The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1888-07-13
MISS BECKY'S HOME.

JduitS IlDliiC sb IdSls IL dS u SOIiy
fact, but there was nothing else for her to
do, it seemed. Who would think of offer
ing any other home to a poor, almost help
less old woman, who had outlived her use
fulness? Having passed her days in other
people houses, so to speak, she might not
mind it as much, perhaps, as a more fortu-
maize being.
eyes" she said, 'there's a vacancy in
the odd Ladies' Home, and the hundred
dollars that Parson Amory left me will
pay my way in, but it wouldn't last long
if / began 10 spend it, you know, and |
shall have a warm bed and my regular
meals without worrying about where the
next ones coming from. I'm most tired
worrying about ways and means. Seems
as though ! had been about it all my life;
ever since father was taken with heart dis
ease hearing the class in algebra. Now
that the rheumatism has got the bet
ter of me, so that | can't work in cold
weather, and the doctor says it'll draw my
fingers so that | can't use them soon, it
doesn't seem as If there was anything left
for me in this world but the Homeland
ought to be thankful for that
Miss Becky had had other expectations
in her heyday, when Young Larry Rogers
met her and carried her basket; when his
strong arm padded her down the broad
river to church on Sunday mornings; when
they sang together in the choir from the
same hymn book; when they loitered
homeward In the fragrant summer dusk,
and heard the w~hip-poor-will complain and
startled the t~ire-flies in the hedges as they
brushed by. 1t sometimes seemed to Miss
Becky as if all this had happened in an
other planet. She was young then, with a
bloom on her cheek; but, although the
rheumatism had bent her figure and rem
dered her more or less helpless at times,
yet her dark, velvety eyes looked out like
soft stars, and the ghost Of u dimple still
6ickered on her cheek and chin in spite Of
her sixty odd years. Miss Becky's father
had been the district school teacher in
those far-off days of her girlhood. He had
taught her the simple lore at his command,
but it was Larry Rogers who had taught
her music hour after hour in the empty
schoolhonse; they practiced together while
he wrote the score on the blackboard.
But all this had not suficed to enable
her to earn a livelihood. Her education,
musical and otherwise, had stopped short
of any commercial value. In those days
she never expected to earn her living by
the sweat of her brow. Larry was going
to give her everything. How trivial the
little quarrel seemed to, day which circum-
vented this final resolve of his But what
magnitude it had assumed at the time On
his return from q trip to a ~neighboring
city, some busybody had whispered to
Larry that Miss Becky had been seen driv-
ing with Squire Eustis' son Sam behind
his ~trotters. Sam was just home from col
lege, a harnm-searGm fellow, they said,
who made love right and left and gambled
a bit; and when Larry reproached her with
it she had not denied; she had simply said:
"What them? If you choose to listen to
gossip rather than wait till you"
"But you didn't tell me, and I've been
here a week.
II had forgotten all about it till you
reminded me- said Becky.
"It's such an everyday affair for you to
drive with Sam Eustis!'' which incredul-
ity so stung Becky that she would not con-
descend to explain that she had carried
some needlework up to Squire Eustis',
which she had been doing for his wife,
and that as she left to walk home Sam was
Just starting off with his smart chaise and
new dapple grays, and the Squire had
SAID, ''Take Miss Becky home, sam, and
show her their paces;'' and low she had
been ashamed to refuse their kindness,
although preferring to walk n thousand
times; and how, once in the chaise, Sam
had been the very pink of courtesy, and
begged her to drive over with him to Par
son Amory, three m lies out of her way,
THAT Lucy Amory may see you don't
disdainmy company. For you see," said
Sam, who was not as black as he was
painted, or as many liked to suppose,
Lucy can make me what she will, with
out her | shall be nothing or nobody; but
they've told her all kinds of wild things
about me; they've told her she might as
well jump into the river as marry such a
scape-grace. And, perhaps, if | made her
q little jealous-you know there's no harm
in that, is there? All's fair in love; and,
perhaps, if the old folks see me driving
about with Becky Thorne my stock may
go up, and l may be saved from the
bnining, as Parson Amory says"
And Becky had consented. How could
she refuse to do a service for such n true
lover? So slight a thing, toe. She had
often trayersed the same road on foot, on
her daily rounds of toll or mercy. Sam
Eustis had married Lucy Amory years
ago, and was the foremost man in the
county to-day. Strange how that drive
had interfered with Miss Beeky's pros
poets; how that simple fact of carrying
home Mrs. Eustis' needlework should have
determined her fate and devoted her to a
life of hardship and the Old Ladies' Home
at the end, Talk of %trifles. Poor Miss
Reckvi She remembered once or twice