The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1888-09-29

| great and unprecedented event in his life
| He was a country farmer of very moderate
MEANS but for all that, he had read, he had
observed, he never doubted but that he was
much more man of the world than others
who had had much better advantages for
| becoming so. The very bulk of his CONVEX
sation was carried on in the common YER
nacular, but he felt that he could be courtly
and ceremonious to the last degree. When
he read sentence that seemed to him to
be the thing in the way of polite repartee or
! gallant address, he reread it until he had
made it his own. That sort of thing was
| doubly effective, he thought, from man
who commonly used the old-fashioned Yam
kee dialect. 1t gave him the effect of being
| conversant with several languages.
II have sometimes found it rather dull
waiting here, but to-day quite reckon on
it" he replied, with his most polished man
ner"
did you ever try to make the time pass
away by imagining the pursuits and destina-
| tions of the various persons you see around
you'" he added.
''No," she added quickly. She still seemed
nervous from her shock. l should think it
would be very interesting. Let's begin
now"
Mr.. Dunlap looked helplessly around the
room.
Their few fellow travellers seemed of
| hopelessly neutral, non-committal cast of
countenance.
Nobody here looks ez eff they'd ever done
| any thing of much account an couldn't eff
they set out to- he said, after pause. 81
tell you what less do he added, brighten
ing "less put ourselves inter a story To
begin with, we met by chance, the usual
way, an while settin' here take an awful
shine to you, What d. yer say!" and he
nudged her in what he considered a jocose
but not indicate manner.
She had looked at him sharply as he
dropped into his ordinary habit of speaking,
and then apparently made up her mind that
| he was acting some part.
Don't you think that the beginning would
| lack originality just trife!" she suggested.
"There are so many stories that begin just
that way, Now, perhaps, if | fell in love
with you it would be less obvious"
MIR. Dunlap had an idea that she was
laughing at him.
"Such things ez that hez ben known to
happen" he said rather sulkily
80, certainlyp' she assented II have
heard of such instances, but we must i'm
agine some rather unusual causes and cir
cumstances--sSr instance, suppose that am
married."
"Be you3" he asked abruptly Il took you
for a single woman
This is make believe story" she an
swered with a bright, mischievous smile.
ITS gittin rather common for married
women to fall in love with other men, now
a-days," he observed, rather revengefully
Il accept your objection" she said; 'but
of course there must be alternating cir
cumstances,' as some one says. Ny hus-
| band, for instance she ADDED, with a far
away, inscrutable look, ''we'll suppose, for
sake of argument, is cross-brutal to me-
He strikes me on the slightest provocation.
"Git out" murmured Mr.. Dunlap with
| sympathetic incredulity.
He takes delight in thwarting all nv
wishes, he makes my life wretched. | meet
| you-you are kind and don't swear at me
when tumble against you, and YOU pick
| up my bundles, which is something so for
egn to all my experience that fall in love
with you at once. But of course | don't
know it, people are not apt to know those
! things-in stories-so | don't dream of it,
! Then by a series of condolences which
couldn't happen anywhere except in stories
we'll fill in the details after we've sketched
out the plot-we met accidentally several
times and all the time out of Difference to.
the opinions and prejudices of the reader |
still don't suspect the state of my feelings,
and you of course are equally in the dark
''Well, now, about that time, something
must happen to reveal to US as by lightning
stroke that we love one another, for by this
time you moved by the spectacle of, not
beauty in distress, but by more distressing
exhibition of ugliness suffering a trife more
than her just deserts, are feeling that pity
that is said to be akin to a commoner SEN
timent
"Now we must find some situations that
will reveal all this to us without shocking
the delicacy of the most rigidly conven-
tional reader, who must be made to see and
admit that we couldn't have done differ
entity.
LET me see, the presence of death gen.
orally comes in to countenance people in
similar situations"
1--WE might be drowning" suggested Mr..
| Dunlap you fall in, rush to save you,
| you know, an jst ez we was sinkin for the
last time, while every thing in our past lives
was a comm up before US, we both re-
member the time when | rescued your
bundles and then it comes to us both that
we love each other. Folks couldn't find no
| fault with that, couldn't theyw
we'll no, Sdlu Jle lazy, JnOugnJtully,
81 don't think the most rigid moralist could
| object to two people finding out that they
love one another when they are sinking for
the last time with their lungs full of water,
and proverbial straw of Observation-Disclosures
is slipping from their nerveless grasp But
what object to is that it makes the story
too short. l haven't suffered enough yet to
satisfy the practiced reader. We must be
brought near enough to the verge of this
world so that we feel ourselves beyond the
reach of ordinary regulations and still
be left with articulation enough to reveal
our innoxious love. Then there must be a
rescue and resuscitation for the purpose of
overwhelming us with shame, contrition
and remorse."
somebody can come along and pull us
out Of the water" suggested Mr.. Dunlap,
who felt that he was not contributing his
share to the story, land bring US to by roll
ing US on barrels"
Rolling on barrels may be the scientific
method Of resuscitation, but science is no.
| toriously unavailable for poetic purposes.
Besides" she continued, with extreme
gravity sit seems to me that two we'll
meaning persons like ourselves are going to
suffer sufficiently from our consciences
without the additional anguish of being
rolled on barrels Let us be lust before we