Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1890-08-14

| ulYll HOW Is the likes OF me 10 eve
face your ma? 1t will all come on me a
passed my sacred word to keep you lik
gold, and you gone spilin' your Sunda
clothes, when your poor nanny sits u
nights to keep you clane and dacent"
The Professor stood up bareheaded il
the sunshine, confused and miserable. Hi
very back looked penitent; he knew b.
must eat large slice of that disagreeabl
CONNECTION called humble pie.
1T should be my fault, Mary, or rattle
the fault of Jennings, with his ever-to-be
cursed baccillis. Do you think you nigh
be putting her to bed to wash he
clothes~
"Never a Bit" said Mary, with the ag
gravating calmness of superior woman
miss Hasketh is that sharp she nevel
could be deceived or took in 1 shall
carry the baby home just as she is"
"Wait minute" said the poor Pro
fessor under condemnation. 81 must bs
having gold eagle somewhere, if | car
pat my hand on it. Where it lies it will
never be doing me the least good" Fol
poor man the Professor was very rich
His expenditure was On a modest scale
and he always seemed to have large sur
plus of means to give away. Widow Has.
keith, for widow so rich in children, was
very poor in this worlds goods. Her
husband, an engine driver on the Apple
dale branch, was killed in an accident on
the road, and Baby Hasketh, a post
humous child came into the world amid
tears and anguish of soul. There had not
infrequently been that interchange be-
tween the two houses which tends to pro-
duce just, social equilibrium.
Now the Professor repaired to his study
and began to rummage and tumble in a
great variety of cabinets and drawers and
out. of-the-way places, for, though the least
misery of men, in this he had the habits
of miser-that he tucked his money
away between the leaves of books or in odd
crannies, and speedily forgot its existence
1t was twenty minutes or more before the
Professor, by diligent hunting, came upon
the gold eagle, which he proceeded to
make into little paper packet and tie
around Baby Hasketh's neck
"Give my compliments to Mrs. Hasketh,
Mary, and do you be telling her that |
send piece to make baby gold tooth if
she should ever be needing one"
The widow did not believe Baby Has
keith would ever need a gold TOOTH and the
Professors gold-piece came in so provi-
dentially to pay her months rent, now
overdue, she sat down and cried over it
half an hour. 1t had been an agitating
day for the Professor, and he determined
to take long walk in country parts to
restring his nerves and put him again in
harmony with men and things.
The Professor, once on his legs out of
doors, with his scientific curiosity piqued
by every bit of bog and wild land, was as
in his movements as the old
watch he carried in his pocket Mary
dreaded these country excursions, for she
knew her master would come home with
his clothes in a sad state, and his pockets
stuffed with those noisome, Shiny things,
fished out of swamps and ponds, for which
she had a particular disgust. She had
cleaned from his bootsard trousers every
kind of soil existing In Littlefield Town
ship, and she had often complained to Mrs.
Hasketh that there never was such a man
for getting horrible stains on his linen,
which no kind of patent stuff bought at
the druggists would remove. But still,
though she grumbled, all the Professors
careless habits were dear to
Mary. She would have idolized him Just
the same if he had made her five times the
work, for she devoutly believed that after
making the Professor God had broken the
mold, and would never produce anything
80 good again in the same line.
On this particular afternoon the Profess
sor made great circuit round by Goose
Run, and did not reach home until after
dark. The Professor had the tin box slung
over his shoulder full of squash bugs from
farmer Elman's vines, and his pockets, as
usual, were stuffed with queer and uncanny
things out of Goose pond.
A fire in his study was glowing warm
through the cool June dusk. 1t fell wildly
over great armchair, drawn close to the
hearth, and over the figure of spare, tall
old man seated therein. White locks hung
nearly to his shoulders, and his colorless
profile was as delicately lined against the
shadows as if cut on a cameo. The old
man was dressed in the deepest mourning,
and sat sunk into himself in profound sad
ness, while Copernicus tripped sagely=
around him, casting up suspicious eye, as
if he suspected the presence of anew natu-
raj history specimen.