The Celina Democrat. (Celina, O. [Ohio]) 1895-1921, 1910-05-27

D NhANHN Hhh AAtAA ~ ~ 4 heA"AAAAAh " ahtN W
stub Louss. Seems lax he JUS gwine
r'ar round twel he hut somebody"
/ etoainshrdlu etoian shrdlu etoain ct
Sepie, the Majors body-servant'
had grown gray IN the Dabney service.
and he was well used TO the masters
storm periods.
"Doan you trouble yo'se'f none er-
bout dat, Mis- Juliet Mawstuh Majuh
tekkln' hit mighty hawd cause Nav
stub Louis done daid But bimeby you
gwine see him climm on his hawss an
ride up yondeh to whah de big steam
boats comes IN anfotch dat III gal
/ child home; an den: uck-uh-h! look
out, nlggahs; dar amt gwine be nuttln'
on de top side dishyer yearth good or
nough for IN Missy. You watch what
| / done tor yer erbout dat, now!"
| Scipio's prophecy, or as much OF Il
as related to the bringing OF the or
phancd Ardea 10 Deer Trace Manor,
| wrought itself out speedily, as a mat
| ter of course. At the close of the war,
| Captain Louis, the Majors only son.
| had become, like many another hot
hearted young Confederate, self-eX-
patrioted exile. On the eve Of his de-
parture for France he had married the
! Virginia maiden who had nursed him
alive after Charlottesville. Major
! Caspar had given the bride away-the
/ war had spared no kinsman of hers TO
stand in this breach-and when the
| God-speeds were said, had himself
turned back to the weed-grown fields
of Deer Trace Manor, embittered and
/ hostile, swearing never TO set foot out
] o II erafn vul1l1a the
Union should stand
/ For more than twenty years he kept
/ this vow almost literally. A few OF the
older negroes, a mere handful OF the
six score slaves Of the old pauiarchal
days, cast in their lot with their for
mer master, and with these the Major
made shift thriftily, farming a little,
| stock raising a little, and, unlike most
Of the war-broken plantation owners,
cllnging tenaciously to every rood OF
/ land covered by the original Dabney
| title deeds.
In this cenobitic interval, II you
wanted a Dabney colt or a Dabney
COW, YOU went, or sent, to Deer Trace
Manor on your own initiative, and you,
| or your deputy never met the Major
your business was transacted with
/ lean, lantern jawed Japheth Pettigrass,
/ the Majors stock-and farm foreman.
/ And although the Dabney stock was
pedigreed, you kept your wits about
/ YOU; else Pettigrass got much the bet
/ ter of you in the trade, like the shrewd,
calculating Alabama Yankee that he
was.
Ardea was born in Paris in the
/ twelfth year Of the exile: and the Vir-
ginia mother, pinlng always for the
| home land, died in the fifteenth year.
| Afterward Captain Louis fought a
| long drawn, losing battle, figuring
bravely in his infrequent letters to his
! father as a rising miniature painter.
He had his little girl back and forth
| between his lodgings and the studio
where he painted pictures that nobody
would buy, and eking out a miserable
existence by giving lessons in English
when he was happy enough to find
pupil.
The brave letters imposed on the Nj
ior. as they were meant to do; and
| Ardea, the loyal happening on one .ol
! them in her first Deer Trace summer,
read it through with childish sobs ami
never thereafter opened her lips on the
] Story Oh lIlbnt Nl1AA 1S9A VI 4 al - htN >.
Later she understood her fathers mo-
tive better: how he would not be a
charge on an old man rich in nothing
! but ruin; and the memory Of the
yinched childhood became thing sa-
cred.
How the Major, a second Rip Van
Wrinkle, found his way to New York,
and to the pier of the incoming French
Line steamer, must always remain
mystery. But he was there, with the
fierce old eyes quenched and swim
ming and the passionate Dabney lips
trembling strangely under the great
moustaches when the black frocked
little waif from the Old World ran
down the landing stage and into his
arms. Small wonder that they clung
to each other, these two at the further
extremes of three generations; or that
the child opened a door in the heart
Of the fierce old partisan which was
locked and doubly barred against all
others.
1t was all new and very strange to
a child whose only outlook on life had
been urban and banal. She had never
seen a mountain, and nothing more
nearly approaching a forest than the
marked groves Of the Bois de Boulogne
Would it be permitted that she should
sometimes walk in the woods of the
first Dabney, she asked with the quaint
French twisting of the phrases that
she was never able fully to overcome.
1t would certainly be permitted; more,
the Major would make her a deed to
as many of the forest acres as she
would care to include in her prone
made.
How the French born child fitted in
to the haphazard household at Deer
Trace Manor with what struggles she
came through the inevitable attack Of
inconsistencies, and how Nanny Juliet
and every one else petted and indulg-
ed her, are matters which need not be
dwelt on. But we shall gladly believe
that she was too sensible, even at the
early and tender age of 10, to be easily
spoiled.
She never forgot a summer day soon
after her arrival when she first saw
her grandfather transformed into
frenzied madman. He was sitting on
the wide portico directing Japheth
Pettigrass, who was training the great
crimson rambler rose that ran well up
TO the caves. Ardea, herself, was on
the lawn, playing with her grandfath
er's latest gift, a huge, solemn eyed
Great Dane, so she did not see the man
who had dismounted at the gate and
walked up the driveway until he was
handing his card to her grandfather
When she did see him, she looked
tdwice at him; not because he was
triglY clad in brown duck and tightly
buttoned service leggings, but because