Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1901-12-18
MANON
An Incident of the Frer ch
Revolution.

On the outskirts of the little vii
lage in which we lived stood an old
house, tenanted by such an old, old
man.
The house was old, but its tenant
much older. No one in the place
could remember him even as middle
aged. He had been old Niles to ev-
erybody for years.
My brother and I, the youngest of
a very large family, were thrown
very much on our own resources,
and we admired and cultivated
Niles, for he had won our childish
hearts one Christmas by telling us
grewsome story at supper, where he
occupied the post of honor at the
tabe-a story so dreadful that we
were afraid to go to bed alone for
the next three nights.
In that gentle and friendly COM
munity Niles, by means of his old
age and infirmities, was a privileged
character.
People living in the great houses
around used to send him tidbits
from their own tables. Truth COM
pels me to relate that Niles did not
always receive these offerings with
gratitude. If the dish was not to
his taste, he would reject it with
contumely, and the mistress of the
house advised by him to get a new
cook. But Steena, our cook, be-
loved of us children, had found fa-
vor in Niles eyes. Her offerings
we're never rejected by him; espe-
cially an eel soup and an eel pie of
hers were welcome to his taste.
How well | remember the day on
which he told us the following tale,
the last, as it happened, we were
ever to hear from Niles lips.
A day in June, remember it
was, full of sunshine and perfume
and the song of birds. Niles sat
out before his door on a bench, so
old and shrunken, shivering in the
hot sun and muttering, 'The sun
does not warm one as it used to do,
but am an old, old man."
He accepted, however, Steena's
Offering of a basin of soup, and
when he had swallowed it, to our
great delight, offered of his own ac-
cord to tell us a story. Not" he
added, "one of those foolish tales
of ghosts or fairies you children are
so fond of, but a true tale, one l
lived through myself.
'It was long, long ago. You have
heard and read, have you not, of the
French revolution, when blood flow
ed like water in the streets of Paris
and Frenchmen chopped off the
heads of both king and queen? At
that time was boy in the service
of a young Danish nobleman.
GLOW tired we grew of it all-the
guillotine, the shrieking Paris crowds,
who sang and danced and jeered
around while the tumbrels full of
their victims were being dragged
away to their death. But we were
in Paris and could not get out, you
know. We were there no longer
known as master and servant; citi-
zen was the name dinged in our
ears.
"My master-I call him master
now-was an aristocrat of a high
and noble family in our own north
ern land; but we kept that to our
selves. ! could speak not word of
French. My master could speak it
like Frenchman, of course.
Opposite our lodgings was
wineshop, kept by one of the red
capped Frenchmen. He offered one
day to sell me some very fine French
wine, wine fit for the king HIM
SELF he added, with wink, which
told me that the king, dead now
and his bones moldering in ditch,
had once upon a time had this wine
in his own royal cellar.
81 went to the wineshop directly
after to buy some of this wine, as
my master was in sore need of some
thing to cheer his heart. My
tongue, however, could never twist
and turn itself to utter a word of
French, and when Manon, the shop
keepers daughter, heard me she fell
into shrieks of laughter. | thought
the ceiling would come down then
and there on our heads. The saucy.
minx. | marched out, red in the
face and with my head up. ! VOW
ed | would never put myself in the
way of being laughed at by her,
girl who could not speak word of
my tongue.
"When the wine was drunk, I re-
fused to go again to fetch it. He
could go himself, | told my master
He was ia no great hurry to CO.. but
did so at last. There was no laugh
ing at his French, if you please, and
Al