The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1898-11-23

woods TO the still.
At the usual hour Lucy had dinner
ready and she blew the horn for John.
While waiting for her husband s ap-
pearance she went into her glass,
brushed her hair, primped little and
came out, smiling, to meet him when
he came--but alas, he never came.
She blew the horn again, this time
long and loud, and then she waited
and watched, but never John came
nigh. Again she blew and again she
waited, but John had never come.
She was frightened now and thought
some tree or limb in the new ground
had fallen on John, and quicker than
I could write it, she had scooted like
a deer and was standing on q big
stump in thc new ground calling:
"John, oh, John! Where are you,
John?''
Then she searched every nook and
corner in that new ground, but no
John was there. Faint and exhaust
ed, she threw herself upon the leaves
in the corner of the fence, sobbing
mournfully:
"Oh, John, John; where have you
gomez
Poor Lucy! She lay in the corner
of that fence till John and the rowdies
did come and find her, and JOIN, for
the first time in his life, was blind,
staggering drunk, and for the first
time in his life he was unkind to
Lucy, and told her, in a drunken pas
sion, that her old father made his
riches by selling whiskey and making
peach brandy.
Those rowdies never had much
trouble after that in getting John off
to the still, and it was no great while
till he spent the most Of his time
there, and with rowdies worse than
these first ever thought of being.
Lucy lost the bloom in her cheeks
and the sparkle of her eye passed
away, till folks who knew nothing of
her troubles said she was dyspeptic
and that she didn't make her home
happy.
So matters were moving till one
cold December night, when few
neighbor women had gathered in to
see Lucy die. John was off at the
still and had been off for week, and
only got home in time to hear the last
words of his wife as she reached out
her hands in q senseless manner and
muttered:
"Tell the folks around old Hebron
that this issLucy-the little, blue
eyed girl lthat they so loved to pet.
Lucy thatswas baptized by the spring
at the Eold. Church and who lived in
the big Ewhite shouse in the forks.
Tell them how Lucy"
She stopped for a moment and a
shadow seemed to fit across her face,
when she resumed:
'Lucy;gpoor, poor Lucy-my father
made his riches by selling whiskey
and running still, and thus the lit
tie girl he loved SO well must pass
away
She was dead, and Brown and l
knew the story, and aswe looked upon
the tombstone, Erected by her hus-
band, we said and still say: "What
mockery, what moskery." This was
no new.made grave. Lucy has been
dead long, long time, and ] think
that herOgoing was not so hard, for
she was zlaid beside her only little
babe that seemed so lonesome here
alone, but the tombstone was fresh
and implies consideration that she
should have found while here. We
may feel too hard on John in this; I
think we do, for he is an old man now
and often thinks of the blooming girl
and of how she dropped till her poor
thin hands were too weak to work and
her spirits too low to ever raise a
smile. So is life. We often save
till after death the kindly acts that
should come here.
Brown and l are both suspicious
that the present Georgia Legislature
will make an effort to cut down the
pensions of Confederate soldiers and
widows. If they do, every monument
that has been raised to the Confeder-
ate cause will point down to these
and say:
"What mockery! What mockery!'
= Thirteen billion tons of coal
have been mined during the nine
toanth conturr