Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1886-08-19


hillside apple-trees. Here Elizabeth
Earring often spent the sunny after.
moons, watching the little walker in his
waddling feats with happy eyes, OF
looking Iaughingly up from her needle
! work to note the break-neck pranks OF
the sweating Absalom, performing the
| arduOuS part of harlequin to the heir
apparent. Back of and above them
the old dwelling held its gables against
the blue sky and circling swallows, and
below them the green ground swayed
softly down to meet the meadows, and
they in turn the glinting levels of the
stream. Ever and anon a boat went
laboring up the broad river, breaking
| its CLASSY surface into crinkled silver,
| or one came tieetly down, flaunting
| its backward streaming plume OF
smoke, and sank away around
the great bend to the south. A road
ran northward obeying the long
| textures of the mighty stream, dividing
the meadows here, entering the wood
land there, and crossing many brook
| that came purling downward from the
upland, ere it found the busting vii
lage. family deserted from Earling
farm. Midway on this curving will
y
Snaer. Evil Sheer was the pseudonym
old Jade was wont to give him in his
growlings, though this slightly obese
bachelor was commonly as bland as a
summer morning. About this respect
able person, however, there seemed
always sort of aroma of acquisitive
greed that chilled little the sensi tive
instincts of the just and generous.
Still his affable and oily air, despite
many curious, if not questionable, bust
ness habits, went far to make his social
place reputable. Though not yet
arrived at mid-life a not inconsider-
able portion of this world S
goods had come glibly into his
possession. True this prosperity had
brought pain and privation to some,
and inconvenience at least to many.
but since the social scepter then, as
now, awarded seats of honor to the
successful cleaners of gold, rather
than to the acquisitive in less gaudy
and less potent metals. the horizon OF
his influence was rather widened than
diminished. A sort of land-b broker
was this Ivyl Snaer; ostcnsibly u
worker of the soil, his personal opera
tons upon that honest quantity con-
sidered rather its utility as a thing of
trade than as an agent of more paIpa-
BILE fruits. Aforeman on his big farm
contiguous to John Earnings estate.
directed the energies of the ground
into gain. while Ivyl, from the van
tage-point of a partial residence at a
public house in town, cast invisible
nets into the sea of other mems neces-
sites, bringing up many golden lien
and swiftly ripening mortgage. What
the exact inclination of his sentiments
were as touching religion lay some
what in doubt, but real or simulated,
he indisputabIy sought the house of
God with much regularity and meek
ness of expression. With much deco
rum, too, as became staid and opulent
example of good morals, he sat at
the spiritual board, regarding not the
length or brevity of its ministratiOns.
Perhaps his eyes of washy blue were a
trifle null, and his fingers, laced to-
gether across his ample stomach,
drawn a little tight, but nevertheless
the impressive sObriety of his attitude
went far to indicate to others the rev.
erent sincerity of his heart. Very
suave and defercntial was Ivyl Snaer
with bluff John Earling. whether in
acknowledgment of his irOn-like in
tegrity, or out of some unspoken hate,
it were at best impossible to discover.
The gruff ScOtchman at least drew even
" in the social yoke with smiling Ivyl,
for in that rather obscure corner of the
fat old Commonwealth of Ohio
they two perhaps were richest. This
fact may have contained the kernel of
the matter; in any case, it was patent
to all that Earring held his flowery
fellow in something little milder than
contempt; and whatever the true COM
plexion of Ivyl's feelings, their express
sion, even for this master of adulation,
was strangely purry and obsequious.
In one presence alone did Ivyl Snaer
seem unworthy of his reputation. Be-
fore the clear, deep eyes of Elizabeth
Earling his rather unsteady orbs went
down, and his tongue forgot its cum
ming. Did it seem to him that his soul
was stripped in these moments, and
his motives all uncovered? Did his
spirit shrink down instinctively before
the lofty purity of her wOmanhood?
Was he like a boy made bashful by the
beauty of her flesh? She at least saw
the swift confusion of his wits when
chance or purpose brought them
face to face. and wondered at
it. Doubtless the fact that
of all the women of that
region, Elizabeth Earling was perhaps
the fairest and most gently bred,
pointed more or less accurately to the
solution. She had not considered this,
however, since Iyyl Snaer was nothing
in her world beyond Il rather pompous
neigh5Or, whose presence chilled lit
tie the calm, clear currents of her nat
ure. Sewing one evening under the
hillside apple-trees, with her lusty
baby-boy growing and falling after the
fat pippins that Absalom bowled across
the matted grass, she saw her husband
coming slowly homeward through the
freekled autumn. The weather was
restful. the air being balmy and of in
dolent motion, and the long gray river
gurgling and whispering lazily onward
to the south. But whatever the humor
of the season, it was not John EARRING S
wont to ride so slowly. Action was
his leading idiosyncrasy. The wife
watched him where long way up
the white road he entered the
skirting fringes of the wood. and
when he emerged again into view she
knit her delicate brows little. and
with the babe upon her arm came down
to the gate. Whatever the nature of
his cogitating, the silent riders mood
took on a less passive phase when,
turning the head of the long meadow
lane. his eye took in the sweet picture
of his waiting wife and child. Down
the dusty lane his big bay horse came
homeward in sweeping trot, and