Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1891-11-26
tine. Still he was a very great man

tine Still he was very great man
at Buffalo.
His sense of duty was overpowering.
It was duty which led him to prosecute
a poor widow for stealing bundle of
splints; duty had induced him to grind
his laborers down to the lowest days
pay for the biggest days work; and it
was duty which had countenanced his
just Indignation and strongly expressed
disapproval when his brother, twenty
years younger than himself. had per-
petrated marriage with penniless
girl-an act little less than crime in
the eyes of the astute lumberman.
He had married, of course, but he had
been wise enough to Glove lass and
her money, too,'' and had nothing to re-
proach himself for in the prim, pinched-
faced matron, who presided over the
great, square, red-brick, public school
like building he called his home. He
had been blessed with children, too
one, a boy whom he had mentally
starved to death, denying him story
books and the casual enjoyment of
childish liberty. and who had grown al
most to a manhood of harmless imbe-
cility, when he had suddenly sickened
and died; and girl, more robust, who
had survived her fathers immaculate
system to reach womanhood, 4 hard,
cold, selfish person, with fear Of her
father and contempt for her mother in
the place of ilial affection.
The breakfast table in the Evesham
mansion was not the CHEEKY, social gath
ering place it is in some families. and ON
one especial morning in leafy June the
mony than usual. Mrs. Evesham was
never very lively, but to-day she was
exceptionally detected; Jane had been
Sighted at young peoples gathering
in the church parlors the previous even
ing, and was properly rescntful, and
the master of the house was not quite
satisfied with the rulings of the market
and vented his disappointment on his
women folk after the manner of men of
his peculiar temperament. He sat toy
ing with his beefsteak and reading the
morning newspaper. Suddenly he cleo
trified the ladies by an exclamation of
profanity SO awful in it's charactex that
they, poor pious souls, paused aghast in
hopeless wonder.
"Pa!' CALCULATED Jane, in shocked
surprise.
Mrs. Evesham was too Mortified for
words, but held up her mittened hands
in deprecating agony.
1T is all the doing of the woman
who married my poor brother Henry"
Mr.. Evesham explained, his cheeks
tingling with confusion.
"What, in the paper?" Jane asked,
forgetting her papa's improperly in
her curiosity to learn the news.
Io 81,
column of it,
''What has she done, Isaac? I wish
you would not startle me so,'' gasped
Mrs. Evesham, feebly.
Ozone! 1 don't know that she's done
much. It is just because she has not
done something that she is bringing
disgrace on the family name. Never
read of more shocking instance of
feminine moral obliquity. Here one
of her precious boarders suddenly dies,
and instead of affording the legal au-
thorities all the assistance she can, she
is so reticent that she brings down upon
her the reproof of the coroner, and the
Daily Herald speaks of her as a re-
1uctant witness. -
''What can be her object?" cUeried
Jane, aghast at the thought that her
genteel associates would learn that her
aunt kept a lodging-house.
''Oh, some silly sentimentalism, you
may depend on it, Mr.. Evesham
snorted; s'the woman always was a
fool.''
''Won't you read the article, pap" his
daughter asked.
Eyes. do pleaded his wife.
Thus adjured, the indignant gentle
man read in a hard, dry, monotonous
voice the long, sensational account of
the catastrophe, which had lost none
of its suggestive mystery in the graphic
description of the reporter.
''How dreadfully shocking!" Jane
gasped. She was not thinking of the
sudden death of the hapless man nor
the trouble of her relatives, but how