Milford chronicle., 1885-03-13

! gleS IN 'front.' OF dfmef Dufueys Bat6i
aud twice that number of beaux, more or
less uncomfortable in their best suits,
chatting with the girls in parlor or on
piazzas.
The young folks were the hands on
the face of the watch their father was
an important cog. wheel, and believed
that he moved the entire machinery.
The handspring, fine of temper, ex-
duisite in delicacy, coiled close and un-
seen back OF all, was the mother. The
appointments of the farmstead were
perfect, according to neighborhood
standards. Everything was of the best
and well-kept, and there was no waste
anywhere.
''Mother1l make a pound o. butter go
as fur as the next woman, l don't care
who she be-" Luke had been heard to
chuckle, ont of her hearing. can a
dollars likely to do the work Of dollar
n half when she turns it over"
She grudged neither butter nor dollar
in making ready for the gala-day, the
/ 18th Of September. Three great ham
pers were packed over night, with such
| baked and boiled cold meats, such rolls,
butter, cake, and pies, as no other ham,
pers would disgorge. Table linen, sill
yer, glass and crockery went into an
/ other. All were slowed away in a
spring-wagon with bags of feed for the
horses, a tea-kettle and two or three
water-pails, before an early breakfast,
on the clOudless morning of the great
day. "Mother" forgot nothing. She
was astir before the boys appeared
below stairs hustled back and forth
from the house to the big cherry tree, in
the shade of which the wagon was
packed, directing and experimenting
all.
"The fuss and fixing have done her no
end of good" Mary and lilly agreed
privately when she sat down to table,
flushed and smiling, chatting in her old,
blithe way. "She hasn't seemed so
chirk before in an age"
Sam and Joe we're to occupy the high
seat in the front of tho spring-Wagon.
In the family rockaway, drawn by
pair Of sturdy roadsters, the girls and
James would be established.
81 told Silly Mayo, last night, there
would be plenty of room for her. You
won't mind stopping by for her,
James p said Mary, archly.
A laugh went around the board as the
bronzed forehead of tho young farmer
took on a Mulberry blush.
"That's as you girls say" he an
sWered, handing his cup up to the head
of the table in such haste that the spoon
fell out. ''A little less sugar this time,
mother"
"He won't need mucn to-day, you
see p commented Sam.
T1ly's merry eyes, following the cup,
struck on the mothers face. The
change there startled her. 1t was gray
and drawn-the visage of an old woman.
Tilly had never thought of her mother
as aged until that instant. The hand
that grasped the handle of the coffee pot
shook violently; the milk splashed over
the side of the cup. lilly jumped up,
aghast.
''You aren't well, mother I won't
90 if you're going to be sick p
'Sit down, child, and finish your
breakfast I'm not SICK" She
laughed to make all right, but in dry,
mirthless way. 81 wouldn't let you
stop at home on any account. To tell
the truth, was thinking, maybe, I'd go
myself.
Those Puritan forefathers of ours,
with whom repression of natural emo
ton stood for modification of carnal in
stinct, who cOnfounded sOftness with
sin, austerlty with righteousness, sowed
crop of dragons teeth, the harvest OF
which confronts their descendants in
yengeful hosts. The absolute inability
to speak when free utterance would be
the salvation of temporal, if not eternal,
happiness; the shamefacedness that
deprecates the cracking of the crust
hiding from the nearest of kin and
dearest of soul the pulsing of heart
tides-these are but few forms of the
heritage we deplore, yet do not put
away.
This woman desired, with longing
that was agony, to break prison-bounds
for one day. She had dreamed day and
night of the joyous convocation OF
friends and neighbors on the mountain
top, the free day in the open air; most
of all, of the music. She had reached
that verge of endurance when over
wrought Nature cried, ''I will have this
thingP The picnic and the band
represented to her what the coveted
foreign tour does to the weary intellectual
drudge, or nerve-wOrn woman OF So
ciety. Yet, deadly athirst as she was
for change and recreation, she could
have persisted more easily than she
could have put one-hundredth part OF
what she felt into words.
A stunned silence followed her re-
mark. James broke it.
''I wisht you had spoke Of it before ~
lie said, regretfully.
Mary was more explicit.
"Why, mother, it never came into my
mind that you cared for such things !
And now the arrangement is made with
Sally, I don't see how we can fix it diff
ferent, without one of us stays at
home"
Mrs. Burney caught the meaning of
the amazed pause and her daughters
tartness.
''It makes no difference" she said.
hastily. "Not the least in the world -
Before Luke finished his corrobora-
tive speech, she was on her feet, gather
ing up cups and plates for the dish-pan.
''Do you think she really had a no
of going?" Tilly questioned, as the
wagons rolled from the door. ''She
acted sort of queer after father said
what he did,"
"Pshaw r. Mary was her sire's own
daughter. ''She would wish herself
home fifty times before we get up the
mountain"
The day was warm, and Mrs. Burney
possessed by a frenzy of work.
'In fur a regular bout O. cleanin', be
you ?" observed her lord when he came
in to dinner.
Beds were on roof and grass; the
smell OF soap-suds foated, visibly Va
porous, in the passages. The wife
waited on him during the meal, eating
nothing herself, but drinking three cups
of bitter herb tea, stewed on the stove.
That she was indisposed to talk did not
seem strange to her companion. He fed
mutely and in abundance, smoked the
pipe of full-stomached content, and
took his forty winks" in the cool, dark,