The Louisiana Democrat. [volume] (Alexandria, La.) 1845-1918, 1886-09-08

hillside appie-trees. Here Eliza beth
Earling often spent the sunny after
moons, watching the little walker in his
waddiing feats with happy eyes, or
looking laughingly up from her needle
work to note the break-neck pranks OF
the sweating Absalom, performing the
arduous part of harlequin to the heir
apparent. Back of and above them
the old dwelling held its gables against
the blue sky and circling swallows, and
below them the green ground swayed
softly down to meet the meadows, and
they in turn the glinting levels of the
stream. Ever and anon boat went
laboring up the broad river, breaking
its CLASSY surface into crinkled silver,
or one came fieetly down, Haunting
its backward streaming plume OF
smoke, and sank away around
the great bend to the south. A road
ran northward obeying the long
textures of the mighty stream, dividing
the meadows here, entering the wood
land there, and crossing many a brook
that came purling downward from the
upland, ere it found the bustling viii
lage, family deserted from Earling
farm. Midway on this curving will
lowy highway lay the estate of lvyl
Snaer. Evil Sheer was the pseudonym
old Jade was wont to give him in his
growlings, though this slightly obese
bachelor was commonly as bland as a
summer morning. About this respect
able person, however, there seemed
always sort of aroma of acquisitive
greed that chilled little the sensi tive
instincts of the just and generous.
Still his affable and oily air, despite
many curious, if not questionable, bust
ness habits, went far to make his social
place reputable. Though not yet
arrived at mid-life not inconsider-
able portion of this world S
goods had come glibly into his
possession. True this prosperity had
brought pain and privation to some,
and inconvenience at least to many.
| but since the social scepter then, as
now, awarded seats of honor to the
successful cleaners Of gold, rather
than to the acquisitive in less gaudy
and less potent metals. the horizon of
his influence was rather widened than
diminished. A sort of land-b broker
was this Ivyl Snaer; ostcnsibly a
worker of the soil, his personal opera
tons upon that honest quantity con-
sidered rather its utility as a thing of
trade than as an agent of more palpa-
BILE fruits. A foreman on his big farm
contiguous to John Earnings estate,
directed the energies of the ground
into gain, while Ivyl. from the van
tage-point Of partial residence at a
public house in town, cast invisible
nets into the sea of other mems neces-
sites, bringing up many a golden lien
and swiftly ripening mortgage. What
the exact inclination of his sentiments
were as touching religion lay some.
what in doubt, but real or simulated,
he indisputably sought the house OF
God with much regularity and meek
ness of expression. With much deco
rum, too, as became staid and opulcnt
example of good morals, he sat al
the spiritual board, regarding not the
length or brevity of its ministrations
Perhaps his eyes of washy blue were a
trife null, and his fingers, laced to.
gether across his ample stomach,
drawn little tight, but nevertheless
the impressive sobriety of his attitude
went far to indicate to others the rev
erent sincerity of his heart. Very
suave and deferential was Ivyl Snae1
with bluff John EARRING, whether in
acknowledgment of his iron-like in.
tegrity, or out of some unspoken hate,
it were at best impossible to discover.
The gruff Scotchman at least drew even.
ly in the social yoke with smiling Ivyl,
for in that rather obscure corner of the
fat old Commonwealth of Ohio
they two perhaps were richest. This
fact may have contained the kernel OF
the matter; in any case, it was patent
to all that Earling held his fowery
fellow in something little milder than
contempt; and whatever the true COM
plexion of Ivyls feelings, their expires.
sion, even for this master of adulation,
was strangely purry and obsequious.
In one presence alone did Ivyl Snaer
seem unworthy of his reputation. Be.
fore the clear, deep eyes of Elizabeth
Earring his rather unsteady orbs went
down, and his tongue forgot its cum.
ming. Did it seem to him that his soul
was stripped in these moments, and
his motives all uncovered? Did his
spirit shrink down instinctively before
the lofty purity of her womanhood:
Was he like boy made bashful by the
beauty of her flesh? She at least saw
the swift confusion of his wits when
chance or purpose brought them
face to face, and wondered al
it. Doubtless the fact that
of all the women of that
region, Elizabeth Earling was perhaps
the fairest and most gently bred,
pointed more or less accurately to the
solution. She had not considered this,
however, since Ivyl Snaer was nothing
i'll her world beyond rather pompous
neighbor, whose presence chilled lit
tie the calm, clear currents of her nat
nre. Sewing one evening under the
hillside apple-trees, with her lusty
baby-boy growing and falling after the
fat pippins that Absalom bowled across
the matted grass, she saw her husband
coming slowly homeward through the
freckled autumn. The weather was
restful, the air being balmy and of in
dolent motion, ard the long gray river
gurgling and whispering lazily onward
to the south. But whatever the humor
of the season, it was not John Earling' s
wont to ride so slowly Action was
his leading idiosyncrasy. The wife
watched him where a long way up
the white road he entered the
! skirting fringes of the wood, and