The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1894-08-03
THE DEACON'S SON.
How Elinor Brought Him Home
to q Lonely Father.

How EllnOr Brought HIM Home
to a Lonely Father.
The deacon sat at his solitary dinner
and looked gloomily out of his south
window at the furniture being unload
ed in the yard of the stone house just
beyond the division fence.
The stone house had been one of the
torments of his life He had tried
many times to buy back the property
which nearly a century before had
been part of the farm now descend
ed to himself, but the owner would not
sell.
And last of all the devil came also,"
quoted the deacon, as the village depot
carriage drove up and stopped over the
way, and there alighted two boys of
perhaps fourteen years, a girl a little
older, and a woman, evidently the
mother of the trio.
The deacon watched them for awhile
in silence, and then muttered to him
self:
1.-THE last family kept hens-a hun
dred of them-in my dooryard; Meal
ison had dozen young ones, and they
ran all over me; the Smells borrowed
every nameable thing on my farm and
in my house, and Boxer kept fourteen
breachy cows. This woman farmer
and his expression was exceedingly
contcmptuous-''wi probably be a
boiling down of all that has gone be-
fore
But Deacon Ellingwood was wrong
in his predictions. Days, weeks and
months went by, and he was not
troubled with hens, breachy cattle,
borrowing or young ones" Instead,
pleasant relations grew imperceptibly
between the two families.
The deacon had a not undeserved
reputation for being a woman-hater,
but he had to own that Mrs. French
was woman Of sense, who understood
her business and attended strictly to it,
and he often found himself after chore
time, gravely discussing the habits Of
birds and animals, or matters agricul-
tural, with the twins, and smiling with
grim enjoyment of their boyish en-
thusiasm and conceit. The young girl
was the only one with whom he did
not seem to get on. She kept persist
emily out of his way, and alw ays fed
at his approach.
And yet Elinor had felt liking and
old man almost from the first; ever
since the day, indeed, when neighbor
had condoled with Mrs French on the
supposed misfortune of having Deacon
Ellingwood SO unpleasantly near. But
after all, Mrs. Simpson had said, after
expatiating on the deacon's peculiari-
ties of temper and his avoidance of all
womankipd. even to the extent of do
ing his own housework:
~ don't know as you can blame him.
He was brought up by stepmother
who never gave him any peace, she was
that neat aud fussy scolding and fault
finding from morning to night, so I've
heard say. And then, before he'd much
more than got his growth, he went and
married a girl from a no-account fam
lily that was just as far the other way.
To say she was slack don't begin to
tell the story Deacon stood it ten
years, and then she died when young
'Siah was born. And then, as though
that wasn't trials enough, here, about
five years ago, he and 'Siah had some
kind of falling out, and the boy ran
away and has never been heard of
since. l suppose that nigh about
killed the old man-every body calls
him old, but he amt fifty-fve yet-and
he's never got over it to this day"
To Elinor, who had never ceased to
mourn the loss of her own father, the
fact that Deacon Ellingwood mourned
lost son seemed to bring him near to
her
Poor man!'' she thought, pitifully.
81 wish could find his boy for him, or
can't, and l don't dare to try" And
then she shed few tears over the
deacon's troubles and her own Uncon-
querabl diflidence.
The time came however, when she
could do him good turn, though il
seemed to her very trifiing.
The deacon had started early one
September morning for the county cat
tie show, and did not return until late
in the afternoon, passing Mrs. French
and the boys on the way. When he
IrOVc lIlO lic ydiO he SdW LLlnOF
standing at the gate in the division
fence, as though waiting for him, and
he stopped as she came hesitatingly
toward him.
"I-your cows hooked down the
fence" she stammered out, her color
coming and going, 'and-"
"When?" interrupted the deacon.
''This forenoon.
"The deuce!" he muttered-the near,
est he ever came to swearing-and
clicked to his horse.
~ drove them up and shut them in
the barn." she finished.
You! Alone?" sharply demanded
Deacon Ellingwood
There was no one else here"
did you know the brindle cow was
vicious-dangerous?" the deacon de-
manded. still more sharplY.-