Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1899-09-07

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was suddenly seized with pangs Of
heart and ooncience. -
"Of course there'll be the box
And it was a beautiful thing to do
daddy, DEAR" she said, firmly
81 fear am sometimes little
hasty," said the minister. "But
this did not seem a matter for hesi-
tation, there was evidently such real
destitution." #@@
"And it's providential, as you said,
about the box" said Angelica, as
she set to work to put the supper
upon the table.
She sent Freeman up to Adoniram
with q whole plateful of buttercd
popovers. Plums may be n great
temptation when enc is but nine,
and there were, perhaps, days of
painful seclusion before little Adon-
iraml -
Whom the matter was explained
to tho person most concerned, he
took it philosophically, even gaily.
No clothes meant no school, and
Adoniram was not q dcvotco of
learning.
Tho minister had given away tho
underclothing that hung upon the
chair, but fortunately Adoniram's
wardrobe was not; so lacking in that
respect as in the matter of outcr gar
ments. He revelled in the back gar
don and orchard the next day clad
in a dressing gown that had been
made for Freoaan two years before,
when he had tho measles.
The gown trailed behind Adon-
IRAN and tripped him before, but he
did not complain, not even when the
bad boys guyed him through the
fence. But Angelica felt it to be a
timo for Thanksgiving when, the
next night, Thaddeus Greeley, the
stage driver, left the box from Cou-
sin Sarah Ponsonby at tho door.
A large box and an array of pretty
lace and ribbon trimmed clothcs-.-.
little girls dresses chiefly, and some
heavy winter -.othing, jackets and
trousers and an overcoat that, as tho
minister said hopefully, Freeman
might grow, too, in another year.
But there was not garment that
could by any possibility be made to
fit little Adonirani
81 thought the dresses would be
nice for your little girl" wrote Cou-
sin Sarah Ponsonby, "and l suppose
that both your boys must be large
enough by this time to wear these
clothes that my young college fresh
man has just outgrown."
"She has mixed those children
up" said Angelica, playfully, but
with the least little touch of bitter
ness. "I don't see how we can buy
little Adoniram q new suit!"
"Not until the next quarters sal
ary is paid" said the minister. "But
that will be only three wcoks," he
added, hopefully.
Angelica would manage she al
ways had. lie went contcntedly
back to his study, and finished his
sermon on "The Value Of a Lofty
Ideal"
"Such beaut iful dresses for a little
girl of ten or twelvo!" said Angelica,
wistfully.
She tried one of them on little
Adoniram, blue and white ging-
ham, that was a perfect fit. lie re-
belled somewhat-the inconyonicnt
dressing-gown was at least a manly
garment-but he was at length per-
suaded to wear it. The dressng-
gown was being ruined by trailing
upon the ground, and the blue ging-
ham dress Wis much moro oonforta-
BILE, and did not impede ones loco.
motion. And prolonged, lcgitima-
tized truancy' was Paradise come
down.
But what Izaak Walton calls "the
primal, honest instinct of mankind
to 60 a-fishing," was strong in little
Adoniram's bosom. One day it over
came his virtue and his vows lie
smuggled his rod and line from the
wood-shed, and wrigglod his stout
little gingham-clad body through a
convenient aperture in the fence be-
hind the towering current bush. II
was one of those gray September
mornings, when bass bite as natural.
ly as the sparks fly upward, and the
joy of life and liberty soon almost
effaced Adoniram's depressed con-
ciousness of being half girl.
1t was rather for prudential rca,
sons than because no was shame.
faced that he chose the wooded side