The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-03-13

between parent and child. Silent ais he was
however. he had a large and cheerful heart
and nodding his head he laughed the deep,
quaint laugh which Sidney himself of all
his sons had-and he was fonder Of Sidney
than any. He washed his hands in the little
basin outside of the woodhouse door,
combed out his white beard, rubbed his
red, watery eyes, tied a clean handkerchief
round his neck, put on a rusty but clean
old coat, and a minute afterwards was
shaking hands for the first time with Sid
neys wife. He had lived much apart from
his kind, but he had a mind that fastened
upon thought and worked it down until it
was an axiom. He felt how shallow was
this thin, Haunting woman of flounces and
cheap rouge: he saw her sniff at the brown
sugar-she had always had white at the
hotel-and he noted that she let Sidney's
mother clear away and wash the dinner
things herself He felt the little crack of
doom before it came.
1t came about o'clock. He did not return
to the rye field after dinner, but stayed and
waited to hear what Sidney had to say.
Sidney did not tell his little story well, for
ne himself foresaw trouble in the old home;
but he had to face this and all coming di-
lenas as best he might. With a kind of
shamefacedness, yet with an attempt to
carry the thing off lightly he told Uncle
Jim, while inside his wife told the old moth
err that the business of the hotel had gone
to pot Che did not say who was the cause
of that and they were selling out to his
partner, and were coming to live on the
farm
I'm tired anyway of the hotel job said
Sidney. Earnings better life. Don't
you think so, dad?"
It's better for me, Sid.' answered Uncle
Jim, 'it's better for me-"
Sidney was a little uneasy. But won't it
be better for me?'' he asked
"Mebbe," was the slow answer, "mebbe,
mebbe so''
And then there's mother, she's getting
too old for the work, amt she?"
She's done it straight along" answered
the old man, straight along till now'
But Lizzie can help her and We'll have
a hired girl, eh?''
81 dunno, 1 dunno." was the brooding
answer, 1.-The place ain'tSgoing to stand it,"
"Oh, Wen get more out of it,. answered
Sidney. "Ill stock it up, I'll put more under
barley, and I'll get a reaper and mower.
All the thing wants is working, dad. Put
more in, get more out. Now amt that
right?''
The other was looking off towards the rye
field, where for forty years, up and down
the hillside, he had Travelled with the cradle
and the scythe, putting all there was in him
into it, and he answered blinking along the
avenue of the past, .'Mebbe, mebbe."
Sidney fretted under the old mans vague
replies, and said: But, darn it all, can't
you tell us what you think?"
His father did not take his eyes off the
L: ..I-..~
the same old-fashioned way, that I've been
working here since you were born, Sid I've
blundered along somehow, just hoggling my
way through. 1 amt got anything more TO
say. The farm amt mine any more, but
I'll keep my scythe sharp and my ak
ground just as L always did, and I'm for
workin' as I've always worked as long as
I'm let to stay" aa
Good Lord, dad, don't talk that way
Things aren't going to be any different for
Course" He paused.
The old man pieced out the sentence:
"OnIy, of course, there can't be two women
rulin' one house, Sid, and you know it as
well as / do sH1fF
Exactly how Sidneys wife told the old
mother of the great change Sidney never
knew, but when he went back to the house
the gray look in his mothers face told him
more than her words ever told. And before
they left that night the pink milliner had
already planned the changes which were to
celebrate her coming and her ruling.
So Sidney and his wife came, all the man
prophesied in few brief sentences to his
wife proving true. There was no great
struggle on the mothers part; she stepped
aside from governing and became as like
servant as could be. An insolent hired girl
came, and she and Sidney's wife started a
little drama of incompetency, which should
end as the bookkeeping ended. Wasteful-
ress cheap luxury, tawdry living, took the
place of the old, frugal, simple life. But
the mother went about with that unchang
ing sweetness of face and body whitening
about fretted soul. She had no bitterness,
only miserable distress. But every slight
that was put upon her, every change, every
new-fanged idea, from the white sugar to
the scented soap and the yellow buggy,
ranked in the old mans heart. He had re-
sentiment both for herself and himself, and
he hated the pink milliner for the humilia-
ton that she heaped upon them both. Sid
ney did not see one-fifth of it, and what he
did see lost it's force, because, strangely
enough, he loved the gaudy wife who wore
gloves on ner DlOOuleSS HdIluS DIS she Cilu
the homework and spent numberless after
Moons in trimming her own bonnets. Her
peevishness grew apace as the newness of
the experience wore off. Uncle Jim seldom
spoke to her, as he seldom spoke to any
body, but she had an mixing of the rancor in
his heart, and many time she put blame
upon his shoulders to her husband when
some unavoidable friction came.
A year.. two years, passed, which were as
ten upon the shoulders of the old people,
and then, in the dead of winter an impor-
tant thing happened. About the month of
March Sidney's first child was expected. At
the end of January Sidney had to go away,
expecting to return in less than a month
But, in the middle of February, the wom-
ans sacred trouble came before its time
And on that day there fell such a storm
as had not been seen for many a year. The
concession road was blocked before day
had we'll set in, no horse could go ten yards
in it. The nearest doctor was seven miles
away, and for any man to face the journey
was to connive with death. The old mother
came to Uncle Jim, and, as she looked out
of little unfrosted spot on the window at
the binding storm, told him that the pink
milliner would die. There seemed no other
end TO it. for the chances were hundred