The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.) 1890-current, 1904-03-11
A MiSer Of Years.

Rachel was dead. Curiously the viii
layers eyed the door, whose Grape
streamers told the tale-this ancient
crone, familiar to their streets for
years so many that none but the aged
remembered her as other than old,
had passed under the transforming
touch, back into the youthland. And
IN their eyes curiosity and awe mingled
strangely with something like triumph.
Neighbor women who had long
looked askance at Rachel and her ways
now freely entered her poor cottage,
washed its windows and floors, and
with scrupulous conventionality turned
lace to the wall it's rude pictures.
With no ungentle hands they robed
old Rachel for her burial, smoothed
the white locks above her worn face,
and folded spray of autumn bloom in
her weary hands. Yet, even as they
worked, they said, one to another, in
such subdued whispers as befitted the
occasion, that now, at last, they should
know how old Rachel was.
For this had been the mystery by
which the woman, reputed half witch.
whole soothsayer, held her small world
at gaze-that none knew her exact age.
The oldest men and women in the vii
lage could just remember going to
school to her, comely, merry girl.
There fingered a half-forgotten tale OF
girl at first saddened, then grown
queer" and queerer yet, withdrawn
from life, and dwelling to middle age
a recluse in the cottage where she now
lay.
temporaries, with their memories,
dropped away, Rachel's life habit had
again changed; she began to go about
among the younger generation, gather
ing into an unfailing memory the his
tory, traditions and gossip of the coun-
ty, retailing it to any chance listener
with all the gusto of a self-constituted
authority. Her methods of knowledge
gathering were various, and were COM
monty indirect. Soft-footed, swift of
movement, she seemed omnipresent.
Turning at a rustic, you might see Ra-
chefs bent figure well down the street;
but she had heard your slightest word
and had stored it In mind where two
and two made often more than four.
Those who most resented her intru-
sions were loathe to anger one of her
reputation. Her skill as fortune teller
and herb doctor combined to give her
privilege and authority in her commu-
nity-privilege, albeit, without love
and without the desire for it, authority
as hard to gainsay as to explain, root
ed deep in the credulity of an obsti-
nately superstitious and pious people
with whom blessings and curses were
held in equal respect
But with all her garrulity in the af-
fairs of others, in the matter Of her age
Rachel had kept her own counsel. No
records and no memories betrayed her;
she had contrived to destroy the one
and had outlived the other. She
clutched her boarded jewels in closed
hands, very miser of the years, and
gloated over the curiosity of her towns
people.
Hence the satisfaction with which
the villagers, old and young, now re-
fiected that at last RacheIs carefully
guarded secret would soon be theirs.
Had she not long ago set her affairs in
order, provided for tombstone, and
sunk the balance of her small means
in a smaller annuity? Upon that tomb
stone hung the hopes of the curious;
there they should read her untold
At Rachels funeral there were no
mourners. The church elders bore her
light-weighted coffin through the fall
ing leaves to its place in the grave
ward on the hill and the villagers fol-
lowed.
Two days later heavy team toiled
ND the road dragging a Grated granite
obelisk, Rachel's tombstone. AS word
spread through the place the folk
gathered again; crowd not so large
as had followed her funeral, neither
80 compassionate nor so respectable,