The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1893-11-22


The blank space was now filled;
May !, 1891,
50 years, 10 months, 6 days.
Samuel had looked at it ~approvingly
the dav after she was laid to rest, and
declared it "a mighty pretty stone-so
sort of DC aceful.n Yet now, not three
weeks later, as he eyed it furiively,
there was no approval in his glance.
The sunlight was shining warm upon
it, and Pickering shadow leaves were
caressing the grave. From the top of
the shaft fell folds of weeping. Oddly
enough, it looked to his dimmed eyes
like herself, with her old shawl pinued
around her head, all bleached to a daz-
zling Wilderness.
"She needn't be a-peekin'," he num-
bled; "I'm a-buildin' of itV' He
turned again to the fence, working
moro slowly, for he was weary; more
steadily that he was watched.
When had he not been watched?
From the day his young stcpmother
vowed to do her duty to little Samuel"
the sense of being taken care Of had
weighed upon him.
HIS was a queer combination of au-
thority and servility, obstinacy and do
cility. "Samuel is all right his step
mother was wont TO say, "if you jest
come up on his deaf side for Samuel
had a deaf side, and it was on that side
that his servility and docility developed
themselves. Authority and obstinacy
had been born in him. He had not
been born deaf, but it came to him
when he was quite young, with its
meek attendant landmarks. 1t had
made him shy with strangers, hating
in his speech, slow in his thought.
And Mary Clark, born to project and to
rule, put her motherly arms around
him, and protected and ruled him ever
after; while Samuel, born to rule anu
be served, chafed against her authority,
but his dumb lips could not voice his
protesting thoughts.
1t took him so long to frame and ut
ter them that they were drowned ere
half finished in a torrent of exclama-
tions, among which was always the one
he neve had a chance 10 answer
"Well, Samuel, what are you driving
at, anyway" He wished he were
totally deaf and dumb and done with it.
One sweet and daring plan-to run
~away-had frightened the mOnotony of
his existence, but the great world of
science had always beaten him back.
Against his will, he had grown into the
habit of turning his eyes to her for in
terpretations whenever any one spoke,
for she had cultivated a peculiar, dis
ti2ct enunciation, which he could I'M
derstand with comparative ease. What
mould IA do Vthan nhu rv,r ,,aN -a..O
This did not make him grateful, how
ever. He must use her, and his silent
rebellions were more fierce in con-
sequence.
They we're both old when Samuel's
father died and left two-thirds of his
small property to Samuel, and Samuel
and the other third to her. She was
not averse to this arrangement. She
was willing that Samuel should have
everything, if only she might man
age it for him. She was anxious to
labor, to slave for him. All she asked
for herself was to be followed, to be
Obeyed impiicitly-for the followers
own good. And, 10! the day after his
fathers funeral, Samuel, the grave,
the silent, began to assert himself-and
that with long-latent stubbornness. He
had long ago learned from his father
that man is divinely constituted to be
obeyed and served. Even his mother,
that wonderful, capable woman, had
obeyed her husband.
Samuel commenced the new regime
by taking his fathers place at the head
of the table before she told him to. He
also put two %spoonfuls of sugar in his
tea, instead of one, as was his custom,
and absolutely refused to eat bread
with his sauce. Moreover, he met her
look of establishment with a defiant
grunt, and his little gray eyes cleaned
in a way that showed he had made up