The Newtown bee., 1890-06-06

for them by Amasa's inventive genius
out of sticks and stones.
Add to all this the cooking, washing,
baking and sewing, the insufficient sup
ply of pork, potatoes and tough pies, the
spilled dinners" whose strength lay in
the vegetables, rather than the small
square of fat pork cooked with them, of
which Amasa invariably took the lions
share; these accommodating and never
ceasing hbors all wore day by day on the
vitality of Mrs Tucker and when to these
were added an annual baby, life became
n terror and burden to the poor woman.
But what did Amasa care? lie, too,
worked from 'sun to sum-
He farmed in the hard old fashion,
with rude implements and no knowledge
but
my father done il afore me, so I'm
goin' To do it now no use talking" One
by one the wailing puny children were
laid in the little yard on top of a sand
hill, where the old fuckers and their half
dozen infants lay already; rough in
closure full of mulleins, burdocks and
thistles, overrun with low blackberry
vines and surrounded by rail fence. 1t
had been much handler for the fuckers
to have graveyard close by than to
travel five miles to the Mills with every
funeral; and they were not driven by
public opinion in regard to monuments;
they all lay there like the beasts that
perish, with but one scant grey stone to
tell where the first occupant left his tired
bones. Two children of Wealthy's sur
vived, Amasa and Lurana, the oldest and
youngest of seven.
Amasa, a considerable, intelligent boy,
who thought much and said little, and
Lurana or "Lury" as her name was gen
orally given, mischievous, self-willed
little imp, the delight and torment of her
worn-out mother. Young Amasa was a
boy quite beyond his fathers understand
ing; as soon as he was old enough, he be-
gan to help his mother in every way he
could devise. And when his term at the
village school was over, to his fathers
great disgust, he trapped squirrels and
u gathered nuts enough to earn his own
money and subscribe for an agricultural
u paper, which he studied every week till
" its contents were thoroughly stored in
- his head. Then began that ''noble dis
= content" which the philosophers praise
a The elder man had no peace in his old
"a world ways; the sloppy waste of the
= barn-yard was an eyesore to this ''bOoh
= learned feller," as his father derisively
Ia, cd i'm nd n
! fire were saved and sheltered like prec
ious dust, instead of thrown into big
! heap to edify the wandering hens. The
. desolate garden was plowed, fortified
and set in order at last, and the great
:, ragged orchard MANFRED, the apple trees
thinned and trimmed, and ashes sowI
- thick over the old messy sod. Now these
"a things were not done in a day or year
: but rs the boy grew Older and more able
:, to cope with his fathers self-conceit more
. was done annually, not without much OPP
- position and many hard words, but still
n done.
Then came u heavy blow. Lurana, {
=. girl of fifteen, fresh and pretty as wilc
;. rose, and tired of the pinching economy
- the monotonous work and grinding life
/, of the farm, ran away with a tin peddler
- and broke her mothers heart; not in the
:, physical sense that hearts are sometimes
: broken, but the weary woman's soul was
- set on this bright, winsome child, and he
life lost all its scant SAVIOR when the
o blooming face and clear young voice lief
her forever.
81 don't blame her none, Amasy," sh'
y sobbed out to her boy, now stout fellow
of twenty-five, raging at his sisters fol
IN ly.
= II can't feel to blame her. L know I'll
more'n girl can bear to live this way
~ I've had to, but it's been dreadful hard
dreadful hardl I've wished more'n one
a. could ha' laid down along with the Iii
"a tie babies out there on the hill, SOS t
rest a spell; but there was you and Lur
H. wanted me, and so my time hadn't come
lie "Amasy, you're a man grown now, AN
If you should get married, and l s'pos
to you will-men folks seem to think 1t
ne needful, whether or no-do kinder mab
he it easy for her, poor cretur! Don't grin
nd her down to skin and bone like me, dear
CHI 'tant just right, I'm sure ont, never
De- make no more of woman than eff 81
was horned crittur; don't do it."
Ter 'Mother, never will!" answered ii
"a son, as energetically and solemnly as
ter he were taking his oath.
it'll But Wealthy was nearer to her re
,ut than she knew; the enemy that turks
or. dirt, neglect, poor food, constant druid
red cry and the want of every wholesome al
it's pleasurable excitement to mind and bod
and when least expected swoops dow
il and does its fatal GRAND in the isolate
red farm house no less than in the crowd'
3 A city slums, the scourge of New Englan
ak typhoid FEVER, Droke out IN tine luck
to homestead.
ust Wealthy turned away from her week
her baking one Saturday morning just as &
last pie was set on the broad pant
her shelf and tainted on the kitchen foo
md where Amasa the younger found her
Tia. hour after, muttering, delirious, al
cold.
to What he could do then, or the villa
nto doctor, or an old woman, who called M
est self nurse, was all useless; but the bt
yer skill of any kind would have been equ
err ly futile; she was never conscious ags
cd, for week; then her eyes seemed to s
ky, what was about her once more; she lot
ten ed up at her boy, laid her wan cheek
the her hand, smiled-and died.
t it Hardly had her wasted shape been /
on away under the mulleins and hard tai
the when her husband came In from the hi