The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-02-25

pcI6u hAGlE SbEE6lSs every uClhCbu gar
gOyle, satyr or faun leered pagan lore
the dazzling mOsaics of St. Mark S had to
her more precious setting than their
own beaten ground Of gold; while the
color fiamings Of Paul Veronese, the gorge
Gus composites of Tintoretto, or the
stupendous canVases and frescoes of
/ Titan were her painting fancy's mount
! ing wings to her own Venetian heaven.
Olive Stipples- common, coarse, bar
| bariaa, hoyden, gurgling, giggling, sun
| shine-bringing Olive Stipples setting
/ all Venetian precedent at sacrilegious
| defiance, the loggia in disorder, the gon-
! doliers at war, the lazzaroni in laughter,
| the kitchen in whirlwind and grinnlng
! Elena into housekeeping frenzies of i'm
! potence and delight, never, never had so
! Jolly time in all her merry life.
! 1t began the very day, indeed the very
| hour, when Saltwater Supples had fin
! ished "straigh tening things out" and
! Dennis Mccain, laying aside his robes of
! imperial guidance of the Stipples family,
had been rushed by Olive and Rose to the
| shadowy kitchen depths, and there poor
| Dennised !" and Dear Dennisedl" until
| hilariously proud of his fallen state.
1t began, too, with conspiracy; constr
! acy as deft and deep against the doing
| Mr. Stipples in the balcony above as ever
was Matched in Venice against a doing
| DOge; a conspiracy inclusive of brazen
| bribery, of ridiculous protests, of Mortified
! ejaculation, of peals of laughter of chat
tering gondoliers, of the easily purchased
! conscience of Elena; drawing into its
! subtle folds the poverini from outlying
campOs, urchins from the traghetti,
| pawnbrokers' agents from the Rialto
! grinning boatmakers, from the Squeri of
! SAINT RovaSe, old women with stains like
| henna paste; until the kitchen swarmed
with going and coming corspirators, each
entering with tremendous gravity all leay-
! ing as though filled with the side-shaking
elixir of mirth; and Olive StippIes, arch
! conspirator and queen of mis-rule, sup
| erintending its minutest detail and be-
| coming so filled with its ecstatic impor-
| ance, that she now never left off giggling
| and gurgling by day and hardly by night
| So grave was its nature that Saltwater
! Stipples begun to feel its secret hand 1t
set him to quarreling with the gondoliers.
1t haunted him with their half threaten
| ing appeals for increased hire and added
| gratuities. II stopped his gondola silent
| in the stream, at eXasperating moments
! of haste. 1t embroiled gondoliers in quar-
! rels over his own and his good wife's
! head. 1t pitched the voice of his boat.
men to unearthly key in endless and irri-
! tating songs. 1t took him to wrong land
! ings. 1t provoked collisions. 1t bespat-
| tered him with brine, and befouled him
with vegetables and bark and fish and
lime. 1t finally nearly upset him
| at his own traghetto when his
| patience ceased entirely and, removing
| his coat, he invited the "hull in
! fernal crew of Venus gondoIers" to that
! precise spot to get clicked" instead of
! which they foated tauntingly and grim
| acingly away; whereupon blue-eyed Rose,
big-eyed Elena and laughing-eyed Olive
soothingly lured him to the restful bal
cony, and there told him of a gondolier
! they had found; a gentle, careful, kindly
! gondoller; one who could read and hear
the English tongue, but who, more won
! derful and blessed than all else to the ex-
hausted Mr.. Stipples and his patient
wife-was dumb!
| And with such strange resem blance
to Dennis, too so stalwart, agile, fine {;
more curious than all, his name was
| DEMO, and LaRosa his fairy, feathery
! Venetian craft.
So DEMO and La Rosa came to their
new paron with the morn the one grave
| faced and mute, with as black and curly
beard and hair, blue eyes and glistening
| teeth, as ever graced a Galway poacher's
| head with brown, bare arms and neck
and chest and feet; with the red cap and
| sash of the Castellaui race; the other
with prov and ferri shining like Furnished
| silver; with the prettiest and snuggest
| felze in Venice, bright with gay-colored
awnings, soft cushions and gleamings of
brass; and with a second gondolier, as
helper to the brawny DEMO, picturesque as
| the latter, but given TO startling facial
changes, as he gazed upon the Stipple
| family, which played over his swarthy
| countenapce every mask of heeting ex-
presslon from fearful fright to bubbling,
explosive mirth.
Then came the perfect days; days on
the shadowy canals, when every face was
turned upon the Stipples family with
smiles as its gondola passed Mornings,
too of delight among the market boats
| from the islands and the mainland
barges laden with vegetables, with red
and blue, and yellow sails; barcas filled
| with soldiers speeding to or from guard
changing posts; sandal, rowed by men
with tasseled caps where the tethered
| goats we're bleating as the peasant women
MIXED them there, between customer and
customer, above the gurgling waters of
! the tides; boats with villagers, their fam
lilies, their huge fagons of milk and dimin-
utive rolls of butter, in last years corn
husks, sweet and white; again sandalo,
gondola and boat, with messengers with
the nights kilograms, postmen with the
mornings letters, funeral corteges, water
carriers, with butchers, bakers, icemen,
grocerymen, and with fine, fat old friars
with fine, fat old baskets, making their
early UlOEulIl5 EOuHuS I'LL ike Il ludFNel-
lous dream to the Stipples family in
Venice. as to countless thousands of other
dreamers before their now unbrokenly
happy time.
And glorious, too, those other sunlit
days Ito far Chiogga with its sails and
reeds; TO distant Burauo with its lazy
fishermen and tows TO Malamocco with
iUs weird Venetian myths; to ST. Erasmo
with its gardens, poilards and dykes like
biz of Holland dropped beneath Italian
! skies; or idly floating among the green
and glowing islets of Laguna Morta, with
the rich Euganean hills fading into indis-
tinguishable tecks of splendor in the
misty haze beyond.
| CBut tlere was perfect peace upon these
broad lagoons; peace with Burr and
Venetia left wandering beneath the domes
and towers that rose empurpled from the
mystic sea; peace to Saltwater Stipples
as he closed his eyes and dozed and to
good Mrs. Stipples, who opened her eyes
and dreamed; to Rose, as she stole tender
glances at their dumb gondolier; content
to the irrepreSsible Olive, who caught the
vagrant seaweed floating by and with
half smothered gigglingJ leased and tor
mented poor Demos heels and sess and
entire peace and happiness at last to the
Stipples family in Venice, when, after
its rugged and sturdy head had
gathered them all safely at the
station for the journey home, and he
had returned time and again from feeling