The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1898-01-30
MISS RHODY.
BY HARRIET PRESCOTT sPoFF0aD.
Copyright, 1898, the s $. Mcclure Co..

Rhoda. the elder said, meant a rose,
or something like it, But surely. if there
was anything of the rose about Miss
Rh0dy. it was Il faded a pressed and
wiJh6red one. And yet a certain hint
of the sweetness of the rose always
hung crbolgt ner. perhaps SldrtHllized,
but none the l2SS sweet The children
recognized it. for it was Miss Rhody
who put the buttcrcd brown paper on
tileir bruises and cOnSoled them for their
btMETS, now with an apple when no one
else had apples-for Miss I1hody'S few
trees always bore on the off year--;lnd
NOW with a shrining Square OF loaf SUI
gar from the great cone wrapped an pur-
Pc paper which seemed TO them u part
OF the wonders of the oIutlandiah coun-
tries ON the other side of the world
where people walkel head down as the
flies do on the ceiling. And now and
ttIen she conisoled one of rhe tenderest
and dearest with a kiss instead, which
the little thing endured for the sake of
fdle cuddling on the S0hft shoulder. the
agreeaDtCness of the halfgueSSed scent
of dried roses that she was never with
out. and the doll-baby rags that came
afterward. And the young girls recog>
Iized it, for it was to Miss Rhody they
came with the weighty condolences of
their hopes and their grfefs and heSlta-
tons. their gusheS and dJlusheis. 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 Rhody came to them in
taeir illnesses and the Illnesses of their
children. nor that she brought them the
lunches of peonies for the parlor pitcher,
Tut 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
ed it. And the old people recognized
it, too: but, 10th to say, not altogether
with the same frlendlineSS 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 hower-like sweet
ness of hers had ITO them something
Of tine quality or tie flowers blossom
ing on graves.
There was only one person in all the
shore really indifferent to this poor
charm OF Miss Rhody's and that was
Will Mather, who never perceived amy
charm at all about her. and who looked
ON her with a good-natured indulgence
as he would have looked on Ann Math-
er's canary had it escaped and come
across his way, and who never thought
of her when he did not see her. Her
Iale, thin personality was such Il color
less thing beside that of her cousin Ann,
ahe LEack-eyed red-cheeked beauty, or
even besides the tender. smiling lowell
ness of the pretty Sally. whom Tom
Biier would have died for. and whom
Humphrey I1avendar had made his own.
She was. in fact to WIN Mather only
like the shadow of some one else. and
Will AIather was the only one whose
feeling in regard to herself had any
vital significance to Miss Rhody.
Every time that he came home from
voyage, more bluff and burIy 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
night and storm had threatened him:
what triumllhs were his when he brought
his white canvas into port. For Will
was now the captain of the Man-o' Null,
a man of mark and of authority in the
village of the shore. But to Miss
Rhody ne had been as much as this, and
more, before ever he ran away to sea,
always an ideal. always a being of ad.
venture. ut might have seemed to an
other that she wayered a little in her
allegiance when Humphrey Lavendar
took the hand OF ms crazy mother as
she was dancing in the street and put
her sJhawl about her and led her home.
and Rhody ran and took her other hand,
sharing with Humphrey the shame and
pain of The thing ne was one day to in
ileIit But it was nothing Of the sort;
Humphrey was some one in distress, and
she went ito him just as she went to
the hurt creature, out of the abundance
OF her hearts tenderness. But, as for
Will. he would never be one OF Those
in any distress for even before she was
a dozen years old she had felt all that
was potent and fortunate, and that cap
divated all the girls in town in his
strong and reckless nature, even before
he climbed the outside of the meeting
house tsteeple to rescue a parrot that had
taken a flight of fancy to the yane and
had hurt its wing and feared to try its
fate downward. 10 be sure, he was
tllraehed for it, ''And deserved it,
said VIII. But / had the climbn'
''Ill teach you 10 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 as he
put mp 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 father
path in blue water.
But nothing of that mattered TO
Rhody and to the little public, TO Ann
and Flora and Humphrey, TO Sally and
Tom Brier and Joy Hodge and the rest
az them, to whom the thraIsl1ing 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 de@eed in fate that VIII Mather
would run away to sea. And he was
as good as their word To sea he went,
and when he came back breezy and
DPoyHh and rolling in his ora IL ,ha cnuld