Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1886-01-02

you value your life promise no more. If
they starve, why they etarve as God in
tended they should when they defed
me. Say nothing; not one word where
this food came from, and now begone!
Col"
'Stay, Tompkins! Hear mel"
And jeanette folded her arms and
gazed in the eyes of he old man.
"She ehall have food, and that from
her fathers house. She shall not be
turned away like dog in such weather
as this, unfortunate sister, she who has
right to share with me. Say to her that
jeanette will not forsake her, though
she, too, should be driven from this door
as she was for no fault save of choosing
to 20 after her heart rather than serve q
hard ard capricious master, who exacted
he knew not what-from all who came
under his ann, SO powerful to strike In
all but good cause"
Mrs. Trenchard shrank back appalled,
atthe defiant spirit of the girl whose dark
eyes were blazing with fire which had
smouldered long and deep down.
WHAT shrieked Logan Trenchard,
clenching his hands together In rage
while every white hair stood On end.
And you defy me too! BECOME with her,
the unthankful one to whom l gave the
best years Of my life. Go, be no longer
child of mine. / will 60 childiess to my
grave, since l have reared race OF
vipers."
For once in all the ten years, the pa
tent mother stepped between him and
his will.
Logan Trenchard, listen to reason
God has not prospered you in your curses
and He will not. You believe in Him,
fear Him. Take care-it is His to smite
not yours. nor mine. Leave your
children to His justice and His mercy.
You are old now, Jeanette is the staff OF
our age. Do not add this to your other
follies and crimes which you take to the
judgment. Forbsre in time or you may
feel greater weight yet on you than
ever before"
He pushed his wife rudely to one side.
leave me to my own punishment if
1 have erred. I'll take the risk. I can
do as l like with my own. I say if Je2n.
cite defends the other one, she must 60,
that's ALL"
"Come, Tompkins," said Jeanette
calmly, taking down her cloak and hood
from peg, with all the Trenchard reso-
luton in her face, ard not the jot or
title of relenting in lip or cheek or eye.
"Let US 60. Mother, l will see you
again, even he cannot separate me from
my mother" And turning to where
the wretched old man stood with his
trembling limbs supported by stout
oaken table, she said:
Father, may God prosper you, but I
doubt if He will. You who forgive none
can scarcely hope to be forgiven: but my
prayers are with you. Mother, good by,
l 60 to Ellen"
The door opened and closed, their
steps sounded but a moment and were
muffled in the solt snow. They were
gone, dissolved i'll the white waste of a
dying years winding sheet.
Mrs. Trenchard stood for second try
ing to realize what had happened to her
since she entered that room. She had
found a daughter and lost one. And
there he sat still gazing in the burning
Goals, that hard old man, the lover of her
youth, changed by some strange alchemy
into cruel, petrifed thing, not spiritual,
nor human, Then she turned and went
away, more full of grief over her babies
lost than for the loss of lover or husband,
as is natural in women. 1t is the moth
er instinct which makes the wounded
tigress crawl to her cubs and lick them
with fainting fondness even as the life
blood is squirting from her riven heart.
Oh, the mothers love-that love which
is greater than all
II 10, h.
blazing logs crumbled into a mass of
ruins and sunk in glowing embers on
The hearth, while the world outside and
The heavens were clothed in a feecy
yarb of cloud and snow and the old year
ay dying, as the hall clock licked away
The last few seconds given to Logan
rrenchard for repentance.
At last he thought of his bed and of
'leep. That sleep (which knits up the
'avelled sleeve of care;;" sleep which
teals away the hardness of age, and
brings instead the drowsy softness OF
,outh. Sleep which forgives enemies,
ements friendship and FORCES the chains
# love. That blessed sleep which opens
he prison doors of the criminal and |
,rings repentance to the troubled heart. |
Yes, he would seek his bed, and there |
n sleep forget the thankless child and
he serpents tooth. He would 60 to bed
nd tomorrow new life for him, child
ess in his whitened age!
He started up at the last ember fell |
nd sent up shower of sparks.
But the hand of an avenging God was
n him and held him down. He could
lot rise.
Why could be not? He strove again,
nd feeling thousand ton of stone from
is 1wn quarries tied to his feet, he cried
ut in passionate despair and chung to
be able and shrieked aloud, 80 God
God letme go! ! will be just; l will:
will undo all. l will make amends"
nd then with little weight lifted from
i'm he staggered up as one in a night
lare, and found that his right side was
aralyzed. That hand he had raised in
ursing his children-that foot he had
tamped in rage-almost useless and yet
nth the energy of madness he dragged
imself to the door and then he hardly
new how he crawled up the long flight
fstairs and to his desolate room, where
e threw himself on the bed and prayed
8 he had never prayed before, that he
7ould be spared until the new day, only
D be given little time. He saw the
7rong; knew at last that his were un-
oily curses.
The new day Of the new year came
18th burst of sunlight upon the white
ills and the deep quarries, broad
freak. Of sunshine falling through the
roken windows of the Abscom cottage
n a pale group inside. Ellen Lipscomb,
Tho sat with her arms about Jeanette's
7aist, by the bedside of her husband,
7hile her child, the little Jophie, named
Or Mrs. Trenchard, stood looking at the
ANDY Snow birds neckinp at the crumbs