Middletown transcript., 1904-12-24
[coNrIsuEp FROM LAST WEEK.

II 4
in the 4grayeyard sometimes recalled to
the oldar people of the village vague
memory \of green barege veil, long dark
ringlets flowing from beneath its screen
ing folds, land hollow, prophetic cough.
To Cynthia she was not even memory
Susan was sister and mother all in one.
81 know you'll be good to her, Susie, .
the diving Woman had murmured family
to her hom4ly, angular. but thoroughly
reliable tepdaugllter. You have used
me better than most girls would have
a stepmother, and me SO near your own
age"
'I'll do my lduty," promised Susan i'll
a matter -of-fadt tone, as she sorted the
medicine bottles. "I'll stick by pa and
fetch up the chiV and don't you worry.
Look at my arm! l guess l kin git
along, and no thA Anks TO anybody"
Mrs. Briggs looked her gratitude as she
lay gasping, white shadow on the
scarcely whittier pi low.
81 guess I'll cd to Sleep" she whis-
pered, and turned her face from the
light. An hour latter, when Susan came
softly in to look afteI r the baby, she found
its mother had slippe d out OF life as noise
lessly as mist wreath before the rising
sun.
Susan stood over the dead woman for
a long, silent moment, then she stopped,
and lifting the unconscious infant from its
dead mothers embrace, symbolically
took up her life burden, That was long
years ago, when a certain rising young
minister had already set, his hopes upon
the capable Susan. There were other
suitors too, Job Petty among them, for
Susan would be what her neighbors called
"well fxed' when she came Of age to
inherit her mothers property but the
girl refused them, one and all.
"I've got Cynthy to fetch up and pa to
tend to, and I haven't no time to think
of marrying" she said to Job Petty.
What she said to the young minister no
one ever knew, but there was a certain
spot in the long road between the Briggs
farm and the village, where the old cherry
trees leaned far over the wall and scat
tered the white petals OF their fragrant
blossoms down on the wayfarer's head.
Susan never passed that spot in after
years without dull ache in her heart,
and she never could endure the odor of
cherry blossoms more. The minister
went away and married someone else,
after the manner of men in general.
Sometimes he came back to preach in his
native town. Susan sat bolt upright in
the pew, listening attentively. After the
service was over the minister came and
shook hands with her, while she inquired
after the health of his wife and their six
children. 1t was all very sensible and
commonplace, but for all that, there Was
withered spray of cherry blossoms in
the minister's Bible, though Susan would
never know it-in this world Never
mind, she had Cynthy-her little dimpleH
Cynthy.
Cynthia's dimples, however, we're all
too transient. The child grew up into a
slender slip of thing, with hectic color
and general delicacy which gave Susan
many an anxious hour. Like her mother
too, was Cynthia in her general incapac-
ity for all the exigencies Of the hard, stir
ring life about her. Till the end she
would be simply a charge upon her stir
ring sister, but Susan, while grieving in
secret, never publicly admitted any Of
her darling deficiencies. When CYNTHIA
finally struggled up into delicate, senti-
mental young maidenhood, fresh perplex-
tiles came. Lovers appeared miraculous
ly, like mushrooms, of moonlight night.
Susan drove them fiercely away, one and
all, Cynthia inwardly grieving, but out
wardly all submission. Susan knew best,
of course, and if not, who dared to dis
pute her authority? By-and-bye the
baffied suitors dropped away, and then
things grew once more comfortable. No
more heart-futterings or tremors of delic-
ious fear for the aging Cynthia, no more
lynx-eyed prowlings for her suspicious
guardian. The two old maids lived se-
renely on through the peaceful years of
their decline, as fixed an institution in
their neighbors' minds as the meeting
house or old Shagwam Hill.
Never once in all their long dual life
had Cynthia ever been guilty of such an
alteration as this matter of the boughten
baby. Susan pondered vainly over the
mystery through the long hours of the
tempestuous night, while the rats scuttled
in the walls, and the wet branches of the
rosebush tapped OH the window-pane.
The dawn found her no nearer solution
of the mystery. Yet the explanation
was simple enough. The wonIanly in
stincts of repressed, smothered life had
vindicated themselves in single over
whelming impulse at the sight of the
neglected infant in the arms OF its un-
willing mother. In a second Cynthia,
prim, skimped, middle-aged spinster, had
touched the fringe Of the mighty mystery
of motherhood. A faint, reflected light
from its august crown played over her
worn face as she lay asleep, the baby
clasped to her maiden bosom. Miss
Susan's sharp eyes caught it, though she
only turned away, hardening her heart
like Pharaoh Of old, for the day was
breaking clear and cloudless, and the
child should be in the poor-house by
noon if old Nancy could hold out for the
long drive over the quilted roads.
Yell hev to go round by the Squire's
and git the c'mittal," said Abner, as Miss
Susan climbed with creaking joints into
the little green box-wagon. "Ye can't
90 heavin' it on the taown without writ
ings."
Cynthia wept softly, under her sunbon-
net. and clasped the baby tighter.
"I'll git quit of the youngun fust, and
then I'll see about writing" returned