The herald., 1896-11-26

"Oh, mother! Why do you try to keep
Thanksgiving day? 1t is such bore
Just a stupid sermon and big dinner
We have all grown out of the old childish
delight in it; we all know life is not
worth living, much less being thankful
fori''
Mrs. Lyman lifted sweet, tired face,
set aside the pan of apples in her lap
and looked al Myra with an expression
of pain and surprise. The girl was very
pretty; her delicate features, large gray
eyes, a sort of WiG-floWer bloom on the
soft oval of her checks, and a well re-
strained profusion of bright, waving
hair made her very fair TO see, but yet
disappointing from the restless and
disturbed expression of lips and eyes.
She was girl of some talent and more
ambition, and while her brother lack
was quite content to stay at home and
help cultivate the farm that had always
been his home and as to be his inher-
itance, Myra had persuaded her father
to give her thorough education, though
it was only by close economy he could
find means to send her to good school
in F'oXcroft, the county town, and after
preparation there, to college in Water
loo, where she studied hard for four
years, and hal now been graduated
with all the honors and come back to
Lima, a scattered village among the
hills, to live her life as ii came to her
OF what use here were her various stud
les and accomplishments? She had been
great at mathematics, taken high rank
in music, entered into all the aspirations
of other girls, and confided to them her
own ambitions-for what end? Were
all these years to eliminate in Fer quiet
home life here? Must she live 10 help
her mother to make cakes and pies, turn
cheeses, sweep dust and mend-perhaps
make her own clothes?
hA COZ 1,it t1a. 11, ir,,y, lad
her to insist on an educa tion untitled her
for her home and her family life. Polr
Myral Nature had no charms for her,
home no attraction. The exquisite Sc
crets of the woods, the rocks, the fields,
are not taught a even female colleges;
nor do girls learn there the sweet home
liness of country life, the unselfish sac
rifices of a tender daughter in her faith
er's house. Myra longed to so out into
the whirl of the world, to make stir in
its crowds, to be dtstirg guished among
them and here in the dead quiet of Lima
and the dulness of trivial home duties.
she was dispirited weary, full of fret and
regret, ready to say bitterly: Who shall
show us any good?"
Her mother was deeply disappointed.
She was woman of unusual intelli-
gence and loveliness of character, ana
had looked forward to the companions
ship of her only daughter as the great
hope and pleasure of her declining life,
and the faithful heart that is only a
mothers was saddened to it's depths
when she saw how languid and fretfu,
the girl became, and how little love she
seemed to have for her home and her
family.
Mrs. Lyman's refined. gentle face was
no longer beautiful with youth ami
freshness. but there was charm about
it that MyraS beauty sorely needed. AS
Mr. Fenton, the young clergyman of
Lima, looked over his congregation on
Sunday to see who was there or to re-
mark new faces, he was always struck
with the contrast between the look of
this mother and daughter; both We're of
the best New England type, but remind
ed him of sentence he had seen some
where: I'm the one face was love. in the
other self" When Myra made her bitter
remark about Thanksgiving she ex"
pected that her mother would take it up
and try to controvert it, but Mrs. Ly-
man was a wise woman; she underst TODD
the virtue of silence: she only smiled
and looked so tired that Myra almost in
voluntarily took the apples she was
pairing from the chair and finished the
task herself, quite to her mothers sur
prise.
Presently Mrs. Lyman said to her:
"Myra I want you to do little errand
for me after dinner. Father and Jack
have got to take some wood into Fox"
croft, so they can't go for me-"
Myra did not object; she was, indeed.
rather glad to have something to do.
The day was a warm, still day of an
tumn, the air sweet with dying leaves
yet fresh with the breath of frost and
the girl was glad to get away from the
smells Of the kitchen, which would per-
wade the house and were both pungent
and spicy today, in due preparation for
dinner of tomorrow.
What Is it, mother?" she said.
II want you to take basket over to
Aunty Tucker. l always send her some
thing for Thanksgiving; she needs 1t.
and say l wish she could come here td
dinner, but as she can't, the dinner
comes over to her. -.
But l don't know where she lives"
ooh lust beyond the causeway, where
Eb Williams used to have his smithy
Don't you remember you used to go there
with your father"
ooh, yes: but / don't remember her."
"She only came there to live after you
went to FoXcroft to school. She was
Tb's grandmother and the farm be-
longed to her second husband, so she
came there when he died. Eben fell off
a hay cart about five years after, and
then his widow went into a slow con-
sumption; the twins died just before
she did so Aunty Tucker was left there
all alone. She is about crippled with
rheumatism, and she is really poor, be-
sides being all of so years old"
What does she live on?" asked Myra.
whose mathema tical education had
taught her the Chnaman's convincing
argument
IF no have, how cam"
"Why, she has the farm, and Squire
Smith cultivates it on shares; that keeps
s.,er in potatoes and meal: the neighbors
look after good deal, and the church
does something. She has got chair that
goes on wheels, so she can push herself
about, and Miss Mariner the tailoress,
sleeps there and helps about the work