The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1888-12-02

Although botany languished slightly
after this vicarious effort, it kept Cressy in
fresh bouquets, and extending its gentle in
| huence to her friends and acquaintance be-
came slightly COMPOUNDED with horticulture,
led to the planting of one or two gardens,
and was accepted in school as an implied
concession to berries, apples, and nuts
In reading and writing Cressy greatly i'm
proved, with marked decrease in gram
NAUTICAL solecism, although she still retained
| certain characteristic words, and always
| her own slow southwestern, half musical
intonation. This languid deliberation was
particularly noticeable in her reading aloud,
and gave the studied and measured rhetoric
a charm of which her careless colloquial
| speech was incapable. Even the Fifth
Reader" with its imposing passages from
| the English classics, carefully selected with a
view of paralyzing small, hesitating or
hurried voices, in Cressys hands became no
longer an unintelligible incantatlon. She
| had quietly mastered the difficulties OF pro-
nunclation by some instructive sense of
euphony if not of comprehension. The
master with his eyes closed hardly recog-
nizsd his pupil. Whether or not she under
stood what she read he hesitated to inquire !;
no doubt, as with her other studies, she
knew what attracted her. Rupert F1lgee, a
sympathetic, if not always a correct rea-
der, who boldly took four and five syllabled
fences flying, only to come to grief perhaps
| in the ditch of some of rhetorical pause be-
| You'd, alone expressed his scorn Of her per-
formance. Octavia Dean, torn between
her hopeless affection for this beautiful but
inaccessible boy, and her soul friendship for
| this bigger but many-frocked girl, studied
the masters face with watchful anxiety.
1t is needless to say that Hiram Mckin-
| stry was, in the intervals of stake-driving
and stock hunting, heavily contented with
| this latest evidence of his daughters prog
ress. He even intimated to the master that
her reading being an accomplishment that
| could be exercised at home was conducive
to that ''kam' in which he was so deficient
1t was also rumored that CreSsy's oral rem
| dering of Addison's reflections in West
minister Abbey" and Burkes Indictment of
Warren Hastings" had beguiled him one
| evening from improving an opportunity to
plug" one of Harrlson's boundary raid
| ers"
The master shared in Cressy's glory in the
public eye. But althoug Mrs. McKinstry
| did not materially change her attitude of
| tolerant good nature toward him, he was
| painfully conscious that she looked upon her
| daughters studies aud her husbands inter
est in them as a weakness that might in
course of time produce infirmity of homi-
| cidal purpose and become enervating of
| eye and trigger finger. And when Mr.
| McKinstry got himself appointed as school
| trustee and was thereby obliged to mlngle
with certain eastern settlers-colleague on
the board-this possible weakening of the
| old sharply drawn sectional line between
"Yanksn and themselves gave her grave
doubts of Hiram's physical stamina.
| THE old man worrits hev sorter shook out
little of his sand, sue had explained.
| On those evenings when he attended the
| board, she sought higher consolation in
prayer meeting at the Southern Baptist
| church, in whose exercises her mort ern and
eastern neighbors, thinly disguisedas 'Baal"
and "Astaroth" were generally overthrow
| and their temples made desolate.
| If Uncle Ben'S progress was slower, it was
| no less satisfactory. Without imagination
and even without enthusiasm, he kept on
with dull laborious persistency. When
| the irascible impotence of Rupert Filgee at
| last succumbed to the obdurate slownesS of
| his pupil the master himself, touched by
Uncle Bens perspiring forehead and per
| picked eyebrows, often devoted the rest of
| the afternoon to a gentle elucidation of tho
mysteries before him, setting copies for his
| heavy hand, or even guiding it with his
own, like child's, across the paper. At
| times the appalling uselessness of Uncle
| Bens endeavors reminded him of RuperJ's
haunting charge. Was he really doing this
| from a genuine thirst OF knowledge!
| It was inconsistent with all that Indian
| Spring knew of his antecedents and his
present ambitions; he was simple miner
| with lut scientific or technical knowledge,
| his already slight acquaintance with arith-
| metic and the scrawl that served for his
| signature were more than sufficient for his
needs. Yet it was with this latter sign
| manual that he seemed to take infinite pains.
| The master one afternoon thought fit to
| correct the apparent vanity OF this per-
| Torrance.
''If YOU took as much care in trying to
| form Tour letters according to copy, you'd
do better. Your signature is ir.enough as
| it is"
But it don't look right, Mr. Ford" said
| Uncle Ben, eyeirg it distruStfully, some
| how it amt all there"
"Why, certainly it is. Look, D A B n E
| Y-not very plain, it's true, but there are
ali the letters.
''That's Just it, Mr.. Ford; them amt ali
| the letters that orter be there. I've allowed
| to write it ID A b n Z Y to save time ard
| ink. but it orter read d A U b G n Y, -
said Uncle Ben, with painful distinctness.
"But that spells d'Aubigny!"
at are"
| is that your namea'
The master looked at Uncle Ben doubt
| fully. Was this only another form of the
| Dobeii illusion!
"Was your father a Frenchmanr he
asked, finally.
Uncle Ben paused as if to recall the
| triflng circumstance of his fathers nation
atty.
| mo-
"Your grandfather
II reckon not. At least ye couldn't prove
| it by me-"
twas your father or grandfather a voy-
ager OF trapper, or Canad ianp
'They were from like county, Miz-
zoori."
The master regarded Uncle Ben still du-
| biously.
But you call yourself Dabney. What
makes you think your real name is dAu-
bignyp
That's the way it lister be writ in letters
to me in the states. Hold on. I'll show
ye."
He deliberately began TO feel in his pock-
cts, finally extracting his old purse, from
which he produced a crumpled envelope,
and carefully smoothing it out, compared it
with his signature.
THAR, you see. It's the same-d'Au-
bignyn
The master hesitated. After all, it was
not impossible He recalled other instances
of the singular transforms ion Of names IN
the California emigration. Yet he could not
help saying:
Then you concluded d'Aubigny was a
better name than Dsbneyp
"Do YOU think it's betterF
ttWon1en might | dare saw your wife