The evening times., 1898-09-03
BER LOVE WENT A-SAILING.

1t was a lonely little house and Aunt
Pam lived in it--a lonely little house.
with its bits of front windows staring
down a rough, stony road and its back
door jammed up against a rough, stony
mountain
Some women have a talent for growing
old. Aunt Pam looked as if she had been
born so, as if. some way, nature had var
led her usual routine and quarried her
out, or dug her up rained her down.
or. Long and narrow. like Barbara
Aliens grave, was Aunt Pam, with frost
nipped hair and face that looked like
the brown withered kernel of a nut Her
cheeks were ditched with wrinkles that
crawled In and out of each other like
tangled twine, and there were lines about
her mouth that time could never had
cut there without calling trouble to her
aid
Trouble! If Aunt Pam Thomas could
have carried her woes to market and
sold them by the job lots, her wealth
would have rivaled that of the remarka-
bic Princess of Bagdad, who lived some
where in the Arabian Nights and who
dear. because with all her money no ca
terer could be found who would accom-
modate her with fried angels for her tea
Jack. alone, as salabie affiiction, ought
| TO have been worth his weight in nuggets.
Not that she would for one inhuman
minute, dream of trading off her scape-
grace nephew, for all he came home reg
ulariy irregular with twists in his ankles
and ungodly words that ought to have
I hut. a h1ts.a hi
he not the only son of her only sister un-
der the weeds Of a Maryland churchyard,
| and did he not bear the name of that 9TH
| er Jack at the bottom of the everlasting
seas?
| There comes Jack of some sort into
most women's lives and Aunt Pam had
never forgotten the blue flannel lover of
| her youth who had sailed away in the
! good ship Sea Shell and then gone down
with it in a storm. His love was the one
shining mark In her life, and death had
! loved it-poor Aunt PAM
/ Then after many dun coored years
nephew Jack had come into her life. A
! lad. when he scampered off TO spade up a
| fortune in the West she found him lad
still. for all he lowered above her like the
pines outside the little house. and his hair
! had touches of the granite gray OF the
bouiders
Found HIM half dead and wholly demor-
| allied with his fortune still underground
| and himself so very nearly so. that. being
| white and womanish with the fever, he
| had clung TO her Ike child that fears
the dark and she having nothing better
. to do with herself had sold her patch OF
! property in Maryland. had hustled him
! away from the little mob of a town
where she found him and brought him to
| the scrap of cabin and then-bein &
Aunt Pam-proceeded straightway to
| adore him.
If in this progressive world there lives
a woman strong minded enough to over
come her weakness for prodigalS, Miss
Pamela Thomas was not her name-and a
prodigal with a dimple in his chin!
Aunt Pam he said 10 her one tenn
pestUous night as he watched her whisk-
ing about the fire with her steak and
onions and tea--for Jack was always or
friendly terms with the teapot when he
wasn't wild after whisky-''it must be ne
end of dreary here waen | am down al
the mines. Why don't you get married.
The eyes that his relative turned on him
looked Ike the taste of sassafras tea.
If il wasn't for that streak of gray
over Your temples. I'd answer that ques-
cion with my slipper Ne marry: indeed
Ii il was You, now
She had said som thing rash. She guessed
il by the way the red came swimming
up his checks. She was sure OF il by III,
surprising conduct of that demoralizing
dimpie.
Seems as If your mind was made VI
handy enough without my pitchforking
the idea iuIo il l don't say but what {
nice girl would be a Gods blessing 1.
me, for it is dull. but such trash as blow:
about ShantyYille; miners girls and play
actresscs-"
She isn't miners girl" interrupted
/ Jack Indignantly.
Then she's a play actress, which i:
worse. Draw il mild, old lady he said
planting himself at the table and patron.
izingly patting her on the arm. You are
sampling the best brand of natures bot.
Ting. She IS an actress. that's a fact
dances like clover in a Summers breeze
and sing, WELL l just wish You coulc
hear her sing
! Jack" The exclamation came with
an uncompromising snap; when l broke
up the old home and followed you cut
here t0-to-this. 1 reckoned 10 suffer ant
maybe 10 die with tomahawk in my
poor brains, but | did not-certainly-evel
expect 10 be called on 10 disgrace my ole
age by going to dance houses, wher,
play actresses kick up their shines and
and"
AS if he had even hinted at such {
! thing But that was just like Aunt Pam
and Aunt Pam was just like every Othe
woman in the world,
SO YOU won't call on Polly? demanded
the prodisal anxiously.
NO, won't call on Polly. And if Poll!
knows what's good for herself she won
undertake to call upon me
Lonely There was the big black noun
tain outside, sinister with the cries o
wild things that prOwl by night. Their
were the dismal pines shooting up and III
towerds the stariess sky, and there wa
Jack having his own ungodly times a
Shantyvilie a good three miles down tn
stony road and likely TO stay there I'll
day. But year of experience had re
signed Aunt Pam to his nightly revel
and she was just settling herself to dream
comfortably, as usual of wildcats an'
Indians when there came a sudden tap
tap tapping at the lonely little door. Wild
cats and Indians, Miss Pamela Thoma
had never dreamed OF anything so blood
curdling as this low, persistent knocking
! at her door When il had kept up unit
she was stiff with terror and next I
speechless she crCpt to the keyhole an
uuavered out a feeble request TO knoy
who was there.
"A woman"
woman, Aunt Pam was a match TO
any woman any day-but this was night
a black night, and she was swallowed i
/. ! its desola ton. She resorted again to tn
| keyhole, and this time with dash of Wig
, ! or in her voice cried:
You go right off; l can see your Goa
tails and my guns loaded-to-to kill"
: And then something fell outside and