Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1899-12-07
THE END OF ALL THINGS

Xxx.
THE END OF ALL THINGS
Like a few other sensible people
Philip and Helen deferred their wed.
ding journey to a time when it came
as a welcome relief from the round ne
| domestic and social duties for the wife
and needed rest from the drudgerv
of business for the husband. Philin
had said summer and Europe, bu5
Helen had pleaded for autumn and the
south, and she had her way.
1--WE can go ON to New Orleans if Won
like, butI want to see Allacoochee," she
| said
you're too late for that; Allacoo-
| chez is dead and buried-so Protheroc
writes"
| mo matter; we can see the place
| where it was. l shall always love it.
alive or dead, for what it did for you"
And so it came about that on GER
tain golden October day, when the rug
ced outlines of Jubal mountain were
melting in the soft autumn haze, and
the fragrance of summer blossoms had
given place to the spicy sweetness of
withered leaves and ripened fruit, a
thinly-peopled train on the Chiwassee
| Valley Extension debarked two of its
passengers at the ornate station which
| aforetime had been too small to ac-
commodate the throngs besieging it
at train-hours. There was no lack of
| room now, however, and when Philip
lifted Helen to the platform the empty
| train-shed echoed their steps as if pro-
testing against the invasion of its soli-
tude. At the arched entrance, where
the crowd of vociferous hackmen used
to fight for patronage, they were met
by single decrepit negro.
"Hotel, sah?" he asked, doffing his
| battered hat and bowling with touch
of unspoiled courtesy.
"Yes; you may take us to the Johan-
nisberg."
"Cayn't do dat, sah-no, sab; Gaze
hit amt runnin' no mo-. Dee amt no
| hotel in de new town now, sab. lab
to take you-all to de Mountain house."
Philip put his wife into the shackly
! vehicle. els your horse good for six
mile drive, uncle?"
ooh, yass, sah-he suttinly am dat;
eff hits anywhars on de plain dirt
road"
| "All right Put the top down so we
can see, and drive us around town a
bit; then I'll tell you where to CO."
Three hundred yards from the sta
ton the carriage turned into Broad
way. Nature reasserts herself speedi-
| ly in a semi-tropical climate, and the
rank grass sprouting between the paw
| ing-stones deadened the sound of the
horses hoofs and muffled the juggling
worn-out hackney-coach.
| 'Protheroe didn't stretch it much,
said Philip, unconsciously lowering his
voice in Difference to the sepulchral
| quiet of the street. You'd hardly be.
lieve that have stood on the sidewalk
just here, waiting my chance to dodge
across through the endless stream OF
carriages and wagons and electric
cars"
''It doesn't seem possible"
| mo, it doesn't. And in that last
afternoon, when l was breaking my
heart to catch the New York train
the Johannisberg omnibus was actually
stopped in a jam of vehicles somewhere
along in this square, and was afraid
we'd miss it."
| On either side of the grass-grown
streets were the costly monuments OF
the sham city's brief day of activity and
life. Lofty buildings. empty from Gel.
| lar to roof; rows of vacant store-rooms
lined with dusty shelving and Uttered
with the forlorn debris of hasty re-
movals; shattered glass on the side
walk; withered grass festooning the
cornices; and, in front of the disman
tied Bank of Allacoochee, the skeleton
OF an electric car left to dissolve peace.
fully on the rusty tracks in the road,
| way. Here and there the desolation
was emphasized rather than relieved
by a scanty and shop-worn display in
the windows of some merchant who
had been unwilling or unable to join
his neighbors in the general exodus
following the crash; pitiabte fotsam
and jetsam left by the high tide OF
| W anu ulOlucT on Inc
rocks of an uncharted island in the
ocean of traffic. Of>these stranded
wrecks, the most notable was the store
OF dealer in hardware just across
from the Chiwassee national bank.
"That is where 1 bought my pistol
on the night of the garroting," said
Philip, telling the driver to pull up at
| the curhStoDa
The proprietor of the place was sit
ting on spool Of barbed wire in front
of his own door, and he rose and crossed
the sidewalk in response to Philips
salutation. "Oh, it's you, is it, Mr..
Thorndyke? 1 didn't know you at
first. Come back to take look at the
corpse?"
at amounts to that, I'm afraid" said
Philip, alphabetically.
at does, for a facl-just that All
we need now is good, old-fashioned
earthquake: not the fever-and-ague
kind you read about nowadays, but the
sort they used to put in the geographic
when we went to school-a shake with
l.. =