News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1886-12-16
LIBBIE'S WEDDING RING.
A Christmas Eve that Brought I.igh Out o
Darkness.
BY JAMES B. FISHER.

1t had been showing early in the dav
but so lightly that only "a white fecF
here and there marked the distant
housetops and thin frosty layer made
the stTingpiece show IN the dark like 8
glltterIng line. Down here by the
waters edge the night was silent and
gloomy. Only the hoarse gurgling OF
the stream fiitering through the slimy
piles underneath the pier, only the dis
tant swash of a paddle broke upon the
mOnOtonous creaking of chains and
cables, the same big, stiff ones that Old
Tom Saunders had seen make fast the
newly arrived bark at nightfall. He had
been striding up and down the bare
deck of the dusky canal boat to keep
himself warm ever since the stranger
had loomed up on the other side of the
pier. He had heard screaming in the
slip beyond the whistle of the tug boat
that had brought her in, and seen the
bustllng little craft steam away with the
sparks and smoke from her funnel leav
ing luminous trail in the dark. From
that the gloom had been thicker about
the pier and the damp mist rolling D
from the bay had wrapped the shipping 9
IN cloud of moisture There had been
clatter of voices for awhile on the big
bark, and he had been half conscious Of
fitting lights and hoarse sea orders; but
all these had ceased long ago and now
the black hull of the new arrival rose up
in the gloom, solemn and silent, with
her masts slightly tilted off and a Ian
tern forward cleaning like dim yellow
star.
Old Tom Saunders paced the deck of
the dingy hulk he was on, with his
pipe gripped fast between his teeth and
his hands slowed away down in the
pockets OF his threadbare pea jacket
The battered and decayino boat was no
shabbIer or more woe begOne than the
man. Old Tom he was by virtue of the
years that had turned his few struggling
locks gray and drawn all sorts of deep
furrows across his face Famiiarly Old
Tom among the wharf men, who knew
him as such ever since he had come along
on tie old canal boat, broken down
man with flavor of better times about
HIM. FaeetiOusly Old Tom. IN Conse-
quence of his fondness for the tipple of
the name which, it was limited, had
dragged him down to hi present low
estate. Old Tom Saunders had once
been burly, and he was still big man,
but he had lost all his flesh. His face
looked like worn parchment, and had
the cOlOrless, bleached out appearance
which life of constant excuses begets.
There WAS also that nervous twitching
about the lips and that aimless wander
ing Of the fingers which betOken a CON
stItution unstrung and shattered.
In low spirits indeed he seemed this
night Of Christmas Eve as he stopped at
the stern of the canal boat to look off
toward the big black warehouses that
shut in the river side like a wall. Up
IN the air a reddish haze hung over the |
city where the light of countless lamps |
on the thOroughfares beneath had set |
the damp atmosphere aglow, and from
50 me lofty buildings the radiance OF |
electricity showed in the fog, blue and !
pallid. as death lights at some Internal !
orgie
So this is Christmas Eve, eh2" NUT i
tered old Tom with snort that was
hail groan christmas Eve. and |
n4ry bite in the locker or nickel in |
the packet It's blasted hard-blasted |
pard Tor man that's seen better days" !