Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1889-11-27

Interpret the laws of the land;
In every cline I'm the friend of the brave,
And hold to all my hand.
w. H. veith, in n. Y. Ledger.
JACOBS FAULTS.
he Unexpectedly Protlted by Hav-
ing Them Recounted.
1t was early June, in one of those
charming places on the Hudson river
shat lie between New York and Albany.
The satisfying greenness of the land
scape left one no chance to regret the
past glory Of the blossoms. 1t seemed
as If, should one speak at all, it ought
to be in blank verse about the hills
elapping their hands, about green past
ures, about all the secret things that
have ceased to mean so much them
selves as to express in the abstract be-
lief in love and life and beauty and
peace.
Jacob RauS was an inattractive OBJ
server OF this charming phase of nature.
He was preoccupied with his own
troubled soul, and here was but wintry
prospect. The world points out to q
man the necessity of doing something;
there was no corresponding need in his
soul. He had lately come into an ex-
eelent property, and had invested
good proportion of it in a ranch in the
West The West was no place of his
choice, but what else was he to do? He
was thirty-two, and was without even a
commercial training. He had been
bred to no profession, and he was not
rich enough to live with rich men as q
pleasure-seeker, even had such life
attracted him. He had perfect health,
was good shot, a good reader, good
walker, a good companion. He wore
blonde beard upon his sunburnt face,
with its handsome, clean-cut profile and
hazel eyes
This bold statement of his case pre-
scnted itself over and over to his mind,
quite as.f he were weighing an abstract
question that bored him excessively.
Then he grew irritated that his father
should have given him such an old
fashioned, half-humorous name, and ex-
erted always an unspoken and only half
recognized negative tyranny on his
whole life; that his father should have
had that irresponsibility in the paternal
relation that is scarcely to be found out
side the Anglo-Saxon race-as if the
Anglo-Saxon was born armed at all
points, and with an intuitive knowledge
Of fighting his way through the world.
The more Jacob accused himself Of
impiety in accusing the dead, the more
obstinately the conviction forced itself
upon him that his thought was, never
the7ess, just; and the implied weakness
On his own part was in nowise consoling.
Now he was free at thirty-two-a
freedom that meant bondage to his own
limitations; and while he regretted that
he had no profession, he bitterly recog-
nized the fact that the desire for a larger
life in no se7se proved a talent. His
desire was, as we have said, not one for
action. 1t was a vague desire for q
larger happiness, such as women have
oftener than men. They should wake
like children of a Christmas morning,
and find it in their stockings.
All these reasons for gloom were ever
present to Jacob; but he had lately walked
to more definite purpose and more
definite grief. His decision to 20 on a
raneh had made him recognize that he
could not leave Millicent Fuller, whom
he had known from her childhood, and
who had been for some years past, half
unconsciously to himself, his chief occu-
patton. He offered himself to her. She
refused him. She was the youngest and
t,ae only unmarried one of five sisters,
She was twenty two, handsome, travelled
AID accomplished. - ~. --''~
Jacob, as he walked through shady
road, cut a fine bouquet of sweetbrier
roses, and trimmed their thorny, strag-
CLING stems with an ill-humored energy.
He had not pride enough to go away
without asking to see her once more,
just to say goodbye, and she had accorded
him an interview that evening at half.
past seven. r.
He walked all around the Fullers' large
house, past the broad piazzas, and found
her alone in little side-poreh that was
overgrown with honeysuckle vines; and
amid their pinkish- yellow blossoms Nil.
licent, in pink muslin, looked like rosy
June personihed Her father and mother
had just gone to drive, she explained
precisely, as she took Jacobs silently.
proHered flowers with hne blush 10,
thanks. 2t.=t1 s
II am afraid, sne said, neryously, as
she carefully picked . few thorns from
the stem OF her bouquet before she
grasped II, that didn't succeed the