The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1892-10-08

Their hearty welcome was the |
only reassuring thing we met with
Eva wrote, and then went on to say; |
'Simon's niece produced, from some |
secure hiding-plnce, an oil painting, |
which her uncle had most sealously |
guarded, and which he had repeatedly |
told her was to be placed in no other
hands than mine. 1t was of great value
| to me. and on no account must it be
| lost or injured. / would understand
the meaning of it, he told her, for his
master had written to me concerning it.
"sAs this letter which he mentioned
had never reached me, Of course l was
perfectly at loss to understand the
meaning of the picture, and why this
should have been so carefully guarded,
when so much else that was more valu-
able was permitted TO be destroyed.
"'My husband and l both examined
it with the closest scrutiny. 1t APP
peared to be bit of southern scenery
of no great merit, and of no especial
value as work of art, so far as we
were capable of judging. If | am not
much mistaken, saw 1t during my
visit to my uncle. and 1 think he told
me at the time that it was given to him
by some artist who spent week or two
on his plantation, making study of
negro character for picture he was
shortly to begin. My uncle did not then
seem to value it especially.
"'A careful examination of the pic
ture revealed a portion of the frame
that slid back, and in the cavity thus ex-
posed to view nestled key that evi.
IDENTIFY belonged to small safe. This
was at least one step toward solu'
ton of the mystery. bit further and
closer inspection afforded no other clew,
although the frame was taken apart
and each portion carefully examined.
MY husband intends building a
modest cottage on the old site, and en-
tertains some hope that in clearing
away the debris we may come across a
buried safe, which may have been hid
den somewhere beneath the house or
in the cellar. Of course this is a very
slender hope. for 1t is probable that If
such were the case the safe was found
and stolen, or its contents ruined by the
fire.
''In Eva's next letter, some months
later, she wrote that she and her hus.
band were in their new home, and af-
: fairs were looking less gloomy, When
building ON the old site it had been
carefully examined, and an iron rod
driven into the sandy soil wherever
there seemed the least probability of a
safe or box being concealed. The
, search was futile, and the mystery of
, the picture was as great one as ever.
''Some two or three years later, Eva
insisted OH my making the visit long
promised her, and few weeks after
exchanged the blue grass fields and
outrageous woodlands of my native
state for the white sands and majestic
pine forests of Georgia.
'Our reunion was very delightful
one, and we both had innumerable
? things to talk over, so long had we been
separated, and so insufficient had been
, the medium of letter writing. Eva had
, one sweet little girl, whom she had
1 named after me, as had been duly in
. formed at the time. l found Mr.. and
Mrs. Evans living comfortably, but
; plainly, for despite their industry, the
depressed condition of the country made
success very slow matter, and Mr..
: Evans was greatly in need of capital to
l conduct his affairs prosperously.
1 eff our picture could only be made
: to disclose its secret Eva would FIRE.
quently say, as we sat and talked. In d
, spirit of fun she had the picture hung in
a my room opposite the foot of the bed,
S that might unravel at my leisure the
mystery connected with it, as / had
. always been noted in my schooldays for
a solving riddles and enigmas.
81 used to study it the first thing on
r awakening each morning, and soon
, grew familiar with it's every feature.
The picture seemed rather hasty study
than anything else. The sketch was a
l foreground with a fantastic pine
stump and a large white bowlder push.
l ing up through the sandy soil; in the
a middle distance was decayed pine
G tree, over which generous wild honey
suclxle had thrown its mantle of green
r dotted with scarlet blossoms; while in
D the background there was a deep vista
1 of dark, somber pines, whose majestic
S and tall brown trunks seemed carved
= pillars along the aisles of some dim
E cathedral.
= ut was painted with that absence OF
l detail, rarer then than now, and diff
: fered materially from the ideas OF
minutia in work had gained al
a school. Aside from the useful hints on
art that it gave me, it was very
a Sphinx; and l began to accept my
S friends opinion that the small key
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