The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1892-05-07

was like Brer
Rabbit in that
1t lay low. But nevertheless it boosted
the proud possession of hotel, seven
churches, a wholesale store and a small
steam FIRE engine of brilliant appear
ance and untried ability.
Stay, there was also high school,
the Gumbletown Free academy as 1t
was called. at which the youth of both
sexes applied their ruby lips to the
Pierian spring with cdifying results.
The school prospered with large and
unctuous prosperity. and the number
of its scholars increased and multiplied
until it became necessary to engage an
additional professor. He came from
no matter where-it was over the hills
and far away. And he looked it
He was a wonderfully handsome
man, and his name was Bartholomew
Spunk. He was q chemist by profess
sion, and he had become SO fond of
communing with nature in her secret
moods that it was well-nigh impossi-
BILE to induce him to communicate
with anything else; especially II any
thing else had long hair and wore
skirts. Prof. Spunk had no fear of un-
mentionable chlorides nor of indescrib-
able oxides; but he was afraid of
woman, lovely woman. She was not
afraid of him, however; but, so far as
she was of Gumbletown extraction,
she spent much of her time in endeav-
oring to get a good look at the pro-
fessor's eyes. which were said to be
very beautiful.
Bartholomew Spunk took up his
house, where the fried steaks and the
coffee grounds sang together as morn
ing stars, and the cold boiled ham came
out on the eastern horizon as the sun
slipped down the west. The professor
came and went in silence, and he lived
his daily life in his own solitary
fashion. Every evening he went out
into the garden beside the house and
smoked his big briarwood pipe, a relic
of college days. The garden was pref
ty, and just on the other side of the
fence was another still prettier. The
professor frequently peered through
the fence at this garden and wondered
who kept it in such exquisite order. If
he had known that every time he
peeped through that fence he was
watched closely and by a young woman,
he would have sunk through the earth,
If he could.
In the next house lived the remnants
of one of the primeval families of Gum
bletown. Even that isolated village
had old families and blue blood, and
when old Jonathan Gumbleton. after
whom the town was named, had
died forty years before, he left two
young sons. who fastened to marry
and extend the family.
The widow of one of these sons lived
in the house to which belonged the
pretty garden. She had daughter,
and that daughters name was Alice
Mary Gumbleton. Blue blood fire.
quently declines to associate with
beauty, but in this case it did not
Alice Mary Gumbleton was as beauti-
full creature as one, or even two,
could wish to see. Her hair was as
black as the shades of night; her large
eyes were deep, soft brown; her COM
plexion was like the bloom on lily;
and her mouth-well, there is no way
to describe her mouth except by saying
it was one of the most enticing features
on earth. Miss Alice Mary Gum bletou
resembled Prof. Bartholomew Spunk
in one thing: she was bashful Not all
the awkwardly expressed admiration
which the SWANS of Gumbletown had
laid SO generously at her feet had evei
been sufficient to inspire her with the
smallest portion of that self-confidence
which usually animates belle. She
was hopelessly shy, and her converse
ton was terribly monosyllabic except
to her cat
Alice Mary Gumbleton had Maltese
cat upon which she lavished the treas
ures of her heart and her intellect
Everyone who ever saw that cat said
it was the wisest looking animal in the
world
A few doors away from the home O
the fair Alice dwelt a hideous you'll
whose favorite companion was larg,
bulldog. This bulldog was like untt
the rest of his kind. He loved not mar
nor beast His soul was filed with
perpetual gloom, and he went abou
the world with depressed nigh
say hangdog-look which BODIED no on,
good. One day Alice was aroused from
deep meditation by series of heart
rending shrieks followed by a dire dis
cord of kissing and shifting, which sh,
at once recognized as being the prod
net of the energies of Jane. Rushin,
to her window she beheld the dear ca
mounting the fence with less dignit,
than haste. At the foot of the fenc
stood the obnoxious bulldog, looking
very angry.
"Oh, my beautiful janet" screame,
Miss Alice. She rushed from the hous
with broom In her hand prepared +
meet death in the defense of her pc,
But when the dog wheeled round an
urenared a, reeist her ouelauph< sh