The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.) 1890-current, 1897-01-15

saved many negatives.
OF course it never occurred to the
instructor of amateurs to add: "And
always take a good look about you be-
fore shutting the door and sitting
down in front Of your ruby light. !"
That admonition would be looked
upon as outside the book, and no ANA
teur would see in it sense OF relevan-
cy. Yet I never 60 into my darkroom
now without letting in a food of light
that searches out every corner.
When bought my camera and began
to turn out foggy negatives, from
which sickly, spectral prints came Of,
I had no decently appointed dark
room, using a small closet in my house
for the purpose. Now, not being a
Socialist or shoemaker, like good air,
and to sit in that study hole.in.the-
wall for the better part of an hour at
a time had the result Of eating M
some of my enthusiasm for dabbling
in solutions of eikonogen, carbonate
of soda and ill-smelling ether. My
ill.smelling lamp seemed to exhaust
as much oxygei as my good pair of
lungs, and l sometimes bore my mega
tive out of the closet with such pale
face that, in spite of my triumphant
air in exhibiting it to my wife, she de-
clared ] was surely i'll and that she had
always heard that photographers were
short.lived. She did not like the
smell of my chemicals, either, and de-
clared they were a nuisance of the first
order.
That was why I had my new and
carefully ventilated dark room built
for me. 1t was a house all by itself
and stood down in a little hollow, a
good stones thrown from our dwell
ing. We were living in the country,
then, in very pretty bit of woodland
that had wilderness of brown plain
all about it.
My new darkroom was quite a spa.
cious affair, and / gloried in its com
pleteness of detail and the hardness
of the appointments. 1 used to spend
a good deal of time in there, and, as
learned hcw much bromide to use and
to Kit upon the happy moment for
taking plate out of the developing
bath, my progress was swift and sweet.
1t so happened in the autumn that
we went to the city for o month to
live, leaving our country-place shut
up. l took my camera to town and
exposed dozen or so dry-plates on q
lot of marble statuary, Whenever, al
odd times, I thought of these, l be.
came 1everish to know whether Ariadne
had been overturned or whether Venus
had been light-struck.
My wife smiled when l told her
intended to run down to "the rarch'
to look after things o bit.
1t was too diaphanous. When she
saw me packing my plates, she laughed.
But she was indulgent and said good.
by with her own little pleasantly
about my not being SO very deep after
all.
a5Walking up to the house from the sta
tion, 1 saw that the autumn winds hat
been making very free with the trees
while we had been away, and the brown
leaves strewed the gravel-walk anc
were scurrying along on their thir
edges like little hoops driven by
children. A smoky haze lay over the
wood and along the plain, and tn,
hills beyond were deep in it. Thu
low.lyIng sun was blood-red, and sen
sickly yellow glow over the place
Driving rather keenly, the wind Sc
me a-shivering. I had never know
"the ranch" when it showed so bleal
and forbidding a free. Not caring Il
enter the vacant house, Istrode quick
! " down the path into the hollow yhicl