St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1886-05-13
AFTER YEARS.
A Story of n Bed of MarigOlds.
lfM.az TiI1.a Mics r1illfa ~

''He's an old bachelor, Susan Kite
says"
"Mercy on us, Kizzy Jones Who's
an old bachelor"
Miss Tillie Bell, who had been med
itating deeply as to whether scarlet,
orange or green would be best to be-
gin with in working motto, had evi
IDENTIFY not paid due heed to the open
ing remarks of her handmade.
Kizzy gave her broom flourish, and
replied to her mistress's question.
"The Teller that's took the cottage
back yonder on the hill. l don't reck-
on he's overly young he's kinder gray,
but not very; jest leetle grain, an
what do you think he's been a-dOin'
all the mOrnin' z"
Goodness me, Keziah, how should
1 know?"
"Been a plantin' marigolds in his
front yard all the blessed mOrnin'.
Bought whole lot of packages of
seed, Susan said, every one marigOlds."
"Dear me, what funny man ~ said
Miss Bell.
But as Kizzy hung up the broom and
disappeared the large cardboard motto
slid Oh to the floor on the one side of
her, and the skeins of wOrsted on the
other, all in a tangle of vivid color, and
Miss Tillie forgot them, forgot the
present entirely, and sat with her
hands folded, and her soft eyes look
ing out to the line of hills across the
fields.
1t was the word "marigolds" that
had sent her thoughts wandering, so
often will one simple word waken a
| whole train of recOllectiOns
There was sadness mingled with
these freshly stirred remembrances, a
sadness that had come to her through
her first and only romance. Now she
was pretty and pink and plump. Then
she was slender and pale, and Joe Gift
ford had seen the wide world in her
eyes, and there had been promises and
an engagement ring, and little brown
cottage bought, back on the hill, with
funny, straggly, redbud tree in a
corner of the bit of front yard, and
Title, who had very little money of
her own in those days, invested three
pence in paper of marigOld seeds to
beautify the yard.
"FOr," she said, "marigOlds are such
a hearty jolly kind of flowers. There
is so much satisfaction in tbem."
But just as they had come up and
began to bloom in huge brilliant masses
of golden yellow and velvet-sOft red
| brown, three weeks before the we'd
ding day, what was it took all the light
out of them-all the suggestive beauty
and sweetness out of the brown cot
tage?
What but horrible quarrel with
JOe-a quarrel in which they had both
acted with the wisdom and common
sense of couple of belligerent chill
dren fighting over something as i'm
portant as rag doll, and breathing
threats against each other.
And Joe had wound it all up by re-
pairing to the brown cottage in ter
rible temper, and pulling up every
marigOld by the roots, throwing them
spitefully across the street, as near
Titles home as possible, where they
lay, ID heap of bright color, fading and
willing in the sun.
If straight, slim little figure, in a
gray dress, trying to look as much like
a shadow as posi- BILE, had slipped out
of the house in the faint light of cres-
cent moon and gathered up one little
velvet-red marigOld from the heap
moist with dew, and if that marigold,
all dead and dry, was in one of Miss
Titles boxes upstairs now, why no one
but Tillie had any suspicion of it.
And Joe had sold the cottage and
gone away.
"And he can stay away while the
world lasts, for all of me-" Tillie had
said, remem boring how he had called
her an obstinate little jade, though to
be sure she had called him an ogre.
Tillie was devOut little woman,
and was bent on walking in the narrow
est heavenward path she could find,
yet her besetting sin of temper would
get in her way sometimes and trip her
up.
"And as if" she had said, 'there
were not higher duties in life than
thinking of an obstinate goose of a man
with very bad temper"
And yet how many tears she had
shed over that little dead marigold in
the box. Tillie was not so unfOrgiv-
ing as she had tried to be.
And now a man had taken the brown
cottage on the hill-a bachelor, not
"Overly" young, who had been plant
ing marigolds all the morning. Well,
Joe could not be overly young now.
Suppose this man should be Joe?
Kizzy's head was pOked inside the
door.
"Miss Tillie," said she, "he's goin'
to be married, the fellow with the mar
igOlds is"
AS the head disappeared Miss Title
snapped the threads of her reverie,
gave her head an impatient little toss,
and picking up her motto and her
wool, began to work briskly.
swell, WE'LL" she half sighed, eff
L. 4 4 &c =
that things will come out all right some
time"
Kizzy came fyingin red and giggling,
with some one stalking solemnly be-
hind her.
''Hese he is, Miss Tillie, that's him."
she cried, evolving a litter, and point
ing to a square shouldered man in the |
doorway, whose thick brown hair was
lightly tinged with gray.
1t was Joe Clifford, not looking so
very different from what he had in the |
old days.
"Tillie," said he, without any pre-
face, "rve come back and bought the
cottage again, and planted the mari
Colds And now don't you think we
had better fulfill the contract we broke
so long ago."
~ thought" fiuttered Tillie. "Kiz-
zie said"
"'Twasn't me, twas Susan Kite
said it, when she fetched the milk this
evenin'-said her brother Jaff was in
the store and heard the men AKIN of
him." pointing her elbow at Joe, "if he
was goin' to git married, and he
said, you had better reckon L am"
"And so l am if she will have me-"
answered Joe, coming forward. "Kiz-