Reporter and farmer. [volume] (Webster, Day County, Dakota [S.D.]) 188?-1946, 1886-04-29
THE HOUSE BY THE RIVER.

Its glorles were long gone by. They
belonged to the days when the great
folks of the land saw fit, by the de-
crees of fashion, to have a country
house" at Chelsea, or at Battersea,
or at Fulham, and so on.
Nowadays these dreams of the
country have been irremediably
quashed by the remorseless will OF
iron roadways. Perhaps-we only
use the vague word because we do not
intend to localize sur house too dis
tinctiy-perhaps more than one such
iron roadway may carry folks on an
uplifted embankment past it's upper
windows; perhaps hundreds of busy
city workers may at the actual time
of these words being written, be whirl-
ing past its serene old garden. Radi-
ant nasturtiums flash their scarlet
and crimson and gold up from be-
tween tle autumn busted lines and
yews and hollies; the geraniums are
growing leafy, mignonette is growing
seedy-really, the people in the train
have no time to notice them. In a
second they are flying across theriver,
and in another they are above wharv.
es and coal trucks, without vestige
of flower garden at hand. But in
the old house some serene spirit seems
still to rest.
Mrs. Lane, a widow lady, to whom
the place had come by astrange course
of events, was such a quiet, peaceful.
hammered lady, that one could scarce
ly help associating her with the veneer.
alton one easily feels for old-world
glories. With very slight sprinkling
OF romance, one might set her in q
picture of some grand old time. when
lordly folks came to visit the old
house, and when hoops and powder
aye, perhaps farthingales and ruffs-
were parading the pleached alleys Of
the garden.
But she had no ancestral claim on
the place. She had simply inherited
the house from an eccentric cousin oil
her husbands. That husband had
been a prosaic, not wealthy, West In,
dia merchant, and the cousin had
bought the place when, with wharf
lying little higher up the river, it had
come into the market. No romance
of history, you see, can be found for
the Shore House, and, SO far, no ro-
nance of the present.
All clue to its ancient possessor had
gone. The wharf had been the attrac-
ton for John Sale, seeing that he had
other wharves contiguous, and he
wanted the house not at all. Hewas a
bachelor, and eccentric, and for five
years he let the place go to rack and
ruin. Then he had it repaired and
beautitied according to modern fash:
ion, as a local man interpreted it and
again he let it stand untenanted.
Now, eccentricities often grow out
OF what was once a simple romance,
and it had been so with this John Sale.
A very simple romance indeed had
come to HIM as very young man, but
it had not brought to him the desired
ending; so when he was old, he was
known as q very cranky person. A
sane person, assuredly, but still a
cranky one.
When he died, his will left most OF
his property to charities, but a certain
sum and the Shore House went 70 the
heirs of certain Jane Lucas, OF
Steveney, Bucks; failing such heirs
discoverable within year from the
testator's death, he willed that the
share should 60 to his cousin, Daniel
Lane of Barbados, or his heirs
No Jane Lucas could be heard of.
Daniel Lane had died before John
Sale, so his family had the house, and
strangely enough, on rummaging
amongst Sales papers, as strangers
will do, a letter was found addressed
to Mrs. Lane.
1t was couched in vague and mystic
rious language, but 1T enjoined hernever
to sell the Shore House. Why?
No one could answer. 1t was no le-
gally worded condition accompanying
fo, - 90 Sbort a no;Ss;ye conId do Il
binted at ayij accr,I;ng to here W !
a b;atus thicElv.rI7Isd short line
another OF the mannerisms of the
writer, Eyes, and to you also if you
sell the house"
Mrs Lane was calm, and gentle, and
peaceful, but she shuddered for an in
slant For one instant those words
touched her like an imprecation.
But il She was calm and Quiet she
was also gifted with common sense.
and She said TO herself that So fine q
bouse She was not likely to give away
Selling It was more unlikely. for in the
depreciation of property She would
never get for it what would buy her
another hall so good.
So she and her girls were settled at
the shore House with streets of la.
borers' dwellings, about them. There
was q viearaoe half a mile off, and also,
there were two or three doctors-doc-
tors must settle, be the neighborhood
q moor or rich one--here is the full list
Of tbe gentry OF the locality.
Her relations thought Mrs. Lane,
with three marriapeable daughters
foolish to obey cold Sales" will, but
sho only smiled in her calm wav. and
took her own course without any more
d;stnrbance After her husbands
death she had come to know cold
sale. and such affection as the eccen.
trio man had for human kind he gave
to her.
The house itself was lust the place
Won might expect to see if YOU had
driven in through old Iodge-cates, had
rolled through avenues of lordly elms,
and over green rulings of messy turf.
There IL was. asouare, red brick house,
with rows OF shining windows framed
in stone. with no porch. but with a
heavily pedimented doorway at whose