Shenandoah herald. [volume] (Woodstock, Va.) 1865-1974, 1895-03-01
THE FAMILY TREE.

man IN America. He had served
crediiably ln the war of 1872, as
his father had in The Revolution
and his grandfather in the "Old
French waI"--all captains who had
never received scratch or Ouce
encountered the vulgar smell of
gunpowder.
That none of his name had ever
risen above the rank Of captain
was circumstance he not a little
plumed himself upon. Generals
aud commanders 10 chief, he was
accustomed to say, were for the
most part paryenus, promoted
through luck or for accidental reas.
Ous. Bat a captalncy running in a
family for three generations was
quite another affair.
Family pride vas the captains
specially How tar 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 food in
their own private yacht.
The captain hated the new and
wOrshiped the old. When he went
about it was an ancient family
gig drawn by an Old horse of ap-
proved extraction, now a mere
pedigree in harness, but in whose
sdavins and windgalls the captain
took almost as much pride as he
did in the family gout.
Captain Craik was rich, more
over. Time and the natural, rise OF
property had made him so. He
would have scOrned the acquisition
OF wealth by any less respectable
mode. Trade he looked upon as
plebeian and vulgar. Speculat on
was upstarish, and as for petroleum
-faugh!
His daughter and only child be
had left to die uEforgiven and al
most in want for having married
man without a grandfather. Tue
poor girl had besOught his forgive
ness while her husband lived, but
ceased 10 do 80 after his death,
seeming to look upon such an act
as a sort Of treason to his memory &.
Her infant soD, however, soon left
motherless as we'll as fatherless,
vas taken into favor at last for the
sake of the blood that was IN him,
and thus it came that Willard
Spence vas brought up in bis
grandfather's house in way btfi :
ting the heir apparent to the hand
soonest for tune within 90 miles.
c. ,ptain Craik would haye great
ly preferred that his grandson,
after finishing at college, should
have sat down in gentlemanly
idleness and quietly awaited bis
turn at the family succession.
Bat Willard Spence had other
views. He was far from sharing
bis grandfatheI's notions on the
value of ancestry, and though toe
discreet to openly laugh at them
be felt be was more than likely to
run counter to them some day, as
his Door mother had done, when
his own time TO mary came. 1t was
for this reason partly and partly
because be had an ambition to bt
something in his OwD right thai
Willard prevailed upon his grand
father to enter him as student il
the office of Mr.. Stiles, the leading
lawle OF the county.
1t was with some reluctance thai
the old gentleman yielded. Ht
entertained a not very exalted
opinion of the bar. But then Il
was stepping stone to the bench
and though the family could bossI
of three successive captains there
had never been a chief Justice in 1t
1t was this consideration that de
termined the captain.
If John Stiles was the driest o
lIwyers, his daughter Mary was tb
prettIest and most fascinating o
: girls, and Willard Spence was no
. the man to be slow in finding !
out. 1t would be the old stor.
over to recount the steps of thei
falling in love and how deeply
2 they fell in.
o Willard ventured to hint TO hi
grandfather one dsy, not at tn