The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1900-07-31
esTFTE HOME=M AKERS.S'
By CHARLES BATTELL LOOMS.
Copyright, 1900, by c. B. Loomis.)

fine voice; all the Newberrys had been
singers from the earliest times.
Truman sang at morning service and
evening prayer meeting with his eyes
on the notes and his mind on Miss Gray
son. He was hard hit. There was no
doubt of that. At 26 he was likely TO
20 the way that had seldom been trod
bv a Newberry batchelor until twice %
years had been passed in this vale.
After prayer meeting he walked home
alone and sank into a mahogany CHAIR
that had been a Newberry possession for
200 years. But his thoughts were not
of furniture, but of form and a lace
that would have made a kitchen chair
look like a piece of Chippendale.
He smoked his pipe out, and then he
retired, but not to sleep. His thoughts
were with. Miss Grayson, who even now
was returning from Newington. That
much he knew, because he had heard
Mrs. Dibble tell Mrs. Harding, with
whom the school teacher boarded that
she thought it was shocking for her to
come back on Sunday, insted of making
an early start on Monday morning.
1t lacked some minutes OF 10 o'clock
when Trueman heard a cCmmOtion out
side of his window. He sprang from
his bed and looked out. The moon was
at The full, and a diaphanous cloud was
coquetting with it, but his eye did not
take in the beauty Of the scene. All
that he saw was the two mischief max
ers, the Goodwin oxen, walking around
in his bed OF dahlias. They had already
rolled on his asters and had torn down
the beautiful wild cucumber vines that
covered the southern wall Of his house,
and had lessened by half the pile Of
EFpOno1pr'' onp1ac that hp had DnrnOSp6
shipping to his married sister in New
York, for old times sake.
Clad in his white cotton night shirt
and with the red carpet slippers on his
feet that always stood at his bedside,
ready for instant use, this bachelor
leared down the front stairs and picked
up a weapon the first thing that came
TO hand, which happened 10 be a feather
buster that had belonged to his grand
mother, and which had been moulting
any time these so years.
He opened the front door, brandishing
this terrible ~bludgeon, and the oxen
glanced mildly at him, and then ambled
through his sweet pea hedge, carrying
Off garlands of flowers on their broad
horns. Then, as he pursued, they punched
holes in his weIl-kept lawn, marking
their easy progress to the street, where
I-ICf ~ LIN oA1 v IN
shoulders, and seemed to smile at him.
This so enraged him that he determ-
ined to chase them down the road as far
as he could. He forgot his scanty cloth
ing, forgot everything but the fact that
these veXatious beasts had ruined his
garden, ard had then added insult to in
jury by grinning at him. He might have
driven them into the Goodwin lot, that
lay across the way, but the fence was
newly torn, and it would have been fool
ish to try penning them up for the night.
They were out for a lark, and he would
help them to one, only it should not be
at his further expense.
So he hurled the buster at them, and
hit the nigh one amidships. The great
animal made a playful pass with his
hind legs, and knocked a ported fuchia
Off a stump with the ease of a premiere
danseuSe.
Trueman seized the broken pieces of
the pot and hurled them at the wicked
pair and 10th were hit on the head. And
then the race began. With tossing horns
they tore southwark down the road. HI
recovered his treasured feather buster
and sprinted after them, his drapery
streaming in the wind, his red slippers
slapping his heels rhythmically with each
stride and the feather buster gyrating
in the air like a drum majors baton.
Once he fell and marred the snowy
Whlteness of his toga, but q jump and a
shake and a plunge forward with low
cred head and he had regained the space
be had lost by falling. And once more
the feathcrcd dart hurled through the
air in a manner suggestive of bull-fights,
although it fell short Of it's mark.
He had not thought that oxen could
be SO feet, but their neetness would but
serve to gut a lengthy distance between
them and his grounds. He would chase
them to Canton if need be, but the
should not again disturb his nocturnal
musings or cry havoc and let slip the
dogs of war in his garden.
AS they crossed Tibball's bridge he
dropped a slipper. He picked it up tc
hurl at tie oxen, but true to it's name
it slipped from his fingers and went fal
astream. And that slipper had first
belonged to his grandfather!
The oxen were not in the least blown
but he was, IN every sense of the word
And his hair looked like a field Of rye
through which a cyclone had passed
The night winds toyed with his linen gar
ment, and the stones in the road hurt
his slipperless foot. 1t had been Is years
since he had gone barefoot. But TO sto,
before his work was done was not like
a Newberry. The churchyard was no
far away, and he would not leave then
until they were safe behind the higl
stone walls and six-barred gate OF thc
sanctuary of the dead. They could re-
store some of the moss-cGvercd inscrip-
tons on the tomhs with their horns, OF
scratch new ones, for all he cared, bu1
they would not trouble him again tina
night. On sped the strange trio, the rec
oxen and the man in white; past the
Bulkeleys, past the Days, past the Train
tors, past the G~oOdspeeds, past the Bills
linen q sharp turn to the left. and they
were in the lane that led to the grave
yard. By some lucky chance the cemetery
gate was open, and, with a final hurI-
ing of the inocuOus feather duster anC
a volley of small stones almost as harm.
less, he drove the bovine marplots into
the graveyard, closed the gate securely
and retraced his steps to the highway
He now for the first time realized tina
he was a full half mile from home. and
while it was night and he was clad il
the garments of the night season, still
South Hanaford society would not have