Wallowa County chieftain. [volume] (Enterprise, Or.) 1909-1911, 1909-01-14

had proclaimed blockade Of the southern
coast, but as yet II was laxly maintained.
owing to paucity Of force. and the Con-
federate p-ivateers came and went pretty
much as they pleased.
The st. Lawrence, attached to the
North Atlantic blockading squadron. had
been out two months and had not made
single capture. Officers and men were
disguised. Why they should have expect
ed to capture anything in sailing vessel
when the Confederates usually employed
the swiftest steamers for privateers and
blockSde-runners is a question. One af-
ternoon in late July the st. Lawrence
under easy sail was swinging along to
the southwark of Cape Hatteras. A week
before she had been spoken by a dispatch
boat, which had transmitted general
order from the flag officer commanding the
squadron to the effect that a certain Con-
federate privateer called the Petrol was
fitting out in Pamlico sound for dash to
sea, and that all the ships of the squad
ron were cautioned to look out for her.
mice notice to send u.s." remarked
Smith, who was the executive officer Of
the frigate, to the second lieutenant Of
the ship. I'VE couldn't catch her with
this old hooker if she were anchored. Oh.
why don't they lay up this tub as a
guarGo or store ship somewhere and give
US a chance in a mer?-somethin
that has heels as well as guns?"
This was a poser for the second lieu,
tenant. He did not attempt to answer it,
but left Smith, who was enjoying leis-
ure hour. standing on the lee side of the
quarter deck staring over the rail at the
empty sea and vacant sky to starboard.
Empty sea and vacant sky? Well, not
quite. When there was nothing else to
command his attention Smith could al
ways see Ellen Jones in the ambient on
the horizon. He was looking straight
west. Beneath the sky line some fifty
miles away rose the low sands of the
chain of islands that separated Pamlico
and Abemarle sounds from the ocean. On
one of the broad estuaries of Pamlico
sound stood the home of old Major Jones'
Ellens father. For aught Smith knew
the object OF his dreams was there. At
any rate, he did not know that she was
anywhere else, and he embodied her there
N-~-~
without hesitation.
Major Jones was of somewhat humble
English birth. As child he had come
to the United States with his elder broth
er, man Of much shrewdness and mer-
camille ability. The elder Jones, who
had settled in North Carolina. had amass-
ed considerable fortune. With an Eng
lishman's love for position, he had sue
ceeded in getting a commission in the
army for Ellen's father. While Smith had
been stationed at the Brooklyn Navy
Yard and Ellen's father at Governors
Island, the young people had met. Smith
had loved madly, Ellen had been deeply
interested. Her father had been abso-
lutely opposed to Smiths wooing. He had
sent him about his business his brothers
influence had been exerted, and the young
man had been ordered away on a three
years cruise in Asiatic waters, whence
he had just returned at the outbreak of
the war.
The year before that Major Jones
brother had died, leaving him all his prop
erty in North Carolina. The Major had
resigned his command and gone down to
|
with him his daughter, his only child.
Ellen. save for her inclination towards
Smith. was still heart-whole and fancy
free. 1t is falsely urged that the absent
are always wrong. Someone has said that
proyerb is a lie or a platitude. In this
case the wise saw quoted above was both.
If she had been allowed free and unre-
stricted intercourse with the homely Mr..
Thomas Beekman Smith. Ellen Jones
might have found it impossible to have
made him the object of her romance
which is going contrary to all the theories
stated in the introduction However that
may be, severed from him by the stern
edict of a practical parent, the interest
engendered by the ardent wooing to which
she had been subjected ripened into a
deeper feeling. She grew to love the alb
sent sailor almost as the absent sailor
loved her. For his sake she had refused
many offers of marriage which she had
received both from the army and from the
surrounding people of her North Carolina
home 1t is not only the superlative WON
en- who have men at their feet, be II re-
membered. The social position Of the
Jones family in proud, aristocratic tide
water North Carolina was only fair. Yet
Major Jones had money, his daughter was
distinctly likable, and of young visitors
the plantation had not few.
Smith had come back from his Asiatic
cruise with a determination, fruit of three
years of absence and repression, to seek
Ellen and take her, willy nilly, for his
own. The war had interrupted all that
When he might see her now was a ques
ton. Ito be continued-)