The progressive farmer and the cotton plant., 1904-11-01

| GO4o 1NC OAdG Ill q SAhdA OOA9 LII OAO AoASO ~
I'd find a picture, and should bring it to him. I
did as he requested, and found a gold cased
Daguerreotype of a very beautiful girl, twenty or
more years of age, with her hair and dress in a
style of long ago. The old man took the picture,
looked at it eagerly for a short while, then gave
it back to me, with the exclamation: "Oh, my
dear Marybellr"
He then turned so that he could look out of the
window to the westward, where for a mile or more
the silver-crested wavelets of the river we're
scintilating beneath the rays of the setting sun.
Thus he lay and gazed off into these mystic
realms where all the yesterdays, with their memo
ries of veal and woe, are gathered before the
dreamer's eye-gazed till the last beams of day
light had ~glimmered away and darkness lay over
the bosom of the peaceful stream.
Then, he suddenly turned from his reverie and
called me, saying:
"Monsieur,"-he had a fancy of addressing me
by the French title of civility-"come here, my
bonnie boy, and sit down by me and listen to
what I say.
"Monsieur," lie began, "Uncle Jimmy is going
to leave you. Yes, the sap is all gone out of my
old and withered limbs, and I feel my life tide
ebbing fast. These old gray hairs, like the burn
ished leaves on yonder birches by the rivers
brink, have passed their summer days and soon
will be Wondering in the dust. Yes, the golden
sunlight of to-morrow's morn will come up the
eastern ways and lay sweet over the dewy fields,
but Uncle Jimmy will greet it, nevermorei So
listen to what Uncle Jimmy says.
Monsieur" he continued, 1T am a scion of an
old New England family. My people moved, when
L was quite small, to a little up-country town in |
New York State. There I spent my boyhood DAYS
days of blessed memoryl In the same town
lived a girl, who was the embodiment of all that
is true and beautiful in womanhood. Her likes
and disHkes and mine-save in one particular
were SIMILAR; and our affections were mutual.
In truth, we had been lovers from childhood.
"t was on my return home at the eYule tide
of my senior year at Princeton that found all
the social element of the village in a ferment over
the new dance, called the waltz which had been
introduced from England. It was late
N the evening when I arrived at home. so after
my people, / went over to the Town Hall
where a big dance was already in full swing. As
entered the ballroom, I was almost mortified
TO behold the bare white bosom and shoulders of
ny dear Marybell clasped in the arms of a strang-
er, and whirling over the waxened floor. As soon
IS an opportunity presented itself I cautioned
against being too familiar with q man
Vhose character and life she knew nothing about.
She chided me and said that he was a perfect
Poor grill she could not see the
anger. Ibis man, whose charming personality
ina Wlnsome ways rendered him a beau ideal with
'ur village girls, was a comparative stranger to
,ur people. He made periodical visits through
ne up-country towns as the representative of q
lrm doing business in one of the large cities.
Il was then of a retiring, studious nature and
AIRED but little for the fast amusements. such sc
most concerned the young society people Of the
lme. And especially was this so in regard r. !