Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1895-02-15
THE FAMILY TREE.

IHE FAMILY IREE.
Captain Craik was the proudest man
in America. He had served creditahly
in the war of 1879, as his father had in
the Revolution and his grandfather in
the "Old French war''-all captains
who had never received a scratch or
once encountered the vulgar smell of
gunpowder.
That none of his name had ever risen
above the rank Of captain was circum-
stance he not little plumed himself
upon. Generals and commanders-in-
chief, he was accustomed to say, were
for the most part parvenus, promoted
through luck or for accidental reasons.
But a captaincy running in family
for three generations was quite another
affair.
Family pride was the captains spe-
cialty. How far back he could trace his
kindred nobody exactly knew, but it
was popularity believed he could, if SO
minded, produce satisfactory proof that
the Craiks had cruised through the flood
in their own private yacht.
The captain hated the new and wor-
shiped the old. When he went about it
was in an ancient family gig drawn by
an old horse of approved extraction,
now a mere pedigree in harness, but in
whose spavins and windgalls the cap
tain took almost as much pride as he
did in the family govt.
Captain Craik was rich, moreover.
Time and the natural rise of property
had made him so. He would have scorn-
ed the acquisition of wealth by any less
respectable mode Trade he looked
upon as plebeian and vulgar. Specula-
ton was upstartish and as for petroleum
-faugh!
His daughter and Only child he had left
to die unforgiven and almost i'll want
for having married man without a
grandfather The poor girl had besought
his forgiveness while her husband lived,
but ceased to do SO after his death,
seeming to look upon such an act as a
sort of treason to his memory. Her in
FAINT son, however, soon left motherless
as we'll as fatherless, was taken into ia
vor at last for the sake Of the blood that
was in him, and thus it came that Will
lard Spence was brought up i'll his
grandfather house in a way BETTING
the heir apparent to the handsomest for
tune within SO miles.
Captain Craik would have greatly
preferred that his grandson, after fin
ishing at college, should have sat down
in gentlemanly idleness and quietly
awaited his turn at the family success
sion. But Willard Spence had Other
views. He was far from sharing his
grandfather notions on the value Of
ancestry, and though too discreet te
openly laugh at them he felt he was
more than likely to run counter to them
some day, as his poor mother had done,
when his own time to marry came. II
was for this reason partly and partly be
cause he had an ambition to be some
thing in his own right that Willard
prevailed upon his grandfather to ente1
him as a student in the office of Mr.
Stiles, the leading lawyer of the county
1t was with some reluctance that the
old gentleman yielded. He entertained
not very exalted opinion of the bar
But then it was stepping stone to The
bench, and though the family coul(
boast of three successive captains there
had never been chief justice in it. j
was this consideration that determined
the captain.
If John Stiles was the driest of law
yers, his daughter Mary was the pref
tiest and most fascinating Of girls, ant
Willard Spence was not the man to b.
slow in finding it out. It would be the
| old story over to recount the steps 0,
their falling in love and how deeply
they fell in.
Willard ventured to hint to his grand
father one day, not at the state Of hi
| feelings, but what a nice, intelligen
young lady Miss Stiles was. The oil
gentleman caught like gunpowder. III
had no excuse for putting summar,
end to his grandson's legal studies ant
packing him off on foreign tour, TO
the young man had said nothing to jus
tify suspicion of his being i'll love
But. the captain scented danger afa
and proceeded to read such homily OF
the sin Of marrying into families with
( out lineage and put such disinheritins
look ON that Willard was fain to drol
the subject.
If the reader has ever read Blackstone
he will remember, and if he hasn't w
| will tell him, that in the second bool
there is a folding leaf called a ''Tabi
Of Descents, whereon the author illus
trates the mode of computing kindred
by tabular view of the ancestors ant
collateral relatives for ten or a dozel
generations of a certain fictitious Jot1
Stiles. The names are inclosed in littl
circles, with lines uniting those sup
| posed to have intermarried, whose name
are further united by other lines Il
those of their offspring.
81 have It'll" was Willard Spence
exclamation as his eye fell on this lea
| lying lose in the volume he was readin:
one day.
That evening it was accidentally drop
ped in his grandfather way.
whats this?" asked the old gentle
man, picking it up and putting on hi
specs.
ga paper found i'll one of Mr.. Stiles
books" was the innocent reply.
''Humph! A copy Of the Stiles; fam
:ly tree and-stop, let me see-runnina
back, as live, through more genera
lions than l supposed any man in thu
state could count but myself! Who't
have thought that dried up old lawye1
had SO much blood in bim?"
mot l certainly" acquiesced Will
lard.
"And see. here's the name of Baker
My maternal great grandmother's mai
den name was Baker. By Jove,
shouldn' t wonder if we found ourselve
related yet!''
Nor | either" said Willard drily.
Miss Stiles-is she very handsome%
inquired the old gentleman.
'Passably," answered the young hyp
ocrite
Then it occurred to the captain tt
lecture his grandson on the impropri
ETY. OF not having returned the paper t.
Mr.. Stiles at once. The young mai
defended himself with fib, which thu
| Il /. T.