now JOY street. in the immediate
neighborhood of Thomas Hancock's
house. which he afterwards left to his
nephew, John Hancock. Molly soon
became Familiarity acquainted with
Dorothy, or Dolly Quincy, afterward
the wife of John Hancock, for Abram
Hunt was a partner in the firm of
which Dolly's father, Edmund Quincy,
was senior member.
lin few weeks Molly and Abram
were married. and went to keeping
house near Springate, though Molly
always had special liking for Beacon
Hill, with its sloping huckleberry pas
lures and sparkling springs, as being
the first place of her residence in New
:. Huckleberry pastures on Beacon
Hilln' CALCULATED Sue.
''Sue Thinks said Trix scornfully,
''that Beacon street and the Back Bay,
as they exist to-day, were part of the
original creation;' and Sue. who lives
on Commonwealth avenue. was ST.
fenced.
(Aunt Pen, it seems, did not deem it
necessary to explain to these girls, who,
as native Bostonians, were, of course.
familiar with the topography of old
Boston, where Springate was. But
others may like to know. In or near
what is now Spring Lane was one of
those springs with which the peninsula
and fence having been
built round about it, with a gate for
entrance, the immediate neighborhood
was known as Springate.)
''Molly had come to New England in
a time of ferment Echoes of the
storm gathering in the Western
World had reached the ancestral
home. but her father only 'poon,
pooh'd, at the bare supposition of
successful rebellion against the au-
thority of his Most Christian Majesty.