The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-06-03

spur of those legend haunted mountains
Just out TO the eastward and overhanes
the broad and placid waters Of the Hud-
son. is sweet old eerie 10 which summer
guests come from the American nTetropo-
lis for n onths Of lettering and rest.
The old colonial post-routes of the re-
gion are still quite generally maintained
and the primitive folk of these sFarsely
settled mountain eirhborhoods. as well
as the aristocratic idlers from the great
city by ohe sea, receive their dribleUs OF
mail. IN many instances, at the same
curious old cross-road post offices which
were in use when the post-boy's letter
pouches bore the seal of our then King
George the Fourth.
This was the case at Sohouk. The
postmaster old Peter Van Brunt, now 50
wears of age, had held the oh.e since
long before the memory of man. \ great
nation had grown to maturity since his
commission mad been delivered TO him.
Political parties had changed. states of
TIVE union had been made. foreign and do
nestle wars had been fought and score
of new administrations had come and
gone but old Peter Van BrUnt still re
NAMED postmaster at SOhonk.
None Of the mountain folk cared, so
their few letters and newspapers came
with regularity: and Peter himself cared
less. as age crept upon him. while all
that was required Of him was his name
affixed properly and timely 10 his official
reports and his good old wife cOuld at
tend the tiny window aud gossip with
tie country folk who occasionally stray
gled In
But when Peters faithful spouse
passed away there came near being a new
,f III at AAhpnlF fbprn
would have been. had not two little tots
O girls OF and 40 years Of age. re
NAMED with him rs the only links of ac
tlvity and usefulness between old Peters
falling energies and his remarkable lease
of oticial lie.
These gifts had come incidentally, as
Old Peter, who was something of phi
losopher, stoutty asserted taat all good
things came TO man.
A strange -dreary-eyed, wifeless ply
sician had come summering into the Cat
sKills long before the resort palaces be-
gan to appear IN the glens ana beside
the shadowy lakes Of the Sohonk region
He had made his home at Peters abode,
which in colonial times had been a
Catskill inn behind the smart sign of the
Red Lion that still swung creakingly
aboveGhe wide, low door Of the little
postodice.
One day when father and children We're
clambering among the rocks, the father
had lost his ioOthold and fallen to his
death in a cruel gorge, hundreds of feet
below There had been a burial with
two white-faced children to mourn in the
mute. wondering way of childhood after
which Peter had bluntly asked of his
Wi4e:
"Kat herine, what's to be done with the
little uns now"
Muffin but keep EN-, Peter" was the
quiet, motherly reply.
This had been done, and their curly
little heads had so long bobbed up and
down behind the ancient row of boxes in
the low-ceilinged postoIice that the
mountain folk, waiting for their mail,
had looked on as the tots helped Aunt
Katherine at the window with good
natured smiles, and had finally come TO
call the bright-faced waits 1.-The postmis-
tresses of Sohonk.
This appellatiou. and those of "Sister,"
TO the elder and sis to the younger
girl, had finally overshldowed their own
names which at last faded out with the
incident of their coming, and the cOun-
tryside's insiSteaCe of its sObrquets did
the rest; so that when old Peters wife
had entered the dreamless sleep, and old
eter himself took more persistently to
his pipe and the porch or the shady side
of his pretty garden trellises, their in
vestment with the names of Sister and
Sis Van Brunt, and their duties and
titles OF the postmiStreSses of SohOnk,
were apparently permanent and complete.
II seemed that nothing was ever TO oc-
cur to change the simple round of endless
quiet in the lives of these quaint little
postmistresses OF Sohonk.
Old Peter dozed and dreamed of the
days of the Vans and Vons, with never
shade of forebodlng fitting across his
ample. peaceful face, Sister and Sis cared
for the garden attended by turns. the
droning countryside school over against
the tiny church set round with whisper
ing willows ana plaintive cellars did the
little housework there was left to do in
the curious old. habitatiOn. like demure
and ancient housewives and each day, as
Matthew Stuy Yesant, the mountain mail
carrier, passed or repaSscd behind his
grl2zled mule, We're ready. punctuaily As
time Itself, to receive or deliver the little
pouches which came and went
Cur Gus bout them air gals old
Matthew Stuyvesant would mutter
Gould set my watch by EN-. When |
buy boss, er a mule, ped 'gree's sunth n.
Them gals got ped gree in EN-. n faint
no SoNOnk strain, neither. They'll break
loose some time. fur ped gree allus tells T.
IL Is unlikely that mail-carrier Mat
thew 5 words would have proven truly
prophetic if SOh0nk had remained So
honk. But it could not. a mile or two
distant was a great gorge in the noun
tains where tiny lake lay like . bed of
silver between cliffs of emerald ana
bronze. a chalet-like structure arose DC
side it as if by magic and soon rich city
idlers sought Lake Sohouk for its won
erous scenery ana bracing mountain air
Then the curly heads bobbed up and
down more rapidly and longer each day
behind the ancient row of boxes: for all
OF the mail for the guests Of the great ho-
tel now passed through the little Sohonk
o-Ece; and once Ia a while struggling par
ties from the lake, in the vagarous, quiz
zical mood which settles upon summer
lOlterers everywhere came over to the
olden village to see the curious colonial
inn, 10 bother old Peter about the time
when the century was young, and to in
quisitively peep at the little postmis-
tresses Of Sohonk.
Ned watson. young man of 20 and a
guest at the hotel beside the lake. had
come upon the quaint old nest during
his wLnuerings in the romantic
region, with something Of the feel
ings OF original discovery. In some
inexplicable way he felt himself power.
fully drawn 10 the two barheaded. bare.
footed cir at the old Red Lion inn; and
IL was not long before he found means
to become regularly installed as mail
carrier between the ancient postoftice
and the summer resort hotel where he