The Fulton County news. [volume] (McConnellsburg, Pa.) 1899-current, 1901-12-12
FULTON COUNTY NEWS.
THE FIREFLIES'
-Ms WEDDING
By CatulIe Mendes...

from the village fete / noticed in
the light of moonbeam a child
sleeping against tree in the road
way alongside of miniature cathe-
dral in plaster. / have often won
dered who buys these hideous pro-
ductions Of ecclesiastical architec-
ture, with such square, ungraceful
outlines, surmounted by a tall
steeple and illuminated with a can
die end placed on the altar. A SEN
sation of pity seized me when
gazed upon the poor little merchant,
who must have spent the entire
evening trying to sell his church,
and, finding no purchaser, had fall
en- asleep to dream, perhaps, of the
beating which awaited him at home.
Ragged, dusty and tanned, he was
as picturesque as he was dirty. 1
awakened the lad, gave him some
money and, to avoid the semblance
of almsgiving, accepted the plaster
cathedral.
1t bothered me a good deal as
carried it off under my arm. 1
walked faster, being anxious to re-
lieve myself of the burden, which
intended to leave in a corner of the
garden where it would serve as a
scarecrow for the sparrows which
were already beginning to steal my
cherries.
l must have looked like one Of
those personages you see in religious
paintings bearing the resemblance
in miniature of the chapel which
they have dedicated to st. Timoleon
or st. Ildevert in expiation of their
sins.
Midnight sounded; l was still
awake in my bed, with eyes half
closed. But it was an insomnia
without fever, vague and delicious,
refreshed by the soft moonlight en-
tering through the wide open win
dow close by, which also bathed the
winding paths of the garden below,
the beds of flowers and the velvet
grass in the pale enchantment of
fairyland.
Perfectly happy in my semicon-
scious state, without the sensation
of existence, yet enraptured with
the JOY of living, / was rather a
thing ecstatic than man. And
the vast silence, the absolute calm,
SO suggestive of solitary wastes,
drowsy hooks, of leaves unstirred by
any breeze, were deepened by the
almost arrested throbbings of my
heart, by the dispersion in a dream
less peace of all my dead desires.
Suddenly sight noise startled
me. One might have called it the
contact scarcely sensible of some
delicate object with feebly resist
ing surface The sound was rhyth-
mical, too, at equal intervals, sug-
gesting the idea of bell infinite
ly distant among the clouds.
The noise continued hardly audi
Bile, yet seeming to gently impor-
tune me. l arose and looked out of
the window
Fancy my surprise!
The cathedral, which on entering
/ had placed near the door in mar
row path, like a church at the end
of an avenue--the cathedral, whose
candle end inside had long been ex-
tinguished-now radiated illumina-
ton through all its tiny red win
dows, and as | leaned forward to
examine more closely l perceived
that the inclination of an adjacent
woodbine caused the steeple to be
capped by an oscillating bellfower
in which bee performed the Office
Of clapper or ringer. What was 60
ing on, then, in my garden beneath
the mystic light of the moon?
| softly stepped over the window
sill and knelt in the shade of an
acacia. In the wall of the little
church, just behind the choir, was
crevice, through which l now peep
ed. More than hundred frehies, at
tached either to the shafts of the
columns or perched before the altar
in lieu of candles, filled the edifce
with light, and in the top of the
steeple the Industrious bee tolled his
bell in the woodbine, as il calling
the devout to some important cere-
mony.
A constantly increasing and in
Vulnerable throng of insects was en-
tering the portals. Crickets and
grasshoppers from the fields jostled
each other eagerly in the van;
ladybug, to avoid being pushed in
the crowd, was posted on the wing
of dragon fly; tiny insects vested
in black and white, presumably the
clergy, followed gorgeous cochi-
neal in purple. The whole seemed
a strange confusion of murmurings
from countless creeping things of
every color.
When at length the entire COM
pany had taken their places in
proper order, a large fly flew up to
the organ loft and presently hum
ming sort of music, joyous, yet re-
ligious, fairly filled the little basil
lea so brightly Illuminated by the
direHies