St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1897-02-26
HONEY OUT OF THE LION.
Frances. M. Abbott in the New England
Magazine.

llOuS place. III NlVeINdle, even DOW III
its present dropping and moss grown
state. The great brick house, with
its double swell front and portico
supported by stone pillars, was sep
arated from the sidewalk by a tan
gled thicket OF rose and lilac bushes,
and clumps OF yellow lilies, heur-de-
lis, phloxes, and other survivals
of halfobiterated hower-beds. A
straight cobblestone pathway, whose
rounded surfaces had not been worn
fat by half century's coming and
going, cleft this wilderness in twain.
The sidewalk was so grassy that the
uniformed stranger might neglect
to notice that it was laid with square
bricks brought from Portsmouth in
the days before railroads. Even the
bricks themselves seemed to have
forgotten that they formed part Of
the first sidewalk ever seen in that
region, for most of them had sunk
modestly into obscurity, save here
and there about the roots of the
great elm. trees, where one sometimes
raped the toe OF the passer.by, till
he wished they had all been sunk in
Portsmouth Harbor.
The outbuildings had been built on
a scale corresponding to the house;
but now the roots of the barns and
sheds drooped with that forlorn
catenary curve so suggestive OF hol-
lowness within. Their detected atti-
tude plainly said, Whereas once we
were full, now we are empty. Some
OF the walls would hardly have had
the courage to hold themselves to-
gether if they had stood in any other
place but Rivervale. But the town
was so quiet, especially since the
county offices had been moved to
Stumpvile. that nothing occurred to
disturb old traditions, aud the build
ings were enabled to support them
selves by recollections of their past
dignity.
The owners must have lived the
same way; at least, they had no
other resources so far as their near
est neighbors could determine. Oh,
yes! Madam Forrest6ed still had
fraction of her ancestral property
remaining. Those renegade sons had
died in season to save her a little,
and the Crowninshied girls had
tritling pension that came 20 them
from their father, the late naval
officer. The old judge had not earned
a dollar for years. Money getting
had never been in his line even in his
prime. The farm still raised quite
burden of hay, and that sold for
something. At any rate the family
were able to buy their groceries and
pay their taxes, and they had never
yet sold one acre OF their timber lot,
though the lumbermen at Stumpvile
had offered good prices time and
again. The Forrest6elds did not be-
lieve in changes.
1t was consequently a shocking
piece of news that Judge Forrest6eld
brought home from thepostoffice one
afternoon when he returned with the
daily mail. A new house was to be
built in Riyervale. Worse still, it
was to be within a dozen rods of
their own dwelling, and actually in
sight OF their windows. Worst of
all, it was to be one of those efflor.
escent summer villas with a ruffled |
roof and founced piazza and seal.
Hoped shingles of red and green.
Madam Borrestheld, a strikinglv
handsome old lady in a wheeled chair,
received the news as fit had been a
personal affront.
81 do not know why those Vittums
should come back to town. They
never belonged in this neighborhood.
Conceive of any OF that family with
money !"
The Crowinshield girls wished to
know if their grandmamma knew the
Vttums.
mo, indeedl' said the old lady.
1--WE never ate in their house. They
used to live in little shanty just be
You'd our north field. The father was
a drunken vagabond, and the poor,
broken-down mother had a brood Of
children whom we kept from starry
ing. We furnished all their -four and
sugar, and at one time they had
gallon OF milk day from our kitchen.
Most of the children died There
was a William, just six months
younger than your uncle Bradbury,
who lived to be ten. That child
never had an article Of clothing from
the time he entered the world till he