The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1890-08-13
Una of Dunstable Farms.
BY DORA REED CooDALE.

nee Wllcn nave calleu Uere tue X,an COW
# Dunstatle Farms. I may n in f. ~
hat was humble participsr tbe mino,
The heroine-but stosgor fret Now
characters should appSfessed, is minor
Patty, it must S..x be cFatty, then, first, with
'naracter. hnte|and her hair rolled up
ief ap1on GaHlder a round white cap--not
uMl, but wholesome and pleasant
rely ~ on, and as satisfying for long
. io233ey 233ey as a lot of brown bread.
~ Dunstable Farms; you may have heard
of the place, where the family has
fourished and spread like banyan grove
since William Dunstable planted himself
here in, I don't know what, year of
grace. All the land hereabout was
bought of the Indian tribes, the old deeds
signed with their ''marks" being still IN
the family archives, so that it is the
Dunstable boast that their acres have
never been owned by any white man
bearing another name.
Hither, to "recruit," on a notable
morning in May, when the roads had re-
covered from the prolonged state of pros
tration which afflicts them in early
spring, came Ia spinster, reader, but
not too old one to find young people
congenial.
Patty met me at the station. Patty
drove me home and embarrassed the horse,
and afterward set the table and brought
out the sweetmeats for supper. Then she
superiDtended the carrying of my trunks
up fight of back stairs which seemed
designed for the shaft of an elevator.
Patty was the active, the serviceable, the
delightful; there were five in the fam
lily now, she said-her father, her
mother, herself, Norah the cook, and
Stephen the hired man. Twas to be the
only boarder.
This Stephen I Immediately seized
upon as the villain of my piece, chiefly
because of his rough, shaggy head and
his solemn, lnscrutablc visage, which
lookcd as if he were revolving the dark
est designs, although I could hear OF none
worse than a great thirst for learning.
It was democratic household, and Ste
phen had his seat at the lower end of
the table. He and Mr.. Dunstable often
paused to discuss the care Of the live
stock and methods of tilling.
But I soon learned that there was an
other daughter, Eunice, the sixteen-year-
old, and the clever one of the family.
There was always one ad-piece among
the Dunstablc kin, said Patty, ingenu-
ously, and she further informed me that
It was odd that Eunice should have come
into this family inheritance, because their
own father was not the bright one of his
generation; but Eunice took after her
Uncle Erastus, she s'posed, who studied
at Middlefeld College and went into the
ministry.
It was an understood thing that the
most intelligent one, boy or girl, should
have good advantages, and when Eunice
carried off the prize at spelling-match,
while still small creature in pinafores,
and in the district school outstripped all
the cousins growing up at Dunstable
Farms, family conclave was held. One
uncle contributed a heifer, another o
sheep,-they were land-poor, these Dun
stables, aud saw very few present dollars
In the course of a year,-and the girl
was sent fifty miles away to the Young
Ladies Seminary. This was two years
ago, and next year she would graduate.
must own that my feelings received
! shock on first seeing this bright
one, this Eunicc, some three weeks later,
when Stephen lifted her and her trunks
from the ample farm-wagou. Whatever
the original material might be, the
veneer of boarding-sehool life was dis
played to perfection. She wore white
hat with some "stylc" about it, indeed,
but 9 very Objectionable style, as it
seemed to me, and q pair of kid gloves
at least two sizes too small. she could
not have handled fork in those gloves,
nor have held UP her skirt, much less her
umbrella. Now Patty's best gloves were
of gray cotton, with lace-work wrists,
and sometimes, I ought to add, she wore
them when she saddlcd the horse.
1t was hard to understand how any
glrl could be at once so keen and so con-
Trajectory as Miss Euuice. She did not
seem to despise the farm, but protested d
an ignorance Of things pertaining to it
which, it seemed to me, could not be
genuine. She would dislike Stephen, l
supposed, as a common farm laborer, and
he would lind her fine.laly airs ridicu-
lous.
Alas, that even at thirty Our wisdom
Is baffled by these young folks at every
turnl Miss Eunice treated Stephen with
good-natured Indifference, while he, like
the the perverse fellow he was, chose to
treat her from the first as q kind of di-
yinity.
She was given to studying geometry,
and biology, too; she spent whole fore
moons over the microscope, dissecting
not only plants but fishes and mice, al
though Patty on no account would have
permitted her. to joint up the chickens
for dinner. She was not an idle girl,
but full of activities rather, and yet she
did nothing at oil to help in the house,
except to trim over all Patty's hats and
remodel most of her dresses.
Stephen spent his evenings, alone and
remorse, in the kitchen, for Norah usu,
ally sat in the porch: he was working
at his books, they said, though how he
could study after from ten to fourteen
hours in the field was a mystery to me.
One evening, when the lamps had
been lighted, Norah came in, sheet o!
brown paper, covered with diagrams, il
her hand, to soy that Stephen wa