The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1898-01-30

the key of their house with Miss Rhody
who was to go in and air it once III
awhile. 1t was aired much more fire.
| quently than need was. There seemed
to Rhody much danger of the portraits
getting mouldy or widowed or some
thing. Rhody used to let the sun in
and gaze on it, those days, with a for
getful rapture. And the voyages when
Ann remained at home il went hard
with Rhody if she did not get in to see
Armand the picture-every afternoon
for just a moment or two. And in the
nights of her sick watching she used
to find a window where she could look
them, too, and if he was thinking OF the
shore, and of Ann, and of her. perhaps,
also. And when, down at the port, the
bark came in safe and sound, she had
renewed assurance that the world
was right side up. Then there was a
lightness and a sweetness in the air;
there was a sort of sunshine even on a
rainy day. and she thanked heaven for
her lot, and felt that there were few
more blessed among women than she,
with her home to go to, with the chill
dren that were hers almost as much as
they were their mothers; with her
work and her friends.
But one voyage the bark did not come
back A typhoon swept the Indian
were strewn from Celeoes to Mala bar.
And as for Will Mather, no one knows
where his grave is to this day.
When the loss was a definite thing to
the underwriters, Ann received her in
surance money! tidy little sum for
her small way of life-and she put on
her black, and in time she took it off
again, and, a brisk and busy body, she
took her pleasure with her neighbors as
she had always done. If her wash was
out before Mrs. Burns whitened the
yard behind; if her baked beans were
pronounced one atom crisper than Mrs.
Dennis; if the recipe for her rule of
fruit cake was in demand; if she had
cherry tonic and jellies to send to the
ailing; if her house cleaning was over
the first along the shore; if her best
black silk would stand alone; if she
knew all that was going on, and keep
ing one eye on Sally Lavendar's door,
had the last news of Humphrey and his
odd behavior, and another eye on the
goings and cOmings of the rest of the
village, she was content enough, and
after awhile Ann was not at all I'M
happy, and even had a mild SatiSfac-
ton in Try Hodges admiration of her
still buxom beauty.
But II was much longer time before
Miss Rhody would accept the fact of
VIII Mather's loss. He had been so full
of life and vigor she could never make
him dead. She was always expecting
to see him step down from the coach
every time it came numbering along
from port. She did not see a strange
boat in the stream along the shore but
she thought it might hold Will. Every
time she ran over to AIMS she hoped
to hear great voice roaring out a well |
come; and when that failed to sound
she still had time to hope Ann had had
a letter saying he had been wrecked on
desert shores and was now on his way
home agan. Her dreams were all of |
this. Now she saw him struggling with
night and storm in the black seas, now |
wandering forlorn among strange folk /
Of strange tongue, now cast on barren !
places and watching feverishly the |
CLEAN of sail upon the sky line, and |
every dream misery and chiefly a |
misery because the atmosphere of |
power with which Will had always been |
clothed in her mind was wanting there. |
But on the other hand, her day dreams
we're joy. In them, as she went about
her nursing, as she washed the newly
BORN or stroked the newly dead. as she
sat at home sewing in her parlor, Will
was always returning after multitudin-
JUS deep sea adventures; she saw him |
up the road and entering to
Ann, big and bronzed and full of glad |
ana, although she varied /
he dream a thousand ways, it was al
ways the same dream-Will Mather
coming home.
You may judge then of her dismay
when she heard that the banns were
published for Ann Mather ard Try
Hodge; for somehow Ann had not been
lble to bring herself to break the news
o Rhody. She hurried over, as you
nay suppose. Ami she cried. And
hen she softened the reprOach. 'Ann,
lear, what does it mean? Do you really
Know what they are saying about you?
Really, you must not let Try in so
much. 1t is making no end of talk
They say-people say-Oh, / know they
ay' is a liarl But they do say-that-
Tou are going to marry Try
and so l am said Ann. But she
ooked out of the window.
Rhody sat frozen to stone. She could
lot move her lips at first. And when
he could it was only to whisper: You
re Will Mathers wife,