The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1899-05-18
At Least a Martyr

n walk. Her eyes were beady and her
voice was unpleasant to the ear; her
wrists were flat and had little bones
like knitting needles in them, and her
big head continually trembled, but
kindness spread around about her un-
gainly little body, and loving kindness
wrapped her like garment. Her Kim
heartedness was like a well-regulated
carriage lamp-however much was
spent. there was always more pressing
on behind.
But yet they called her ugly names
the little boys in the streets and the
gossiping servants, and even the wo-
men who went and drank tea and con-
versed with her of Shakespeare and
the musical glasses; and especially the
butcher, for she would not so much as
look upon a piece Of meat, and used TO
go and harangue him in his busiest
moments on his hideous crime of TAX
ing the lives of his fellow-creatures
When she met him driving the fated
sheep to the shambles she became
hreathless with Indignation and hor-
ror. So that he always escaped a lee
ture then.
In her calmer moments she used to
say: "My dear. perhaps it's silly OF me
TO be more Ericved about one than
another but I do feel sorriest for the
lambs. You see. the sheep have had a
little time to enjoy themselves"
Her furniture was all moth-eatcn;
mice paraded themselves in the day.
time, and she had dismissed more than
one maid for suddenly and slaughter
ously descending at dead of night to
pour boiling water on a floorful of black
beetles.
She said to me once: "Children and
cats and dogs and rabbits and canaries
have plenty of people to love them, so
I try to put the balance right by low
ing those things that other people de-
spise and kill and call unclean Why,
my dear I do believe the very worms
in my garden know me, and last year
] had dear rat that followed me about
and begged like dog"
Wasn't that the historic rat, father
of the family that devoured Farmer
GOodsons corn?" i asked in the hard
ness Of my heart,
She looked a little disconnected and
took up her Knitting.
well, my dear, perhaps it was" she
owned. though 1t may Just as well
have been any other, and it's rather
unfair to condemn a thing unheard
right of like that. But it was a very
good year." she added triumphantly
next minute. "and he could easily spare
it, Think how they enjoyed it. And
one reason why 1 love all these be-
called creatures is that it must be so
nice for them to feel that one person
out of the great contemptuous human
race doesn't despise them"
"l2ut they can't know it," objected
for l did not know her very well then,
Don't you think so?" she asked deep
down in her queer gutteral way; don't
you think sop
had stated the case, so only shook
my head She had apparently also
stated hers, for she passed on.
"Oh. yes" she said, with a far-away
look in the beads, "people stand up on
platforms and scream out that woman
wants this and woman wants that.
tell you, my dear, that all a woman
wants is something to love!"
They sometimes called her 'I-tell-
you-my- dear"
"Oh, yes" she went on again, "they
iall it cranks, and call it fads, and
old maids whims to love anything but
husbands and babies and things one
hasn't got: but | tell you, my dear, il
saves a woman's soul alive"
And thereupon she scrambled across
the room and fetched and opened the
Contemporary at a marked passage in
an article on the Armenians, and read
aloud 10 me with ineffable scorn:
First their movable wealth was
seized, then their landed property was
confiScated, next the absolute neCes
saries of life We're wrested from them
and finally honor. liberty and life were
taken with as little ado as if these
Christian men and women We're Wasps
or mosquitoes"
"Now, my dear" she said, pushing
her spectacles up her forehead and
looking piercingly at me, II say the
day will come when the honor and lib
erty of life of wasps and mosquitoes
will be no more infringed than those
of the so-called Christians who now
destroy them without a thought"
She clasped her hands together and
gazed into space in an ecstacy, while
the Contemporary sidled to the fiool
and burst its back, 1 could have kissed
her, she was so dear and mad. And
yet when, that same day, | heard
somebody call her the mad old maid
/ turned on him in a rage of ndigna-
tiOn.
She was terribly hurt and shocked
when the curate and l combined tC
prevent her from getting up a Zoe
Depopulating society. She had calcu-
lated that for G15,0OO all the animals
could be safely returned to their ma
tive countries. She said to him that
she wondered especially at him Don
you remember" she asked him, chow
J you Master said Other sheep l have?
How do you know it wasn't the dear
patient animals on this planet? AnC
how you, and men like you, who pro,
I fress to serve that Master can fac,
4 them hereafter--!" Her emotion wa.
ture laughing.
So that | was quite used to startling
ideas from her. But one day, i'm on,
brief instant, she took all my breatl
away and caused me to sit unthinking
ly down upon a basket of deserted
youngs bats that she was bringing NJ
on a drawing-rOom chair.
she had a violently orange pape
book in her hand and she greeted m,
with an abstraCted air.
MY dear" she said, "will you joil
the Society for the Prevention Of Cruel
ty TO Germs?"
I merely gasped, and she laid dow
the orange book and produced a not
book to enroll me and enter my sub
scription,
IT'S a society that / am going I
try to form, This"-she proudly fin
gered that orange pamphlet-"is tn
prospectus, so 10 speak. ! shall sem
a oil apoun1 aud 1 an, eYro tb,t ,