The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1899-10-20
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BY GILBERT PARKER.

HE was no uncle of mine, but it
pleased me that he let me call him Uncle
Jim," said Mr.. Park. For 40 years he
and bis worn faced wife bowed them
selves beneath the yoke, first to pay for
the 100 acre farm and then to bring up
and educate their seven children.
Something noble in them gave them
ambitions for their boys and girls which
they had never had for themselves, but
when they had passed 40 years. in which
the little farm had twice been mort
gagged to put the eldest son through col
lese rs q doctor, they faced the bitter
fact that the farm had passed from them
to Sidney. III: second son. who had come
at last to keep hotel in a town 50
miles away.
But the great blow came when Sidney
married the designing millincr who
Haunted her wares opposite his barroom,
and somehow from the date of that mar
riage Sidney's good fortune and the ho-
tel declined.
When he and his wife first visited the
little farm after their marriage, the old
mother shrank away from the young
wom2n's painted face, and an added sad
ness always showed in her bearing and
in her patient smile aftcrward.
But she took Sidney's wife through
the house, showing her all there was to
show, though that was not much.
1T WAS not much of home, as any
ono can see with the minds eye, but four
Stalwart men and three fine women had
been born, raised and Quartered there
until. with good clothes and speaking de-
cont English and with money in their
pockets. hardly got by the old people, one
by one they issued forth into the world.
But the pert milliner saw nothing of
all this. She looked into the face which
Gods finger had anointed and mother
hood had etched with trouble and said:
"'"Tisn't much, is it? Only a clap
board house and no ceilings up stairs and
rag carpets-rshaw."
BRIT the real crisis came when Sidney,
having stood at the woodhouse door and
blown the dinner horn as he used to do
when q boy, the sound floating and
crying away across the ryefield, the old
man came, for. strange to say, that was
the one sound he coull hear easily,
though. as he said to himself, it seemed
as small as a pin, coming from ever so
far away
HE came heavily up from the barn
yard, hopping his red face and forehead
and now and again raising his hand to
shade his eyes, concerned to see the I'M
known visitors. whose horse and buggy
were in the stable yard.
''He and Sidney greeted outside warm
~ enough, but there was some trepida-
ton. too, in Uncle Jims face. He felt
trouble brewing, and there is no trouble
like that which comes between parent
and child Silent rs he was however he
had large and cheerful heart, and, nod
ding his head he laughed the deep,
quaint laugh which Sidney himself of all
his sons had, and he was fonder of Sid
ney than any.
''He washed his hands in the little
basin outside the woodhousc door, comb
CT out his white beard, rubbed his red,
watcry eyes, tied clean handkerchief
around his neck, put on rusty. but clean
old coat and, a minute afterward, was
shaking hands for the first time with
Sidney's wife.
"He had lived much apart from his
kind, but he had a mind that fastened
upon thought and worked it down until
1t was an axiom.
''IIe felt how shallow was this thin,
Haunting woman Of founces and cheap
rouge. lie saw her sniff at the brown
sugar-she had always had white at the
botel-and be noted that she let Sidney's
mother cles: away and wash the dinner
th.2gs herself
de felt the little crack of doom before
II came.
~ caiie ABOUT o eioek'
"Ele Did not return to the ryctield after
dinner, but staid and waited to hear
what Sidney had to say. Sidney did not
tell his little story well. for he himself
foresaw trouble in the old home, but he
had to face this and all coming dilemmas
as best he might.
with a kiad of shamcfacedness, vet
with an ATTEMPT to carry the thing off
lightly, he told Uncle jim, while inside
his wife told the old mother, 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 Oh the farm.
I'm tired anyway Of the hotel job
said Sidney. Earnings better life.
Don't you think SO, dadf'
Its better for me, Sid, answered