The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1889-01-16
Seletteo Sturp.
Mary AIMS New Year.

happy New Year!' called out a pass
ing boy.
woman, who stood in her shed door, just
about to hang out basket of clothes
on the old, sagging line.
"Hel hel Wish we happy New Year,
Mar Ami" echoed a maudin voice
from the yard, where a shabby, red
eyed man sat on the end of woodpile
smoking short, dirty pipe.
" Happy New Yearl' Mary AIMS
eyes flashed $ she spoke. "'Twould
be happy, sure enough, if | see your
cold corpse fetched into the door for my
New Years present."
Joe gave a drunken laugh.
"Now Mar Ami don't ye, now.
Why, how you talk!'
"'Talk! Well, if | didn't do nothin'
but talk, like you, where'd you be to-
day, and the children? Pm glad the
isn't but two of 'em leftl"
And the bright gray eyes, full of
righteous indignation, grew dim as she
said it.
You've got suthin' to be happy
bout, then, ha'n't YEP" said Joe, with
giggle.
Mary AIMS eyes kindled again.
You get up and chop that wood,
Joe Barber; or you won't have speck
of dinner to-day, now | tell ye!"
She hung her clothes out in the slow
gathering mist, watching the reluctant
mans feeble strokes out of the corner
of her eye as she did so, and when the
few poor garments were all pinned up
retreated iuto the kitchen, and, drop
-, to bn nhnir thrauy hnr
apron over her head in a sort of despair.
Through the darkness of that homely
screen, with closed eyes, she looked
backward on her life. She saw the COM
Portable farmhouse that was her home
long before she knew Joe Barber; the
tender mother, the kind, silent father,
the bright, merry brothers and sisters;
the feast-days and the birthdays always
kept there in plenty aud mirth unusual
among New England farmers, for the
Blairs were a remarkably affectionate
family, and their mother had a heart
full of love and cheer that expended
itself on her home with lavish effusion.
There she had never known want or
care; there was enough for every ones
health and comfort under John Blair's
roof. The great troubles of life had at
last assailed them-death and separa-
tion-but never had there been dis
sension among them, and if now she
looked back sadly on the loss of parents
and sister, she had no remorse in her
grief. Annie had died soon after her
early marriage. Tim was at the worlds
end almost, in South America; John in
the Sandwich Islands. and Becky lived
in California; she, Mary Ann, was
right here in Connecticut, in miser-
able old house at Brimfield Center, with
drunken husband and two ragged
children. "Oh, the pity of it," Yet
when she promised to marry Joe Bar
Der he was, as she phrased it to herself,
ga real likely young man" He was
stage-driver from Brimfield Center to
Poquonock, and hale, handsome
young fellow, with a merry bright eye
and a hearty laugh.
The stage was one of the last that
ran in Connecticut, but before the
Poquonock railway was built the mails
and few passengers had to be trans
ported to three or four villages lying up
among the West Hills, and therefore
the route was kept up. 1t was long
thirty miles, that days drive, up and
down hill all the way, going up one day
and back the next. The winters were
cold, the winds piercing, the drive tire
some, and Joe could not resist " nip"
as he called it, of hot sling on very
bitter days when he stopped at the
Yantic tavern or threw off his mailbag
at Pekin. He rarely ever got drunk,
but he made the first fatal step toward
intemperance-he got to like the taste
of liquor. Then, when the railway
threaded the Poquonock valley he took
to " teaming" freight from the great
cotton mills to the station, and when
winter set in that was cold work and
the nips" began again. Mary Ann
did all she could to make him better
man, but he had the habit fixed on him
before she knew it. And she was con-
demned to see him fall lower and lower,
till he became hanger-on at corner
groceries and she had to work as hard
as she could to keep him and the chill
dren fed and clothed. Once it had
been his pride to see her well-dressed
and rosy; now he did not care that she
was thin, pale and worn out. One by
one her younger children had dropped
into the grave, and she could not mourn
them. She knew they were better off
than with her; she kept spark of
faith alive for that comfort.
Mary Ann had great, generous
heart and loving nature; she was in
telligent and energetic, but she had a
quick temper and a keen sense of JUS
tice, and she had putgrown, as she
thought, every bit of affection she had
ever had for this shiftess, careless,
useless man, whose sole end in life
seemed to be to drink and eat at her
expense and evade every duty he
should have fulfilled. 1t was this hot
temper that made her say a great
many things calmer woman would
only have thought, and repent of
them almost as soon as they were ut.
tered. Now, as she sat there looking
back on the past, she remembered also
what Joe had been; how much she had
once loved him; how handsome and
kind and gay he was before this devil
of drink entered into him, and a great
wave of pity surged over her for a
pninuta- nnlU q p1iputp for she hoard