Ottumwa tri-weekly courier., 1912-04-25
back, and running again in the way he

!
he would have her 60. 1
The general, when young cavalry
officer, hardly indeed more than a
boy, had made q runaway match with
Miss FKoenig Of Philadelphia, who
was so rich that people used to call
her Miss Kilmansegg. He had there
upon given up the army. and taken to
law instead, and from law had grad
uated into politics and congress. After
leaving him with two little boys, who
were now middle-aged men, one a
traveller and writer of some reputation,
and the other, an ironmaster on the
lakes, with railroad of his own and
fleet of ships. The general had taken
his bereavement terribly at heart and
for while went all to pieces, until
his friends made interest for him, and
had him appointed minister to some
faraway and Insignificant post, more
with the idea of benefiting him by the
change of scene than launching him
into what was to be distinguished
career. He rose rapidly; was con-
stantly promoted, and was one of the
first American ambassadors, when that
grade was inaugurated by President
Mckinley.
In the meanwhile he had married
again, losing his second wife many
years later in carriage accident
His daughter, Christine, had narrow
ly escaped the same fate, and for sew
eral years had been helpless invalid,
nobody ever thinking she would be
we'll again. But at last she recovered,
and was as strong as most girls, or
stronge' to Judge from the daring way
she rode and her much-taked-of flights
on skis.
3 On the Spanish war breaking out,
Marshall had thrown diplomacy to the
winds, and returned to Connecticut to
help organize the states quota for the
national DEFENSE receiving his COM
mission as brigadier-general of vol
unteers, and earning much local re-
nown by his energy and patriotism. It
was not his fault that the enrolled
citizens never say a Spaniard. or burn
ed anything more deadly than mos.
quito powder. The picnic stage was
hardly past before the war was over
and the general reappointed to his
former post Since then he had Lt-
finitely retired, more on his daughters
account than his own, 1t was said, to
let her see something of her own peo-
pie. and marry In her own land, his
regard for courts and court life being
none of the best. -..- s-'
He kept up three establishments
one in Washington, another at Bar
Harbor, and the third, his big, COM
Portable old colonial house at Fair
Oaks, about four miles out Of Manas-
wan--moving from one to another as
the humor seized him. Fair Oaks
was his favorite, as he owned 1t ever
since his first marriage, and had never
closed it, partly from sentiment and
partly from the political advantage OF
preserving a roof-tree in his native
state He was a Connecticut man and
there was the proof of it for all to
see.
It must not be supposed that Mrs.
Sattane said all this as concisely as
1t is written. The reader Is presented
with the ,maple-sugar Of the matter, in
one nice, ,fat-brick, and has been spared
all the preliminary boiling and
steaming and skimming and bubbling
and frantic running to and fro with
fresh buckets Of the thinnest Of thin
juice-not to speak of extraneous ef-
forts and excitements that had nothing
to do with sugar at all. .Na.
Nor was Bridget's Interruptions in
cluded; nor the staggering intrusion OF
Hunter Hoyt; nor the general fuss and
cackling attending Miss Gibbs depar.
ture with Buggins; nor the arrival Of
an enhancing stranger, ostensibly in
search of board, who subsequently
took on the horrid hue of book agent
with Som ebody's History Of the World
in nine subscription volumes; nor q
tramp, who hung gloomily over the
fence and speculated aloud whether 9
pore man might even ask for a glass
of water without having the dorg set
on him-and who departed with a pie,
turkey drumstick, loaf of bread,
and, also, as it seemed afterward, a
coil of garden hose-though where he
hid it, or how absorbed it, remained as
impenetrable mystery as that Of the
Man in the Iron Mask.
TWAS vtry dragging afternoon for
Matt; he was restless, could settle to
nothing, was both stirred and depress-
ed at the prospect of his fall at Fair
Oaks. He had dressed with such care
that he was afraid to sit down; or to
leave the porch lest his immaculate
shoes might suffer; and was horribly
conscious of the crinkling nature OF
his fresh white waistcoat. No girl
could have been in more of a tremor.
Periodically he went upstairs to look
at himself in the glass-to make sure
there was not a hair on the neck OF
his coat-to brush and brush, and
worry again that his hands were so
large and SO sunburned.
He had ordered buggy for half
past three, buggy and q man to
drive it, for he meant to take no
chances of missing his road. 1t came
too early and caused him renewed
agitation in consequences quarter OF
an hour early, when, as matter of
fact, he would not dare to start before
the half-hour-giving him a whole fif-
teen minutes, therefore, to be dawdled
through, with more crinkling Of white
waistcoat, and more risk to shoes, and
a whole new access Of that suffocating
feeling, which he supposed to be pleas.
ure, but was in reality much nearer
agony.
Punctually to the minute he took his
seat in the buggy and was just start