Lyon County times. [volume] (Silver City, Nev.) 1874-1907, 1891-09-12

uiSGISS5 WIFI COlu, uIlSy ylupdLueIIC eye.
She was the kind of a woman he hated,
and partly, too, he feared her, for the
sharpness of her sarcasm could always
put to flight his wits and make him play
sorry part. So he buttoned his long
pockets and determined, as he profanely
said, to let Providence take its course.
If his sister-in-law came to eat grass
after the manner of wicked king Of
old, would it not be just punishment
for her pride and stubborn independence
of character, her putting away Of good
counsel and refusal to look up to those
better and wiser than herself
But poor Hannah was not brought
down to eat the grass of the field as q
special warning to an obdurate and stiff
necked generation. 1t happened in. that
terribly cold week after her husbands
funeral, when she sat dumb and stricken
with her children gathered close under
her wing by the scant fire in her kitchen
stove, that help had come, heaven sent.
as Hannah ever after believed, for she,
too, was religious, but in different way
from Joel Anson's friend and employer,
Hiram Rand, in whose mill he had been
foreman for many years, had paid off
the mortgage on her house and had
brought it to her as a free gift in his
simple, mild fashion, as il it were an
everyday occurrence and worthy Of no
special thanks. Mr.. Rand was a quiet
man, never known to get excited about
anything except rare old books, of which
he was very fond and possessed pre-
cious store,
But he had his own unpretentious ways
of finding out the needs of others and
of doing good, and after Fearing's sud
den death he had inquired carefully into
the widows circumstances. and the re-
suit of the inquiry was that he had
without saying word to any one, gone
and paid off the mortgage on the widows
little home and practically made her a
present of $1,000. When Hannah tried
in vain to express her thanks and her
conception of the magnitude of the pres
ent she had received, he begged her not
to excite herself Mr.. Rand hated to be
the cause of excitement in anybody un-
less it broke out over some rare old black
letter volume. He intimated that in his
Judgment Anson had earned the sum
over and above the salary he had received
in his service, and he was only paying a
Just debt Then he took up his hat and
went out, closing the door softly behind
him. He was man OF few words ex-
cept on his own particular hobbies. and
on them he would talk endlessly.
Now Hannah. the moment Mr.. Rand
left the house, dropped on her knees
on the kitchen floor, and with the
tears streaming from her eyes uttered
such prayer of praise and thanksgiving
to God her children could never forget
/ it to their dying day. From that mo-
ment everything was changed. The
name of Hiram Rand became sacred
name in that humble little home. She
/ taught her children to reverence and
look up to it as to guiding star. Her
home secure, Hannah drank at once
from deep wells of strength and inspira-
ton. She felt equal to strenuous labor
to rear and educate her children. The
ambition of noble mothers stirred in her
I to give them the instruction she had
never received in her poor, neglected
childhood. She lived by sewing and
taking in washing. and it was nothing
to Hannah to rise at four and to go to
bed at midnight that her children might
be kept at school
But strange, unlocked for changes
have occurred within the eight years
since Anson died. Hiram Rand, who
was then the richest man in Littlefeld,
having inherited fine fortune from an
uncle and a fourishing business from
his father, was now one Of the poorest.
Sometimes, with a quiet gleam of sad
humor, he said to his friend DR.. Boskirk
that he possessed nothing but what he
had given away. While he sat quietly in
| his library gloating over his Elzevirs and
| Aldines, noble first editions in precious
bindings, his fortune, in the hands of an
INSCRIPTIONS agent, melted away in ru-
inous speculations. His stocks and bonds
were involved in the embarrassment OF
q great railway and the failure of a
metropolitan bank, and his mill and real
estate all passed out of his hands to meet
the liabilities thus incurred.
Then, as misfortunes like rocks always
fly in black focks, his only daughter, a
beautiful girl, died just in the bloom of
young womanhood, and his son was
drowned on a yachting excursion in the
Mediterranean. The old man, thus
wrecked in his affections and fortunes,
fell into an illness, from which he arose
after many weeks a broken and dis
abled man, one side partially paralyzed
and his left arm and hand quite useless.
When he came to consciousness the auc-
tioneers were in the lower rooms of his
house knocking down the furniture to
the lowest bidder, and Hannah Fearing
was at his bedside, where she had faith
fully held her post for six long weeks.
The doctor had bid in NV of the pre-
cious old volumes from Rand's valuable
library and in less than week after the
sale the sick man and this little remnant
of his fortunes, once great for country
town. were moved over to Hannah's best
room, the parlor of the brown cottage
where he had lived ever since on hel
care and bounty.