Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1914-01-03
while in a soft grooming monotone.

we'll ernuf ter SIT her chile be1n' queens
en- things 'mongst all tn othah quality!
When they want er queen they jes'
gctter come TO- her little girl. Talk
bout tn stars-she way above them!
Ranston he say Mistah ValiAn: bout
tn bestes' dancer in tn world; say
tn papers up in New York thiuN tn
sun rise en- set in his heels Spec
ter-night he dance er little with tn
othahs jes ter be p'lite, till he git
back ter tn one he put tn crown on.
5000 tired she Is! But Em'line
gwine ter bresh away all tn achiness
EN- she got yo' bald all turned down
TO yo'-en yo' pretty little night-dress
all ready-en yo' gwineter sleep--en
sleep-till yo' kyan sleep no mo- no.
howl"
Under these ministrations Shirley
lay languid and speechless, her eyes
closed. The fear that had stricken
her heart by turns seemed cold hand
pressing upon it's beating and an algid
vapor rising stealthily over 1T. But
her hands were hot and her eyelfds
burned. Finally she reused herself.
Thank you, Emmaline." she said in
a tired voice, good night now; I'm
going to sleep, and you must go to
bed. too"
But alone in the warm wan dark,
Shirley lay staring open-eyed a. the
ceiling. Slowly the terror was seiz-
ing upon her, the dread, noiseless and
intangible, folding her in the shadow
Of its numbing wings. Was her moth
er the one over whom that old duel
had been fought? Was it she whose
love had been wrecked in that long
SO horribly near and real? Was that
the explanation Of her fainting? Sne
remembered the cape jessamines. Was
the date of that duel-of the death of
Sassc on-Ihe anniversary her mother
kept?
She sat up in bed, trembling. Then
she rose, and opening the door with
caution, crept down the stair, sliding
her hot hand before her along the cool
polished banister. Only subdued
glimmer came through the curtained
windows, stealing in with the ever
present scent Of the arbors. T. was
so still she thought she could hear the
very heart Of the dark beating. IS
she passed through the lower hall, a
hound on the porch, seeming her,
thumped his tail on the floor
ing, and whined. Cropping her way to
the dining room. she lighted candle
and passed through a corridor into a
chamber employed as a
general receptacle-a glorified garrett,
as Mrs. cambridge dubbed it.
1t showed strange assemblage! A
row of chests, stored with winter
gave forth a clean pungent
smell Of cedar, and at one side stood
an antique. spinet and a worn set of
horsehair furniture. Sofa and chairs
were piled with excrescences in the
shape Of old engravings in carved
ebony frames, ancient scrap-books and
and on a table stood a
rounded glass case with fiat base
the sort in which an older generation
had been wont to display to awestruck
it's terrifying connections
Of wax fruit.
Shirley had turned her miserable
The volumes it contained had been her
fathers and among them stood row
Of tones taller than their fellows
the bound numbers of country news
paper, beginning before the war.
The back of each was stamped with
the year. She was deciphering these
faded imprints. Thirty years ago."
she whispered; Eyes, here it Isl
She sat down the candle and drag
ged out one of the huge leather-backs.
under the weight, she
rested it's edge on the table and began
feverishly to turn the pages, her eye
on the dateline. She stopped presently
with quick breath-she had reached
May Is. The year was that of the
duel; the date was the day following
the jessamine anniversary. Fearfully
her eye overran the columns.
Then suddenly she put her open
hand on the page as though to blot
out the words, every trace of color
from cheek and brow But
the line seemed to glow up through the
very flesh: Died, May 14th; Edward
sassoon, in his twenty-sixth year." D..
The book slipped to the floor with
crash that echoed through the room.
It was true, then! 1t was Sassoon's
death that her mother mourned. The
man in whose arms she had stood
such a little while ago by the old dial
Of Damory Court was the son Of the
man who had killed him. She lifted
her hands to her breast with o gesture
Of anguish, then dropped to her knees.
hurled her face on the dusty seat of
one of the rickety horsehair chairs
and broke into wild burst of sobs,
nciscless but terrible, that seemed to
rise in her heart and tear themselves
up through her breast.
"Oh God" she whispered. "just
when I was so happy! Oh, mother,
mother! You loved him, and your
heart broke when he died. 1t was
Valiant who broke it-Valiant-Vali-
ant His father"
She slipped down upon the bare
floor and crouched there shuddering
snd agonized, her disheveled hair wet
with her tears. Was her love to be
but the thing of an hour, a single
then, forever, nothing?
His fathers deed was not his fault.
Yet how could she love a man whose
every feature brought pang to that
mother she loved more than herself?
SO. over and over, the wheel of her
thought turned in the same desolate