The Prescott daily news., 1907-07-19


 alone this winter
 There. 1t was out. The lines be- oame A little more rigid. if anything, and the old woman's rocker increased ,ha cadence of its creaking by ton rocks to the minute, but stil she kept her eyes intent upon her work, which, for knitted stocking seemed to need an unusual amount of attention.
 As for Joseph, the look of astonish- ment then consternation that came over his face was pitiful to see. He brought down his feet from their nlace of ease, half turned in his chair fill he could see his aunt's rigid ex- pression, and exclaimed in a voice in which all the trouble of his face was reproduced
 Alone, Why, aunt, what's the mat fer? What have I done? Ain't l tended to the wood, and ain't 1 helped you wash, and ain't done everything for yer that I could? Be yer sick of seein' me round? Why, Aunt" his voice broke as his eyes filled, why, aunt didn't know I wasn't a-pleasin' yer
 The cadence of the chair increased yet again (the only outward evidence of the inward disturbance), and Mary waited a moment before answering.
 "'Tain't you, Joe she said finally; tits me, l guess. But 1 tell yer, Joe, I've been thinking 1t over all summer, and If am an old woman l ain't quite laid on the shelf yet. and l ain't ago in to be, neither"
 As she talked her feelings overcame her timidity of speech, and now she set forth her views with the force of ten months of pent-up feelings. while poor Joe listened and looked as though the end of the world had come
 No. sir! l ain't quite bedridden yet" she went on. Here I've been a-runnin' this house for 40 years, and never a day but what was glad there want no man botherin' round. Who dug the garding and planted 1t, year in an year out before you came? l did Who threw in the wood an piled it up in the shed every fall? I did. Who's drawed the water a pail at time all these years, and who even laid the shingles on the ell an barn ten years ago? I did I did, Joe Ger rish, and you know it. Now do you think I'm a-goin' to see my home taken right out of my hands, an me adependin on somebody else? We'll, I ain't"
 But the rangement, auntie, the v c.tJ aninp like drowning man at the only straw in sight; you know the 'rangement was that 1 do the work around and make my home here the rest of my days and that sometime when you get through, aunt, l was agoin' to have the place. Want that the under standin'. Aunt Nary"
 "Providin', Joe, providin' that at the end of year everything was satisfac- tory. Want that what l said? Didn't you agree to that, now? Tell. me, now, didn't you agree to that?"
 Yes. l agreed to it, aunt. l agreed to it, but I never once 'spected yer want satisfied with me. I've tried aw- full hard to please yer, Aunt, I've tried awful hard"
 Turned out, Joe looked around at the homely. old-fashioned furniture of the kitchen. Around the kitchen his eyes travelled and into the sitting room, and everywhere were to be seen evidences of his handiness with ham, mer and saw.
 Oh. but it was hard to be turned out nowi Not but that he could continue to do odd jobs and so earn living from the more pretentious neighbors: his services were always in demand But the old house had become home to him. To sit down at night and draw of his heavy boots, put on his warm, roomy slippers and after supper, with Dick on his knees or close beside him, think over his thoughts all by him. self was joy enough and to spare. He little realized the inner emotions of his aunt He little imagined as he sat thus in pleasant and peaceful thought that though outwardly calm, she was saying that he made her nervous with his sulky ways
 Joe was a silent man; a man of many experiences, most of them bit. ter, some of them tragic. who could have had much to say of the world had he been given to talk. But years of submission to a shrewish wife, to whom silence was the only successful opposition, and many more recent ex- periences when loneliness had been his invariable lot had taught him the hapnY art of making friends with ones