The Washington times. (Washington [D.C.]) 1901-1902, 1901-08-18
AN EMISSARY OF LOVE



| Little Mrs. Minturn was busting the
| chairs on her piazza She had a voiumi-
nous cheese-cloth buster, soft as wool
! from long use and frequent washing. and
| she swept 1t over and under and around
| the three chairs on the piazza with the
| same pains that she took with her par
| lor furniture itself. Every team that
| passed in the powdery road sent cloud
| OF dust over the piazza, but that did not
disturb Mrs. Minturn. 1t was her Gus
| tom to dust the chairs on the porch every
morning after sweeping and busting her
| kitchen, and she never failed to do it so
long as her husband insisted on having
the chairs stand there, which was gen.
orally from the list of April until the last
Of November. Even when the snow was
driving over them, in the late fall, and
| the wild wind itself was busting them as
no softest and most searching dust-cloth
could. Mrs. Minturn would come forth
regularly to tip forward the porch chairs
| sweep over and under and around them
with her cheese-cloth 1t was simply one
of those services which she had learned
TO pay relisiously at the altar of inmacu-
late neatpess-an altar before which she
worshiped daily.
On this dry and tindery summer morn
ing. when the whole landscape seemed
blowing away in dust and haze, Mrs. Min
turn went a step further than usual in
her PartingtoEian zeal. She busted the
pillars of the porch as high as SIZE could
reach. and then she stepped down, in an
absent-minded way and busted the smooth
boie of a maple tree that stood close TO
the house. 1t was while she was grave
ly flourishing her cheese-cIoth around
ba t1rl- ~ he hot cba Il
Lewis painting in the distance. Adna was
the village station agent, and whenever
he came up the hill from the depot to
the street his painting could be heard
long distance away. Adna was large
framed and leshy and asthmatic. His
breath was wholly inadequate to his body,
and yet he seemed to regard the disparity
with entire unconcern. never riding
when he could walk. and always being in
such pesky hurry as he expressed it,
that he must travel at the most rapid
pace permitted him by nature.
He was laboring uphill from the depot
this morning with a telegram in his hand.
The receipt of a telegram at Jericho was
such a rare event that Adna always deliv-
cred the message himself, in addition to
taking II off the wire-and this quite with
out regard to the extreme irnprobability
of another message arriving in his alb
sence. He would invariably lock his little
ticket office and march up to the street"
as soon after receiving a telegram as his
other duties would allow. And so the
villa gers used to wonder, with country
peoples vague dread of kilograms, who
was to be the victim when they heard
Adna Lewis painting up the hill in mid
morning mid-afternoon.
Adna came Straight up the street to-
ward the Minturn house this morning,
his shirtsieeves fiuttering in the dry, hot
wind. Mrs. bIinturn stood watching him
with kind of helpless fascination. her
dust-cloth sthl resting in one hand
against the tree.
Wall swami exclaimed Adna, ap-
preaching. Dustin all out-doors-be
ye%'
Little Mrs. Minturn's smile was forced
as she nodded her head. 1t seemed to
her no time TO joke when a man was ap-
preaching with telegram in his hand
Comm here, Adny?" she aske< anx-
iously
Yep Got a-telegram for the-schcol-
master. Bein' Sat-day, / thought Ia find
him to-his boardin' place"
NO. he amt here, today, Adna,'' re-
piled Mrs. Minturu. relieved to know that
the telegram was not for her husband or
herself. Hes off fshin' up to Dodd's
pond. Started fore daylight. Went all
alone, too
Hum said Adna Lewis refectively
'Dodd's Pond. Ell? That's a Iorg ways
off-upward of twelve miles. Go with a
team"
Yes"
Say when he was comm back?''
Probably net till nine or half-past to-
night. Said he was goin' to drive back
in the cool of the evenin'"
'Shor calculated Adna. Now that's
bad, You see, Mis- Minturn, 1 know
what's in that telegram-of course. 1t
says: Yours received. On my way home
to Denver. Meet me Lapham Junction
2:30 today. Florence Now, that looks
to me kind of urgent-dont it to you?
Florence | take it, IS that gal they say
has Tilted him. Now something s hap
pened that makes her ready to patch it |
up. per'aps, if Harris comes right to the |
scratch. duly prompt. humble. and so |
forth. And there he Is twelve miles |
away in the woods to Dodds Pond, and |
the train leaves for Lapham Junction at |
Has. He won't be there. She'll be in an |
awful hun-and. prob'ly, that'u be an |
end o the hull thing
Dear, dear deari" exclaimed Mrs. Min
turn Her face was full of motherly dis |
tress. It's such pity, Adny," she cried. |
Poor Harris!-and he's so broke up over
it, You jest ought to see how he's lost |
flesh. Goes mopin' around and can't eat |
hardly a thing. Forgets what he was !