The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1896-09-13

1t was deemed best to lock the snokehouse
door. This Nell volunteered to do. Tipto-
| ing softly to the door, she silently fitted the
] paddock, and. muff1ing it in her apron
| turned the key almost as silently. Aunt
| Polly was prisoner. If the girls had felt
any anxiety as to the impression Uncle Eph
would make upon the guest it was speedily
/ dissipated. for it was discovered early in
the conversation, by that freemasonry
which exists between all members of the
craft. that the professor enthusi-
astic fisherman, and finding himself thus
placed upon common grounds with fell
| low-mortal, the old blossomed into
| one of his haDpiest moods.
Things We're going wonderfully well when
| an interruption, wholly unexpected, oc-
Cured Sly as had been Nel1s application of
| the paddock, Aunt Polly's ears. already alert
| to catch the drift of the proceedings in
| the kitchen, responded to the faint click
| of the key and in moment she was up
| ard fiinging herself upon the door with the
| frenzy of a new-nade prisoner. When she
| discovered that the door would not yield
| she scorned to cry out demanding her re-
/ lease. That would be too tame; en- the con-
| trary, she sat down again to think it over
and soon a little window at the rear of
/ the building caught her eye. 1t was in the
| gable end above the low beams. from
which in happier times great hams and
| sides of meat, together with
! smoked beef and sausages, depended.
A pair of rickety steps, used
| fer years in hanging the meat, and
d couple of loose planks offered frail as
| cent, by means of which, after various
scramblngs Aunt Polly found herself
once more in the air of liberty. Her APP
pc arance, before disheveled in the extreme,
tiers, her hair hanging like a twisted name
about her face, which was swollen with
weeping, discolored by contact with var
ious portions of the anatomy of the smoke
house and considerably scratched by her
somewhat precipitous descent into the
briar rose bush that grew behind the smoke
house.
In the cottage she could hear the pleas
ant sound of knives and forks and china,
mingled with Uncle Ephs genial tones.
There they were, she said to herself,
tt riftless, ungrateful set, feasting upon her
remnant of provision for the future with
out even much as saying, Here goes
it,. In this frame of mind she suddenly
appeared at an open door which, shaded
by a budding woodbine. looked out upon
a pleasant vista of poisoning fruit trees
in neighboring orchard. What she might
have done had circumstances proved
she expected must remain a matter of con-
lecture; it was she had only uttered.
in the high quavering key of mental ex-
element, these words:
THAT hen - when her eyes fell upon
the visitor. streak of tightening is not
more rapid than was the disappearance of
Aunt Polly. In less time than it takes to
tell it she was sitting in the retirement of
the kitchen, the full extent and meaning
of the event growing upon her mind. Here
was company, actually company, and that
a young man with a black coat, looking
de cidedly as if he had already entered the
ministry, and she, Polly Beasly in such
state. Whose son. of all the preachers
she had entertained, could this be, come,
on his good old fathers recommendation,
to visit her as a mighty power in the
church and found her thus?
On 81 little shelf, under the clock lay a
comb, an article which Aunt Polly in bet
ter days would have as allowed in
the kitchen rattlesnake, now she seized
it and began a vigorous attack upon her
tangled tresses. When she had smoothed
them into a semblance of their old-time
glossy neatness she bathed her face and
made such alterations in her toilet as the
kitchen afforded and then fell noiselessy
Eph had made preparing dinner
When the meal was happily over and
Uncle Eph appeared. hastily removing the
white "dckey' which he declared was
about to choke him, no meeker spouse
ever raised a pair of appealing eyes to the
countenance of her better half. 1t APP
rt AIRED, however. that the Professor, deep
ly interested at the moment in a thrilling
history of how Uncle Eph had, only few
weeks before, gigged a seven-pound bass
below the apron of the Feeder dam, and
also looking at Polly, whose happy face
certainly did look pretty outlined
against the open window behind her, did
rot see the apparition at the doorway, and
only dimly comprehended that something
disturbing to the family serenity had oc-
Cured
There were mullins for tea that evening
and honey which Aunt Polly produced
from a place of hiding, and thin, red
slices Of smoked beef off of the very last
piece of Aunt Polly's own drying, and
which she had secreted in the darkest gable
of the smoke house lest Uncle Eph should
purloin it to ada to the provisions of some
fishing party.
1t the reader has not already OWNED it.
1t may be added for his benefit that this
as Aunt Poly's last tartrum, life having
taken for her a happier turn that led to
prosperous responsibility. Patty was mar
ried first, and the double wedding of Fan
and Nell followed soon, and, though the
cottage was mortgaged to procure for the
girls suitable outfits for the station they
were about to adorn each of the marriages
turned out SO happily that no question of
basket and store ever again annoyed Aunt
Polly. And when the little grand-r phews
and nieces began to arrive the dear old
lady found herself in such demand that all
thoughts of melancholy Were banished and
her favorite text of scripture. HE setteth
the solitary in families" was realized.
There is but one melancholy event to
mar the ending of this veracious chronicle |
Uncle Eph drowned moonlight |
night while SEEMING fish in the Wabash, |
and when the assembled family followed |
him to his last resting place none seemed |
deeply affected Patty and the Pro- |
fessor. the latter having felt for the old |
affection peculiar among members |
of the cosmopolitan brotherhood of fisher |
men.
The Nipur Discoveries.
Boston Herald.
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