Huntsville gazette., 1886-04-10

all the world was dead. Would l never
hear him bounding down the stairs
again, whistling or singing, or see him
steal into the house to help me with my
work when was sick or had head
ache?
II went upstairs and looked at his
shoes and thought how he had never
cried or fretted when he was a baby,
and how he always laughed and waved
his hand at me; and / wished we had
both died when he was born.
Il never heard any thing from him
for ten long years. I know he wrote,
but his father would not let me see the
letters. / felt bad, terribly bad about
it. And then we had other troubles,
too. The barns burned and a good
many of the cattle died; and then John
married, and that was the worst trial
of all. His father felt satisfied, for
Johns wife was a spry, managing
woman; but never took to her. She
was too close, and she came into the
family at time when felt as if any
more closeness would be the death Of
me. Johns father had had lawsuit
and lost it, and finally, to save the farm,
he had decided it to John, John agree
ing that he should have the control of
it as long as he lived.
1--WE got along somehow for year
or two; but John took such good care
of the money, and his wife took such
good care of every thing else, that it
kind of broke us down.
If could get any place to work.
Johns father said to me one night, I'D
60. 1 don't get enough to eat here
''He wasn't what he used to be !
could see. His shoulders stopped and he
looked downhearted and out of spirits;
and he wasn't as close as he had been,
though perhaps that was because he
hadn't any thing to be close with. He
had been a hard man to us all, but l
began to kind O. pity him. He couldn't t
walk in his orchard and pick up an ap-
pie without Johns wife following him
close and calling:
Father, father! don't pick the mar.
ket apples. And as they were all mar
ket apples according to her tell, he
never dared touch one. Finally things
got so bad that we didn't have any
tHllE DuG COill-lIlCdi niuSu w Cll.
Though corn-meal mush is nourishing
and good for a change, l can't say as !
like it for steady thing. But we had
to eat it. And father-some way l had
got to calling him father-said it made
him sick to even see corn growing.
Zone night when he couldn't sleep
for thinking of it, he asked me if sup
posed they had mush all the time at the
poor-house. l told him 'twant no ways
likely that they had it more than half
or three-quarters of the time, and then
he said we'd go. And though L had a
little pride, or did have once, 1 felt as
though even the poor-house would be q
relief, and the next morning l set about
getting our things ready to 60.
''But we never went, for that night
God sent my boy home. Oh! how glad
we were to see him. l cried, and his
father cried. Father was completely
broken down; but when Edward said he
was going to take us back to the West
with him. his face frightened, and he
asked Edward in whisper if he lived
on farm.
"'No,' said Edward, laughing, 4 am
a lawyerr i am glad of that, said
father; i am glad of that. If was to
see any more corn don't know but l
should 60 clean out of my mind
" Il live in town. said Edward, put
ting his arm around me in the old way,
and ! am going to have one of the
handsomest and best housekeepers you
ever saw
II asked him who the woman was
with sinking heart, for 1 had a kind
of dread of daughters-in-law, and he
answered, My mother. IN Y.
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