Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1888-12-21
At TIfE STA TYON
A North Carolina story with "a Christ
man. E.As..

mas Ending.
Nothing could well he more common
place or ignoble than the corner of the
world in which Miss Dilly now spent her
life.
\ wayside inn, near a station on the rail
way which runs from Salisbury, in North
Carolina, up into the great Appalachian
range OF mountains two or three unpaint-
ed boxes Of houses scattered along the
track by the inn not a tree or blade of
grass in the ''clarin = few gaunt. long
legged pigs and chickens grunting and
cackling in the muddy clay yards beyond
swampy tobacco fields stretching to the en-
circling pine woods For Sewer Station
lay on the lowland the mountains rose far
TO the west, like blue haze on the horizon
rhe railway ran like bl ok line across the
plain, and stopped at their foot at a ham
let called Henry's; thence an occasional
enterprising traveller took the team up
The precipitOus mountain road 10 Asheville
then sleepy village unknown to tourists
Nothing, too, could have been more COM
monplace or ignoble than Miss Dilv her
self a pudgy old woman Of sixty, her
shapeless body covered with a scant. blue
homespun gown, with big white apron
tied about where the waist should have
been "A face like that Of an exaggerated
baby, and round, innocent blue eyes,
which, when they met yours, you were
sure were the friendliest in the world Miss
Dilly always wore a coarse white handker-
chief Snowy white, and freshly ironedD
pinned about her neck, and another tied
over her ears, for she had occasionally a
mysterious pain, commonly known to us
AS neuralgia, but which the Caroinian
mountaineers declare is only caused by be-
ing overlooked" by someone who has an
evil eye.
They tell me it must be So" Miss Dillv
would say. But. of course. my dear, it
was done by accident Nobody would hurt
a person thataway, meanin' it. An it's a
mighty tarrible thing TO have that kind of
an eye | hope the good Lord don't let
any poor soul know that he has it,"
Miss Dilly had had this pain only since
she had lived in the lowland 1t had al.
most disabled her. She was born in the
mountains-up on the old Black-and she
fancied if she would 60 back to them she
would be cured. But her younger brother.
James, owned this farm and inn, and when
their mother died, twenty years ago. he
had agreed with Preston Barr that he should
have both. rent free, if he would give Dill
ly home and the yield of one field of to-
bacco yearly. James then set off to the
West TO make his fortune. Letters at first
came regularly. But it was ten years now
since she had heard from him.
Nobody ever heard a groan from Miss
Dilly when the attacks of pain came on.
When the good Lord gives you a load to
cahry, | reckon I ar'nt the clean thing to
lay it on other folks shoulders, " she woul d
say, laughing. She shut herself up, there
fore, in her own chamber, and would let
nobody in. though everybody at the inn,
from Squire Barr himself to Sam (the black
cook, ostler, and chambermaid), besieged
the door
gloom like that of funeral overhung
the whole clarin' when Miss Dillv had one
of her spells. After the passage of the
two trains a day it was the one topic of in
terest.
I've knowed wimmen as was Younger. "
old Colonel Royal would say, solemnly
wagging his head and winking his bleared
eyes but Aunt Dilly is the jokingest and
most agreeable of her sex in this part of
Cahliny, to my thinkin'.n
Yes Squire Barr would answer, nod
ding gravely. 'And how any human
tiend can lay the DEVILS look on her passes
me ~
When the attack was over she would
come down, pale and pinched about the
jaws, but smiling, kissing and shaking
hands all round if she had come back
from long journey.
The Squire invariably addressed her with
ponderous gravity after this fashion:
''Ef it be So Aunt Dilly, S you think 90
IN back 10 yer home on tn Old Black d
give you ease, say the wohd | cahn't pay
aaUaf in 6 - 81. L
I've got none. But in traffic. tobacco,
cohn, an millet-it II all he sent up reg
lar Though what we'd do without you
| all, passes me !"
At which Mrs. Missouri Barr would look
at Miss Dilly with tears on her gaunt
checks, and the girls would hang about
her, patting her, and the colonel would de
clare with an oath that the whole clarin
had been powerful interrupted while you
all was gone"
These were the happiest moments of Mis-
/ Dillys happy life. She would explain care
/ fully TO them, Tor the thousandth time, her
/ feeling ON the matter. "'r seems to m,
ef l was in the old place, facin' Old Crag
/ gy, n the SwanannOa a-runnin past tn,
door, n could 20 set by father n mother
every mOrnin', whar they're lyin' among
the rowan trees, I'd get young agin n los,
this torment. But then, what "a james
think eff he'd come back hyar ready t
cahry me TO his home in Colorado or then
furrin countries Me gone, after my prom
ise to wait N it would go hard too leav,
you, Preston, n Missoury, n the girls, I
Sam, n all-very hard !"
The girls always surprised Miss Dill,
with a good supper on these recoveries, an,
the colonel and Squire Preston felt it thei
duty to 90 to bed drunker than usual, il
sign of JOY.
At other times, life at SEWER Station wa
stagnant enough. Miss Dilly sewed O
knit in her own room, sitting at the win
dow where she could see the six men of tn
village sitting in row in the gallery o
the inn, smoking. She called them he
boys, and when one chanced 10 have tn
rheumatism o. tooth-ache or a snake bite
clucked about him like AN old hen over a
ailing chick. All the children in the ham
let were free of her room there was al
ways one at least with her, listening to he
old Bible stories. Neither they nor Mis-
Dilly were at all sure how far exactly Pal
estine was from Carolina indeed, Dill
had dim conviction that the mountain
on which her Lord walked and suffered an
died as man were part of the mountain
yonder, which were all the world that sh
knew.
There was no church near the station
there were not even the monthly ''pra ars
which keep up the religious aud social lif
of the mountains. Miss Dilly with her b
BILE and her incessant innocent talk of 'th
good Lord" was all the pope or preache
known 10 these people the only messenge
sent to show them how to live or to die.
In the morning the train passed the sta
ton going up to Henry's; in the afternoo
it came down it halted for five or ten miT