The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.) 1890-current, 1902-11-07
Chance or Fdte?
A Short Story.
BY LEDYARD BRYCE.

rs life made up Of detached frag
ments nearly or quite independent
Of each other, or is it like a dis
\ sected picture puzzle, whose queer
est concave contours have correspond
ingly queer convex contours to fit
them, making altogether a perfect SYM
meuical whole?
This question has been variously an
swered by philosophers of ancient
times and tbeologans of the present
day. 1t is variously answered by our
selves at different periods, according
to the mood that governs us and the
circumstances that surround us.
So much by way of preface.
Once there was a man from Fall
River, who thought 1t a deep and
damnable sin to travel on Sunday. To
avoid committing this sin, he altered
his original plan of going up to Chicou-
tint on the Saturday boat, and went
up on Thursday instead, so as to come
down the Saguenay on Friday, trans
act some necessary business at Quebec
on Saturday, and spend the Sabbath,
as he called it, at the hotel, where he
passed a restful, happy day in finding
fault with his food, sending his steak
back to be a little more cooked so
many times that the little kitchen maid
from Beaufort lost her opportunity to
go to o'clock vespers, to the discom-
fort of her conscience and the disap-
pointment of her second cousin, who
had come all the way from ST. Anne to
escort her.
In Kankakee there lived a boy who
was passiOnately fond of two things,
mechanics and going to sea. The last
was purely theoretical taste. He had
never seen the sea, and only once ION
occasion of a Sunday-school excursion
to Rock Island had he seen a vessel OF
any kind.
Our boy got chance in a machine
shop at Marquette, earned money, and
what is better, saved it The white
winged vessels that skinned over the
waters of lake Superior revived his
dormant passion for adventure, ant
when his vacation came he took triI
through the lakes and down the st
Lawrence. He called 1t going to sea
But what can you expect from a West
ern boy?
At Quebec ne met the Fall River mar
in the Office of the hotel 1t wa
Wednesday, and to group Of men h
was describing the voyage up the Sag
uenay that he meant to make the mex
day, in a manner as glOwingly realisti
as If he had made it the day before
When he paused for breath the grou
had melted away, the boy alone re
manned, his contemplative gray eye
fixed upon the narrator.
"What is the matter with my going
too?" he said in his artless boyis
fashion
The Fall River man would b
charmed. And so the next day, "goo
and early" as the boy said, they Sc
out together for Chicoutlmi, the DO
asking countless questions, the ma
framing elaborate answers. And eaC
was happy because he was doing ii
thing he liked best to do.
For six years a quiet little YankC
woman of Eastport, Me-, had been el
gagged to an officer in her Majesty
Navy whom she had met at a ball
Halifax. At the time Of this stol
Lieutenant Crowninshield was on lea,
of absence, visiting an aunt in Chic
20; his little fiancee was spending II
summer with an aunt at Caconna {
the lower ST. Lawrence. A slight mi
understanding had arisen betwe,
them. The Lieutenant was piqut
when they parted.
y they had seen each other the ne
day, a kind word, a tender CLAN
would have ended the trouble at ono
But letters are poor things; inste
of bringing these lovers together, tn
seemed to widen the breach, and aft
a time Crowninshield realized tn
heroic measures must be adopted or
would lose his little love altogether
Accordingly he smoked a pipe
cogitation, and then penned the folio
ing:
Dearest Mary.-Why risk our hap
ness for a trife2 Let us drop the m
ter. And to prevent its coming