Waterbury evening Democrat., 1893-04-04
;s your mistress would enjoy

The servant took the crisp present without a word. After moving several steps toward home, Zenas stopped sud- denly to admire brilliant clump of tritomas. As he stood gazing he heard a window blind open and a voice call- ing in a low tone:
 "Bridgct!'
 Mem"
 Who was that?"
 ''Misther Bortley, mem.'
 "The owner of that gang next door3
 "Ses, mcm."
 "Umph!" The last expression was emphasized by so vigorous closing of the window blind that the catch fast ened with a sharp snap. Amonfent D<,- fore Zenas had felt bent as we'll as short; n niom&nt after the wound to his pride had strengthened him until, as he strodc across the fence, he felt as tall as Goliath of Gath. He hastened to the house to tell his wife, but he checked himself; he adored that wife of his; he always was encompassing her with his love that she might be shielded from the slings and darts of an unapprecia- tive world; she should not know that any one had alluded to her and her nestlings as gang"
 Yet his own heart grew sore as it was chafed by the word which could not be forgotten. The expression and the tone in which 1t was uttered came to him un- bidden in his dreams and reused him from needed rest-came to him as he read the r.orning paper while flashing by rail to the city-came to him as he added columns of figures at his desk, and caused him to make some terrible blunders. Gang" Although he was a mild-mannered man, and a member of the church besides, he came to regard his next-door neighbor, woman and handsome though she was, with deadly hatred. So intense did his dislike be come that he sat in the window one sultry moonlight night and gleefully behcld a stray cow enter the Maytham garden and do more damage than any florist could undo at that season. Gang" indeed.
 In fact it was more with joy than sor- row that one day Zenas learned from 0 chance acquaintance on the train, that there were special reasons why MT. May than would be away from homo for some time, for the man was defaulter and fleeing from justice. The Bortleys agreed that it was providential that the families had not become acquainted, for although Zenas, like good man, tried to pity sinners while he hated sin, he told his wife that a mere entry clerk with a family dependent upon him could not afford to be known as an ac- quaintance of that defaulter's family. Everybody seemed down on" the Maythams; people said 1t was only be- cause the house was in the wife's name that Mrs Maytham had roof over her head-thnt the couple had not lived there long, and never had become ac- quainted in the village anyway.
 Though he still was full of bitterness, zenas began to be interested anew in his handsome neighbor, for he never before had seen the wife of 0 criminal -one of Mrs Maytham's class. Crimes had been committed at GrasshoppeI Pulls, and wives of thieves and rowdies were too numerous, as occasional sub. scriptions for their relief showed, but they were O shabby, forlorn, character. less set, just like their husbands, while here, In the very next house to Zenas was criminals wife who was hand. some, self-contained, proud, apparently rich and even scornful of the honest gang"
 Zenas thought of Mrs. Maytham unti l hc became almost fascinated by her His eye sought her each day as he Jeff home and returned. Finally, when ht
 got his customary summer vacation O. O fortnight, he spent hours of each day in O hammock under tho trees, looking
 slyly for Mrs. Maytham and following I |. II. .l~
 tered through her finely-lsept grounds | He wns sorry for her; he could under
 stand why she did not care to make new
 acquaintanccs; he could not see any
 thing in her face that indicated com
 plicity in her husbands crime; he st
 riticd her in her loneliness and prob
 able gloom that he prayed earnestly fo
 hcl but do what he would, he coult
 not forget the tono in which she haa
 called his adorable family gang" CHATTER II
 As the dog duyS dragged on Zenas
 hammock under the trees became nor
 and moro attractive as a lounginI
 place until finally tho little man, wh
 had often slept. out of doors in tn
 woods when he was country boy
 vcnturcd to be young again and spen an occasional night in the hammock 5Thc first effort was quite successful but during the second night he wa
 aroused from an awful dream of a anaconda gliding through the gras near him, and causing n rustic such a any anaconda could be depended upo to make. Starting up in alright b' heath his lowhanging covert of bough' he saw what at first seemed really huge serpent about to cross the fenc and enter the Maytham estate. Throug well-rubbed eyes, however, the monste
 resolved itself into a ladder, evidentl brought from a house in course ( building not far away. Of course, th ladder was not moving of its own vol
 ton; a man was under it.
 Zenas was at once as wide-awal1e { 7 if no such condition as sleep had evt existed; he also was in abject terror, an
 was. conscious of the outbreak of tl i cold sweat of which he often had hear 3 but never before experienced. Whi n should he do2 What could he d. a Pshawl Perhaps the man was a carpe tor. who had been after a bit of his oN