Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1895-01-11

got yourself into? Company again, l
s'pose, and you forgot you asked 'em"'
"Well," said Tune, "it looks a little like
that l seem to remember as | went down
town this morning l said to several people
that my cherries were ripe. Come up to-
night l said, and help yourselves
must have said it twenty times, for there
sit twenty people over to our house waiting
to help themselves! Now, l say, Esther"
he added beseechingly, as he observed the
severity in her face, you know as well as
do that twenty people can't get into one
cherry tree. I'll have to pacify them with
something else, and Jane can't find thing
in the house,
The latter half of this speech was de-
livered to Esther's irate back, as they
walked in procession of two around to
the cellar door, the entrance to base of
supplies that never failed poor Tunis in
his extremity. When they issued from the
dark depths he was clasping tightly to his
heart big stone crock heaped with cook
les: and Esther, as she reflected on her
wasted mornings work, flung after him a
parting shaft.
"The Lord only knows, Tune Van
Brunt, what ever will become of you when
I'm dead
! The man stood stock still, with a sudden
shock that nearly finished the crock on
the stone wall, and looked after her reced-
! ing figure with frightened expression in
his eyes.
1.-The Lord only knows" he said with a
! sigh which was almost a sob, "what /
could do"
So the summers came to Tunis and his
cherry tree, tarried briefly and slipped
away, until one day they found themselves
old and quite ready to be cut down. The
man lived his life backward now. in
dreams of long-gone Junes; and the tree
had forgotten how to blossom and bear save
in feeble reflective way that was like
memory. Tunis would go out and stand
under its dropping leaves and fancy him
self once more school-boy hand in hand
with Esther, that happy day when she
brought him bunch of black oXhearts in
her little dirty pocket. Once more he
tasted the luscious sweetness of the dark
fruit favored with her childish love and the
grit from her pocket treasures once more he
boarded the pits and stole out at dusk to
plant them in his own garden plot: and
again he watched with daily recurring Joy
the little sprig of green that grew at last
to tall tree, to become for him the Sc
cret commemoration of lifelong affec-
ton.
The noisy voices of Esther's children
would sometimes break into the old mans
revery, their cries and laughter and their
mothers tones calling them home. Again
the tall sons and daughters came back from
school and college, where Uncle Tunes
generosity had sent them; and once more
in memory's panorama they married or
passed away into the engufing mists of
the greater world. Again they returned
for brief stays, or to invoke the ever-ready
help of their neXt-door almoner.
But the times that stood out as hap
piest of all in those visions were the
last years when he had Esther to
himself. Quite alone and widowed,
she seemed to go back with him to
the companionship of their school days.
Together the two aged children resumed
the closeness of boy and girl relations, en-
tertained in common the unexpected
guests, or ate the few cherries that came
each year on the drying branches of the
old tree, and sat through the long winter
evenings talking of the children who went
their ways on distant paths of diver
gence. Then Esther died.
Poor old Tunis wavered along for a time,
in purposeless, lost way, repeating
vaguely the echo of his old plant: Lord
only knows-Lord only knows what I'm
to do"' But his tottering mind held on to
one idea out of the wreck and chaos. One
day he had the old cherry tree cut down
and sawed into panks, as well as its rot
ting trunk would permit Out of it was
saved enough for his purpose, however;
and to the amazement of Esther's children.
when they came soon after to close his dy-
ing eyes, they found themselves enjoined
to lay him away in a cherry-wood coffin al
ready provided.
Poor Uncle Tune they said plying
! ly. "He quite lost his mind after mother
| died W-Nele EnQLand Minimizing.