The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1926-06-24

exuberant health and kindly smile
COR every one he met.
During Lucretia's widowhood she
had become q frequent caller at the
old home and often sat at table next
to John. She never missed Sabbath
at Memorial Hall when John was to
be the speaker. People began to make
remarks that her father and mother
had forgiven her for her marriage to
Harvey and that they were again
reconciled and happy. But they little
knew that in her heart there was an
undying love for John.
The man who couldn't fall in love
with Lucretia at first sight of her
would be lacking in good sense. She
was a queenly woman, beautiful in
face and form, with hair as black as
ravens wing, and skin as white
as snow. Her cheeks had the blush
of a red,red rose and her eyes were
large, liquid and luminous that
sparkled with love and life and laugh
ter from the joyousness of radiant
health. Lucretia was woman of
rare accomplishments. She was a
graduate of Wellesley, and had served
three years in base hospital in
France as surgeons assistant. She
had witnessed the horrors and suffer
ings of cruel war and had ex-
perienced life in its good and bad as
poets. She knew the secret, healing
power of a woman's sympathy and
kind caress that makes one strive to
live.
John was born to wealth and edu-
Gated at Oxford, and here he was
working for pittance-who might
have had steel plant of his own.
He felt debased, just mental. He
was crazy for the love of Lucretia
but had never dared to show it or
speak it, as he felt-considering his
weakness for drink-that he was I'M
worthy of her.
1t was Friday night, and the next
day was Christmas and no work until
Monday. All holidays are bad ones
for the easily tempted. But Christ
mas is the hardest day in the year for
man to keep SOBER who has an ap-
petite for drink that makes him for
get. John was hungry for woman's
love, for woman he never dreamed
he could win, and he was blue, des-
pondent.
After the sun went down and the
land was dark, John stole out of the
house by the back door, headed for
Pittsfeld, where old New England
rum was plentiful and no one knew
him. He never intended that any one
who knew him in Axletree should see
him drunk, for he was proud and did
not wish to be mortified. Roscoe
surmised and made a quiet search for
him for three days with no success.
By the time John reached the town
of Lee he was pretty we'll steamed
and in leaving there for Pittsfeld,
as he thought, he got turned around
and was on his way back to Axletree,
and the road passed in front of Lu-
cretia's farm. But John had reached
that state of mind where knowing
ceases and whatever happens is of no
concern. John trudged along through
a binding snow and it was bitter
cold. 1t was just growing dark on
Tuesday and Lucretia was sitting by
her cozy fire watching the storm
when a drunken man stumbled in
front of her barn door too weak or
paralyzed to move.
maggie, there is a drunken man
out here in the snow, tell the farm
boys to go and get him at once, and
bring him into the living room," was
Lucretia's first command.
They got him into the house but
liz was al IIldt I'LL &C IleL COulu
carry. They layed him on the leather
couch and when they turned his face
towards the light Lucretia gave a
piercing shrek and almost tainted.
She knelt by his couch and stroked
his pallid foreheatd and moaned, "Oh
John, how could you ever come to
this, but thank heaven you dropped at
my door, for you surely would have
persisted on a night like this"
"Now boys take him into the spare
bed room, start a fire in the crate,
strip off his clothes and put him to
bed and we women will nurse him
back to life"
She called her household together
and said: "This is John Anderson
fathers chemist-Who has never been