Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1888-01-19
MISS BECKY'S HOME.

TACT, DuU JntTe Was llOtllllS tlSe lol hei
to do, it seemed. Who would think OF
offering any other home to poor, al
most helpless old woman ~who had out
lived her usefulness? Having passed
her days in other peoples houses, SO to
speak, she might not mind it as much,
perhaps, as a more fortunate being.
"Yes," she said, ''there's a vacancy In
the old Ladies' Home,' and the hun
dred dollars that Parson AmOry left me
will pay my way in, but it wouldn't
last long if 1 began to spend it you
know, and shall have 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 L had
been about it all my life; ever siIfce faith
er was taken with heart disease hearing
the class in algebra. Now that the
rheumatism has got the better of me, so
that | can't work in cold weather, and
the doctor says it'll draw my fingers up
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 Beckey had had other eXpecta-
tiOns in her heyday, when young Larry
Rogers met her and carried her basket;
when his strong arm padded her down
! 70 20 V
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
whip-pOor-wi complain and startled the
fre-flies in the hedges as they brushed
by. 1t sometimes seemed to Miss Becky
as if all this had happened in another
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 hopeless at times,
vet her dark, velvety eyes looked out
| like soft stars, and the ghost of dim
pie still flickered on her cheek and chin
in spite of her sixty odd years. Miss
Beckv'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 nut it was
Larry Rogers who had taught ner music
tf1our afteF hour in TIE. empty school
house; they had practieed together while
he wrote the score on the blackboard.
But all this had not Sufficed to enable
her to earn livelihood. Her education,
musical and otherwise, had stopped
short of any commercial value. In those
DAYS she never expected to earn her liv-
| ing by the sweat of her brow. Larry
was going to give her everything. How
trivial the little quarrel seemed to-day
which circumvented this final resolve of
hisl But what magnitude it had assum-
ed at the timel On his return from a
| trip to a neighbOring city, some busy
body had whispered 20 Larry that Miss
Becky had been seen driving with Squire
Eustis' son Sam. behind his trotters
Sam. was just home from college, a
harum-skarum 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 then? If you
choose to listen to gossip rather than
wait till you"
,"But you didn't tell me, and I've been
here week"
81 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 in
credulity so stung Becky that she would
not cOndescend to explain that she had
carried some needlework up to Squire
Eustis's, 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 how she had been ashamed to re-
fuse their kindness, although preferring
to walk 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 ParsOn Amo-
rvs, three miles out of her way, ''that
Lucy Amory may see you don't disdain
my 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; without her l
shall be nothing and nobody; but they've
told her she might as well jump into
the river as marry such Scapegrace.
And perhaps, if l made her little jeal-
Ous-yOu know there's no harm in that,
is there? Ais fair in love, and, per-
haps, if the old folks see me driving
about with Becky Thorne my stock may
go up, and 1 may be saved from the
burning, as Parson Amory says"
And Becky had consented. How
could she refuse to do a service for such
true lover? So slight a thing, too!
She had often traversed the same road
since 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 country to-day.
| Strange how that friendly drive had in
terfered with Miss Beck's prospects chow
the simple fact of carrying home Mrs.
Eustis' needlework should have deter
mined her fate and devoted her to a life
of hardship and the Old Ladies' Home
at the end! Talk of triflesl Poor Miss
Illdb OIlCC vi
twice the opportunity had offered when
she might have made it up with Larry;
but pride, or sort of finereserve, had
locked her lips-Larry ought to know
she was above silly fiirtations. Once
when they met at Lucy Amory's we'd
ding, when they all went out into the
orchard while the bride planted young
tree and the guests looked for four
leaved clovers, she had found herself
whether by accident or design she could
not tell-on the grass beside Larry; their
fingers met on the same lucky clover,
Their eyes met above it and for an in
slant she had it on her tongues end to
confess all about the drive and its result,