The Mena weekly star., 1897-07-28
DEFER PENRUDDoCK's mouth was

DETER PENRUDDOCK'S mouth was
 in the shape of a cheery word, and the weight of siX-days' sorrow was insufficient to press out the molding of 40 years. So the curves of his lips were but partially strengthened as he stood with one hard, toil-shapened hand rest ing heavily upon the table and looked upon Martha, his wife, though the light of good content might be shut from his eyes and the ache in his heart seem un ending.
 The face of Martha Penruddock had been slowly nodded by an uneventful happiness into curves of calm satisfac- tion, but on her the weight of the six days sorrow had left deep dentings, and her eyes were awful with the shade of a cold, voiceless misery as she stood straight and motionless at the window and looked down across the sunny slope to the spot where her son, her one, comely son, had just been laid, dead.
 Tn the parlor where the husband and wife stood suffering there hung an ut ter stiffness. To-day this well-worn room was neat to a fault. The empty egg basket stood back on the chif- fonier; the punches of keys hung on their respective nails; the weekly news paper was yet unfolded; none of the daily litter of liyed-in room was 10 be seen. Life had looked on Death for a whole week within that gray farm house, and little habits had fallen away before the absorbing sight. Beyond the closed door of the parlor the tall clock in thc stone hall licked off its moments slowly. From the kitchen came an oc- casional sound of footsteps crossing to and fro, or the moving of a fire Eron, or the placing of a dish; but no word was spoken, and the sounds, such hs they were, seemed but to add depth Ito the silence.
 { Outside, the afternoon sun blazed down upon the square gray walls and hardened the blisters already raised up ,on the green front door. In days now passed fat baby hand had pressed the Iblisters on the lower panels and baby heart bemoaned lack of inches as baby eyes gazed higher. But with growth came indifference, and the blisters of the upper panels were still unmuti lated, standing out as so many protests against the suns immoderation In the trim front garden, however, there were mo such protests. The eunaowers, the dahlias, the hollyhocks, the roses, all opened their glorious hearts to receive his fire and loved him for his ardency. While mignonette and marjoram, law ender and nasturtiums, candy tuft, sweet peas and bold-eyed marigolds mingled their charms to the making of a glowing, growing pomander, stretching on either side the gravel box edged path, from blistered door to gar den gate. And the bees buzzed desul- torily, slipping honey as if there were no need for haste; and the big rides cent flies rested. still and gleamng. on the hot gray pillars of the porch.
 Beyond the house. and the garden. and the dusty white road along which the black-suited villagers had passed so short time ago. soped down a tawny cornfsld, where the reapers bent 10 their labor leaving the grain in long fallen swathes behind them as they passed upon their way. And beyond this slope, dotted with life and spread with the means of life, lay the peaceful acre of death. with one brown mound among the grassy mounds, beneath which lay the gladness of woman's life
 And the afternoon wore on. The sun moved slowly across the clear, still sky. leaving a shadow pillar athwart the gray stone doorstep and grief in the heart of the suniowers. The bright square, too. which had blazed through the uaror window on to the rose wreathed carpet. had travelled and trav- .eled by slow degrees along the floor. then climbed the damask- -patferned wall and finally disappeared in the scroll work of the cornice. And Peter Penruddock's lips seemed to grow stgaighter and narrower as he looked npJD aiar.sa, his wife. And the tall