News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1886-04-01
MOTHERS LEGACY.

'Your mothers legacy has come,
Maria"
''Has it, John7 who brought it9'
'It came alone in a cab"
"Came in cab! What do you mean,
JohnW
"Why, l mean what I say; it came in
cab, and walked right up stairs"
''Walked up stairsl 1 wish you
wouldn't tease me so, John. What do
you mean2"
"Wen, my dearest wife, in other
words, your Aunt Amelia has arrived
big trunk, little trunk, bandbox, and
bundle, She is now domesticated in
the second story back room, otherwise
known as the guest chamber; and as her
head is very tired, she is lying down to
rest for dinner. I saw her, however,
doing up those iron-gray curls and cork
screw ringlets of hers in brown paper.
| They look like the little curls which are
run off a piece of black walnut board by
a carpenters plane. She likes her room
| very much indeed, and seems to be
| quite happy. So, brace up, Maria, my
| dear, and begin now to enjoy your
mothers legacy.
Maria Templeton, the wife of the Hon.
John P. Templeton, Member of the
State Senate from the County of Phila-
delphia, was the only child of fond
and doting mother, who had just died.
Maria, or Pinkie, as she was familiarly
called by the members of her family,
was emphatically spoiled child. A full
sized cabinet of household advisers in
way ii maternal aunts and elderly
cousins had assisted the late mother of
Pinkie, Mrs. Pentreath Jones, with an
assorted variety of judicious advice,
until this mother, with an inirm purpose,
had will which was mended and reset
by outside moral appliances in the way
In which broken plate is glued with
stratena and is then loaded with heavy
weights, arranged on purpose to test its
latent strength.
Pinkle, as child, had always vaguely
imagined that comfortable inheritance
would one day be hers, after her
mothers death. Not that she wanted
her mother to die. In fact, though she
had husband, she never thought of him
save as a social and financial eolian
attached to the harp on the willows of
her daily life. Her mother was her only
and her constant comforter. Her hus-
band was a necessity, but her mother
was luxury. John made continual game
of his wife's staff of medical advisers,
but Pinkie's mother hailed with delight
every new medical adviser and every
fresh plan in the lifelong search for
health. Every mineral spring in Amer
lea had been tried, but it invariably hap
pened that in one weeks time after her
return home the same dreadful compli-
cation Of maladies reappeared. The hot
springs of Arkansas, the warm springs
of Virginia, with their sulphur com
pounds and their lithia alkalies and the
electric baths of all sorts of magnetic
doctors, had alike been tried, and had
proved worthless. Carlsbad, and AK
lie Bains, and the Engadine, and the
Grape Cure of Meran in the Tyrol kept
the ten thousand demons of inherited
and acquired hypochondria under for a
while, but, like their great leader
Abaddon in the Apocalypse, after each
short-lived millennium they were loosed
again for q new lease of endeavor for a
little season.
A certain DR.. Mcpherson, in Edin-
burgh, whom Mr.. Templeton consulted
for his wife on their return from the
high-air cure in the Engadine and the
grape cure in the Tyrol, advised con-
sultation with certain female physician
at Los Angles, California, who had made
Mrs. Templeton's complaints speciality.
He refrained from giving the name, but
gave the exact address.
The spring after this, when Mr.. Tenn
| pleton started West on his annual wool
! expedition for the firm of whose house
he was the unknown term, the "Co, he
! took Maria with him.
While waiting in the city of San
Francisco for the completion of the
wool purchases, Mrs. Templeton had a
severe attack of polykakia, or many
evils, consisting of headache, hypo-
neuralgia, malaria, nervous prostration,
and rheumatic gout combined. As she
lay upon her couch, in her India silk
wrapper, struggling to fortify her nerves
by frequent internal coddlings against
the coast breezes of the misnamed
'Pacific,"- her husband entered the
room, and took q seat by the open fire,
with his back to his wife.
"Oh, Johni" groaned the voice of
Maria from the muflied depths of the
pillows, eff you only knew how was
suffering from this wretched Pacific air,
you wouldn't keep me waiting in this
way with,your wool business. You would
think more of your wife and less of this
everlasting wool-sorting.
John made no reply.
"Besides," continued Maria, 81 am
very anxious to see the Los Angles doc
tor. When can we get Off"
Still no reply from John.
'Johnr' said Maria.
An oppressive silence followed, as be-
| fore.
"Johnp exclaimed Maria, what is
the matter9 Why do you not speak2"
81 do not know how to speak,, re-
| piled John, as he took his wife in his
arms. ''Be brave woman, Maria, dear
l must be mother as we'll as husband tc
you now. My darling child, you have
no mother; she died yesterdayW
The proposed visit to Los Angeles
was of course omitted, and the carriage
of Mrs. John Templeton never stood al
the door of the unknown doctor as the
chariot of Naaman the Syrian stood al
the door of the prophet Elijah.
After the first shock of the blow haG
passed away, Maria Templeton by {
supreme act of the will, aroused herscl
eud became the brave woman which shf