Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1889-05-11
HOW EPH GOT EVEN.

Judge Lawton, and then, without
waiting for an answer, he went on in
grumbling tone: II suppose YOU'RE
going to take something to that lazy
vagabond Eph's wife. Well, go if you
want to, but mark me, Ella, you'll be
agreeing with me before long, that
the more you do for people like that,
the more they will impose upon your
good nature"
The judge, having made his little
speech with all the pomposity of man.
ner which was part of himself,
turned on his heel with much DELHI
Grafton, and rubbing his fat white
hands together, as though to wash
them free from all participation in
his daughter Elias deed Of charity,
marched into his study, and closed
the door with bang.
Mr.. Lawton, who was generally
called judge by his neighbors, because
he was not only the richest but the
most dignified man in the little Long
Island village of Shoreport, was a
widower, with but one child, Ella,
whose birth had cost her mother her
life, and who was fair haired blue
eyed child of about Is.
Until she was 10 years old she was
known as one of the most thorough
tomboys the neighborhood possessed.
There was not a horse on the place
on whose back she had not tasted the
forbidden pleasure of bare back ride,
and there was scarcely a tree in the
woods at the rear of the house she had
not climbed, to the destruction of
frocks and the terror of her old nurse.
Nothing, therefore, could well have
been more distressing to a girl of her
disposition than to be debarred entire
ly from exercise. And yet that is
what befell her some five years before
the time of which | write.
Swinging one day on a lower limb
of the old gnarled pear tree which
overshadowed the orchard fence, the
branch, already decayed, gave way
under the vibrations, and Ella fell
heavily to the ground.
At first she thought nothing of it,
but day by day the aching in her back
continued, and grew worse, until at
length her father, noticing the pain
she evidently suffered, sent for old
DR.. Hart. .E
The doctor made q careful examina-
ton, softly whistling to himself as he
did SO, according to his habit.
'Lassie," he said, "you must lie
down and not move for long, long
while if you want to get WELL" And
the long while proved to be months
and months
AT first the girl rebelled at the con-
finement, and many were the peevish
EXPLANATIONS which escaped her. Then
q change crept over her, and the irri-
liability by degrees departed, to be sue
ceeded by sweetness and gentleness
which caused her to be still more be-
loved by the household.
When at length she could sit up,
and the good old doctor, holding her
wasted little hand in his old wrinkled
paw, which still had a touch as ten
der as a woman's, told her the bitter
truth, she received it without tear or
a murmur.
Ella" said the doctor, you'll be
able to use your arms, and you'll soon
feel as strong and well as you ever
were, but fear me, lassie, that you'll
never walk again"
And so it was. A cleverly con-
structed chair was procured for her
benefit, and in this she was wheeled
about the village by faithful old Isaac,
who had been in the judges employ
since he was lad.
A year or two later her father
bought her a little phaeton, with a
pair of well matched dainty ponies,
and in this she was able to drive her
self about without assistance, till
there was not a road for miles around
That had not echoed under the beat of
the ponies hoofs.
But her pleasures were not all self
ish. She delighted in looking after
the needs of her poorer neighbors, and
had brought sunshine and hope into
many a dark and cherries cottage in
Shoreport.
It was a fine spring day when her
father impaired to her the valuable
portion of his stock of worldly wisdom
have quoted, and Ella was sitting in
her wheeled chair In the great square
hall of the old fashioned house which
for generations had belonged to the
Lawton family. On her lap lay lit
lie COVereu basket, 4rOm DeQedtU the
lid of which peeped out the white folds
OF spotless napkin. As her father
spoke, she merely smiled, and turning
to old Isaac, said:
Don't believe papa when he talks
like that Isaac. He doesn't mean
word of it. Now, take me down to
Eph's cottage, for I'm afraid that poor
wife of his Is laid up again, and needs
what I have here for her.
There was no doubt but that Eph
was sad rascal, and though, as Ella
remarked, her father did not mean all
he said, for, with all his pomposity,
the judge was generous, there was not
q little truth In it SO far as Eph was
concerned.
Some five Or six years before col