Abilene weekly reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1888-1935, 1897-09-02
lit evening Cine.
II LILLIAN CUTLER COUCH.
nErER PENRUDDOCK's mouth was
In the shana NJ cheerv word and

IN the shape OF cneery worn, anu
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-
ton, 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 motlonless 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.
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 a fat baby hand had pressed the
blisters 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
no such protests. The sunhowers, the
dahllas, 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 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 II there were
no need for haste; and the big rides
cent flies rested, still and cleaning, 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
NO short time ago, sloped down q tawny
cornAeld, where the reapers bent to
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 shadow pillar athwart the
gray stone doorstep and grief in the
heart Of the sunAowers. The bright
square, too, which had blazed through
the parlor window on to the rose
wreath.d carpet, had Travelled and trav-
eled by slow degrees along the floor.
then climbed the damask-patterned
wall and finally disappeared in the
scroll work OF the cornice. And Peter
penruddock's lips seemed to grow
strnighter and narrower as e'looked
upon Martha, his wife. And the tall
clock in the stone hall licked the mo-
ments away--always the same, no hur-
ry, no change Of tone, no relenting.
Sweet is the scent OF pink clover by
the path across short wheat field,
when the evening dew falls gently and
damps the full-blown petals. Peaceful
and kind is the twilight when faint
breeze swaps the slight gossamers, cool
Ing the sun-scorched verdure and re-
vivlng fainting land. Yet scent and
light were as nothing to the senses of
Peter Penruddbck as he stood by the
gate Of his rick yard and gazed at the
steep winding field path up which Mar
tha had slowly gone an hour ago.
II wasso terrible, this great silencing
grief which had shut him, her husband,
from her heart and care. His sorrow
surely his, II hers-could have been
eased by speech and softened by SYM
patty; hut the wife had taken II 9th
erwise, lad held her heart and lips
tight shut against words Of comfort,
leaving him to mourn alone, outside.
But 1t was not Of this that Peter
thought as he looked up across, the
steep wheat field; he was not given to
the weighing Of his rights and his
wrongs; only to him the pain Of her
anguish was unbearab'e, sorrow even
greater than the other sorrow. mas
much as 1t was living and more in
tangible,
With wistful eyes and weighted heart
he left the rick yard and turned up
wards by the clover-edged path through
the bare brown field at the back Of the
gray farm house. He knew where he
should find her; he knew how shewould
receive him; this last was knowledge
which had come to him within the past
dark week. She had no need Of him;
she chose to suffer alone-silent, and
hard and uncontrolled.
On the old wooden seat at the bend
OF the slopinr fiel he found her: her