The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1894-04-05

ecHoo1 udu resolved LnaJ the ScnOOl
stove was too small, and had voted a
new one; and the gentlemen most in
terested in the welfare of Honeydale
church had taken upon themselves to
advise their minister, Rev. Martin Til
linghast, to marry again, he having
been a widower for thirteen months.
Miss Margaret Parker, the school
teacher, was rejoicing over the first
fact, and Mr.. Tillinghast, the clergyman,
was rather depressed as he thought
upon the second. "They are as busy
with my affairs, he said to himself, "as
they were twenty years ago" He had
not been happy as married man, truth
to tell. Mrs Tillinghast meant to be a
good woman, and she had written tracts
and could have written his sermons
for him, and she thought herself very
meritorious person. But she had not
had the virtue of meekness, and she
had had what her successive servants
called a way of nagging When her
tract-writing, her playing on the melo-
deon and her general manner had
caused the deacons and elders to decide
that she was just the girl for minis
ter's wife, and they had resolved to
hint to their young pastor, Mr.. Tilling
hast, that Squire Rutter's granddaugh-
ter, would be an excellent minister's
~Sife., e Was well Tor iier IlSther's fam
lily, her brothers and sisters, even her
old grandfather. Martin Tillinghast
was very Jealous just then, very posi-
tive as to the fact that he ought to re-
sign the lusts of this world When his
dinner was not good he felt nearer to
Heaven than when it was, and he slept
upon bed of husks interspersed with
many fragments of cobs, rather rejoic-
ing in its hardness. Jerusha was, he
knew, worthy. She taught Sabbath
school. She was of value in the choir.
That she was unusually plain, and that
he felt uncomfortable in her company
made him feel sure that she was the
very wife for him. He proposed in
form, was accepted without enthusi-
asm, and had had fourteen years of
anything but peace and comfort. His
home shone with cleanliness, it is true,
and his wife was a sort of shining
light in religious circles, but his ways"
troubled her-his ear-Sighted awk-
wardness, his mild abstraction-just as
he was troubled by her continual adj
vice and reproof, the clump of her in
evitably heavy shoes all over the house,
and her shrill voice, rebuking the serv-
ants, or remarking on his scattered
papers, wandering slippers and be-
Gaubed inkstand, and the smears his
scant but oily hair made on the chair
backs. while the protecting tides"
had dropped upon his STOPPING Shout
ders.
They never had a quarrel, and when
she died he had the comfort which long
suffering with much patience must give
But he did not want to marry again;
and who can wonder?
He sat over his tea long enough to
have eaten a state dinner that evening,
and be thought of what Deacon Phil
lips had said and of what Elder Brown
had limited, laughing and rubbing his
hands as he spoke. But he was not
sure that man might not be very
happy on this earth, and still ready for
the next, as he used to be in those old
days when they had married him to
Jerusha- At least, if he must marry,
he said he would take a wife whose
face and manner pleased him-one he
liked.
4 And his thin face flushed as he
thought-for there had been throttled
romance in his life, and it was coming
to, getting its breath again after long
years of Inconsistencies
Peggy Parker teaches the Honey
dale school yet" he said, softly. 81
saw her name in last years report. l
suppose she sees mine occasionally. L
I-wonder-"
He did not say exactly what he won
dered," but he neither read wise books
nor wrote his Sundays sermon that
evening, and late at night sat at his desk
writing letter, which must have been
very difficult to compose for the frag-
ments of those he had already written
and destroyed filed his waste-pa paper
basket. The envelope with which he
finally covered his production was adj
dressed to
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