St. Landry clarion. (Opelousas, La.) 1890-1921, 1899-02-04
A CUP OF TEA,

proud and united to be willing to own
to the world that it had failed in the
person of its eldest son. Therefore his
brothers, sagacious, responsible men,
and conscientious, for the most part, In
the use of their name, had never uues-
toned but it was their right to use it
for Fred-to repair hfs mistakes, and
cover up his failures, and procure him
another chance: and for. years, with
constant devotion to the private before
the public obligation, to Sentiment be-
fore principle, e,ethey had saddleds the
family sproblena, In the person Of their
unrenduneratiye brother, upon one
hopeful young enterprise afteranother
of the broad and charitable west.
His little daughters letters followed
him, from this remote mining camp, or
cattle station, to the next one, inclosed
in long, fluent, circumstantial epistles
from her annts, explaining and apollo
gizing concerning matters relating to
the child to which he had never given
hadsforgotten all about.
These he glanced over and smiled at,
and often did not trouble himself to
read. After a time his brothers were
informed, in dignifed phrases, thatshe
had resigned" from the Disappointing
affairs of the new scheme which he
had last had in charge, and he present
~ returned, and was on their hands
once more; a little older and fatter,
q little. harder in the expression and
fooser In the structure Of the face, and
g trifie less sure Of himself in fhe COM
paDy to which he was bred; and his
sisters WINGED and blushed at his free
comments upon themselves, the life of
the home and of the east, as it appeared
to him after an interval of absence;
and his mother Wistfully took note of
her boys gray hairs and his old, tired,
appearance, but would not
discuss him or hear him criticised; and
his brothers pointedly requested him
to pay a visit to their tailor, and they
sometimes forgot to mention to mutual
dinner-giving friends that Fred was in
town. Yet they thought he might be
presentable enough, according to west
ern standards. He had, at his best, a
good manner, trife out of date, to be
sure; he had the indurate remains of
an expensive education; he drank too
much, undoubtedly, though that was
not an exceptional failing with the men
of their set. They did not conceive the
Of his drinking when he was
at his lonely posts of unmatched re-
sponsibility; how he drank alone, and
continued idiotically replenishing, in
solitary boredom; how he drank with
his interiors lest they should think him
proud, and with his subordinates, of
course, because at an isolated mine the
"boys" are his sole compan-
ions and sometimes better-bred men
than himself; nor the perilous stuff
that a man drinks, at those attitudes,
who is careless of himself. These
things the mothers heart OWNED,
shrinkingly, without q question or a
fact. But,the prosperous eastern broth
ers, sensible of the continental scope.
and importance of their own affairs,
thought that a second-rate man might
10 well enough for such places as they,
sought for Fred. It could not be ex-
pecfed that first-class men would be
willing to exile themselves to holes and
corners of the earth, at any price. So
he good name, and the good manner
hat was not quite up to date, and the
family influence, were in requisition
once more to cover up the inner facts
If Fred's latest failure (what the facts
we're his brothers hardly knew, and
they had not been very particular in
their inquiries), and he was passed on,
like counterfeit coin, to his next op-
portunity, at some other persons ex-.
pense.
Of late years friends Of the family
had hesitated to ask: "What is Fred
doing now?" He changed his oceupa-
ton so often-or it seemed often to per-
sons who thought of him only once in
three or four years; and they said to
one another: What q mercy that he
has meyer married again!" and they
bethought them that they must "do
for that pretty creature,
bis daughter, and perhaps were a trifie.
relieved, on casting up her years, to.
remember that she could not be more
than a schoolgirl, and there was plenty
of time. And her aunts were such very
wemen--no doubt they were
bringing her up to a fit. sense of what
her fathers daughter might have to
look forward TO; which they were not
aoingsat all, but were petting her, and
making as much ado over the child as If
all the good fairies had met at her christ
aning. They were not even attempting
to revise her innocent impressions of a
parent known to her chiefly through
his munihcence in gifts and pocket
money Her aunts never told her Of the
that went with the muHih-
cence; of.the 1apses, when there were
no remittances even for shoes and
nor how often their own
private means had been drawn upon,to
spare the little inheritance that they
held IN trust from their sister to her
child. This money, they were resolved,
should not be touched, neither princi-
pal nor interest, while they were its
eustodians; and in this way alone they
showed their prudence. For why should
The need to know. poor child, what the
world said OF her father? meythean-
selves did not pretend to know orto.
Judge him, but always, for the sake Of
their sisterwhe had known him and had
been silent to the last, they too were
Silent. What the ehild's own mother