The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1898-02-01

Rhody. it was Il faded, a pressed ana
vithered one. And yet a certain hint
of the sweetness Of the rose always
hung about ner, perhaps sIdlitualized,
but none the less sweet. The children
recognized it, for it was Miss lthody
who put the buttered brown paper on
their bruises and cOnsoled them Tor tlelr
bumps. now with an apple when no one
else had appleS-for Miss Iahody's few
trees always bore on the off year-and
now with a Shrinlng square OF loa1 SUI
gar from the great cone wrapped III paf-
Die paper which seemed to them u part
of the wonders of the o~utlandlAh coun-
tries on the other side OF the world
where peOple walkel head down as the
flies do on the ceiling. And now ana
then she conSoled one Of the tendereSt
and dearest with q kiss instead, which
the little thing endured for the sake OF
the cuddHnc on the SOFT shoulder, the
agreeaDleness of the ~half-gucSSed scent
of dried roses that she was never with
out, and the doll-baby rags that came
afterward. And the young girls reco2-
nized it. for it was to Miss Itnody they
came with the weighty condolences OF
their hopes and their @riefs and heslta-
tons. their gushcs and bushes, and it
was from her that they had the excellent
advice which they never followed. The
mothers recognized it. for it was not
only that Miss Ihody came to them IN
their illnesses and the illnesses of their
children. nor that she brought them the
lunches of p%eonies for the parlor pitcher
but she seemed to have an insight into
experience which She had never shared,
and gave them silent sympathy at I'M
expected moments when they would
have been the last to confess they need
OIL ~ And tho old paNpla rpc0On1upI
it, too: but, 10th to say, not altogether
with the same frIendlineSS of feeling to-
ward it: for it was Miss Rhody, who so
long had dressed their dear ones for the
last long rest. that they knew she was
the one likely to perform that office for
themselves, and that fiower-like sweet
ness of hers had to them something
of the quality OIL LIE flowers blossom
ing ON graves.
There was only one person in all the
shore really Indifferent to this poor
charm eff Miss Rhody's and that was
VIII Mather, who never perceived amy
charm at all about her, and who looked
on her with Il ~gOod-natured Indulgence
as he would have looked on n Math-
ers canary had it escaped and come
across his way, and who never thought
of her when he did not see her. Her
pale, thin personality was such Il color
less thing beside that of her cousin Ann,
the DTack-eyed. red-cheeked beauty, or
even besides the tender. smiling lowell
ness of the pretty Sadly. when Tom
Brier would have died for, and whom
Humphrey Lavendar had made his own
She was, in fact, to VIII Mather only
like the shadow of some one else. and
Will Mather was the only one whose
feeling in regard to herself had any
vital significance to Miss Rhody.
Every time that he came home from Il
voyage, more bluff and burly and trum-
%pet-tOned than before, all the suggestions
of the romance of the deep seas gathered
about him in her fancy, and the whole
outside foreign world came with him.
He was the hero Of wild WreStles with
wind and weather; what dangers Of
might and storm had threatened him:
what triumphs were his when he brought
his white canvas into port. For VIII
was now the captain of the Man-o-Mun,
a man OF mark n of authority in the
village of the shore. But to Miss
Rhody he had been as much as this, and
more, before ever he ran away to sea.
always an ideal, always Il being of ad
venture. 1t might have seemed to an
other that she Wayered n little i'll her
allegiance when Humphrey LavendaI
took the hand OF his crazy mother as
She was dancing in the street and put
her shawl about her and led her home.
and Khody ran and took her other hand,
sharing with Humphrey the shame and
pain of the thing ne was one day to in
MERIT. But 1t was nothing of the sort:
Humphrey was some one in distress. and
she went to him just as she went to
the hurt creature, out of the abundance
of her hearts tenderness. But, as for
VIII, he would never be one of those
IN M lie .Ar.. fn.- ay-n, 90, clNa no.
a dozen years old she had felt all that
was potent and Fortunate, and that cap
tivated all the girls in town in his
strong and reckless nature, even before
he climbed the outside of the meeting
mouse steeple to rescue 4 parrot that had
taken q flight Of fancy to the vane and
had hurt it's wing and feared to try its
fate downward. 10 be sure, he was
thrashed for it. And deserved it,
said Win. But / had the climb!'
"1I teach YOU to brighten your moth
er again, you ships monkey.' cried his
father. But Will saw the twinkle in his
fathers eye, for all the blows, and knew
there was a bubbling pride over the
boys achievement in the Old sailors
heart. "A chip of the old block the
father was muttering to himself rs he
put up the strap. and that in spite of
the fact that he had been heard to say
that he would rather the boy died
young than live to follow his fathers
path in blue water.
But nothing of that mattered to
IhhOdy and to the little public. to Ann
and Flora and Humphrey, to Sally and
Tom Brier and JOY Hodge and the rest
OF them, to whom the thrashing was an
affair Of every day, but the climbing set
their nerves to thrilling and their blood
to spinning. They held council among
themselves and knew that sooner or later
1t was decreed in fate that VIII Mather
would run AWAY to sea. And he was
as good as their word. To sea he went.
and when de came back breezy and
brown and rolling in his gait, he could
have had amy girl on the shore fo1
the ~aSking-eXcept Sally. 1t lis hardly
any sacrifice of her maiden modesty tc
say he could have had Rhody; although
l do not know but the asking would
have surprised her out of the possibility
for she dlu not look on him as girls
look uOOn a lover lint aS n SlIhiact looI-o