Middletown transcript., 1908-04-11
!. THE DOVER RIGHT :.
BY FANNY KEMBLE JOHNSON

reQ QOW0r-nOuS6. Dub you COulu
not see in, to where the old lady
sat beside the window of her
humiliation, and looked down the
long meadow where the invaders
rode every day to watch their re-
lentless scarlet machines SOW
ing wheat as if each grain were
a dragons tooth, or moving it
as if they were guillotines at
work upon ranks of golden aris-
tocrats.
In the pride of youth she had
chosen this window for her own,
because from it she could COM
mand so wide a view of her
realm. Especially she had never
glanced down that great meadow
without a thrill of pride-as now,
in the evil days, she never be-
held it without a pang.
Of all this the invaders had no
idea. That she was an enemy,
and the dower-house a grim fort
ress, and themselves the wicked
besiegers of that fortress-why,
they were too youhg and joyous
to imagine such preposterous
things. So they went on sowing
and reaping in her one-time
fields, and riding by her white
pillared portico, innocently par
aiding their youth and comrade,
ship and affluence before the face
of her age and her loneliness and
her poverty-her bitter poverty
that might not even keep the
house of her faith ers for her own
people to inherit.
The girl invader vas the
worst. She was twenty-five, and
she had been married to the
other invader for six years, and
two little boys were singing out
"mother"after her the whole day
long;but for all that, she looked a
mere girl to the enemy at her
loophole in the honeysuckle of
the portico. And so she was
just a big, rosy, delightful girl,
~ She cantered by on her brown
mare, Chips.
Her name, by the way, was
Rose. The old lady heard him
calling her by it one day-his
was Terence. And always when
she caught sight of the old lady
she would nod gaily, and call,
Good morning or Good evening !!
US the case mig hit be, in country
fashion.
To the old lady these children,
wild with their first real freedom
and their first own home, were
as red flags Haunted. After such
an encounter as we have in.
dicated, she would leave the
pleasant porch, and go to sit IN
the dusky parlor, surrounded by
family portraits and memorials
of past days, and open the fam
lily Bible on a marble topped table
cold as a tombstone, seeking
consolation in certain verses once
possessed of power to heal an un-
happy and lonely heart.
But that girls fresh face and
voice would remain in her mem
ory, would distract her, would
taunt her with an invulnerable
joyousness. She, could not help
but loc'1 up at one particular
pUGrait set over the tall white
mantelshelf-such a boys face it
was, and smiling; and whenever
she looked, memory cried, We
were like them once! Then she
would sit, forgetting the book,
with tears of old age on her with
cred cheeks and the dull despair
Of old age in her heart.
Now it would simply have
broken Roses own heart to have
had the faintest conception of |
all this, for she was just as sweet
as she looked.
One day, indeed, Terence did |
say, Girl, I don't half-believe that
old lady likes, us, land another day, |
Rosie, sure as sunrise she hates
US, but Rose only tiouted him.
Terry, she said, on this last
occasion, you're too imaginative |
for a farmer. Stop maligning |
human nature, and go put your
cultures to soak. Your beans
won't be worth photographing if
you don't get them planted soon.
Terence grinned. But. Rose,
she's just sent me word not to
use her road any more. That
means I must cut across the
meadow with another road.
Well, we must be a nuisance,
Terry / don't blame her at all. We
should have had our own road
ong ago. You can't set me
against an old lady with curls,