Year: 1878




bands anathema; for the gate stood in
her thought for the bitter facts it had
been the means of exposing.


But Mother Blackman was iudicious.
She said nothing at all to Katy. Breath
ing upon spark will often kindle it to
fire, and she knew it.


For many weeks she crattily managed
to call Katy in and send her to bed
whenever that gate squesked after dark;
being quite unaware how often Jabez
met the girl;-no longer shy, though
always blushing-on her way to school;
how he carried that heavy algebra and
ponderous treatise on logic even to the
academy door |


"You are never at home, Katy, when
/ come to see you" Jabez said one day.
Katy laughed little, and colored a
great deal


eyes, am; but mother always calls
me in and sends me up stairs when the
gate squeaks."


go ho r. said Jabez.


That night splendid August moon
beheld Katy, am very sorry to say,
sitting quietly on the steps of the never
opened front door, breathing in the
soft sultry air, while her mother dozed
in the old rocker by the back door, the
usual port of entrance. There was also
young man, who was carefully drop
ping oil into the hinges of that gate
Then he lifted it up and out, setting it
upright against the fence till such time
as he chose to replace 1t. After that he
quietly sat down by Katy on the step.


When poor Mother Blackman awoke,
the night was far spent. Katy had
gone to bed, and Sam slumbered the
sleep of the laboring man, having come
back from the store few minutes after
Jabez Crane had dropped the gate back
into it's hinges and had walked off.


The gate opened easily, Sam thought,
but in his delight at finding his wife
tongue-tied with sleep, he slipped
silently into the bedroom and when
mother awoke there was nobody to
blame but herself.


I am sorry to be obliged to record
that that gate came off its hinges a
good many nights unknown to her and
by fall, when Katy's term at the acade-
my was finished, instead of applying at
once for the school at Scranton Corners,
she informed mother with great trepi-
adation, that she had concluded to keep
"a private school for life, and the solitary
scholar was to be Jabez Crane


"Sakes alive T. said the astounded
woman. "I should like to know where
in all natur' you've KEEP company with
that feller ~


"Out on the steps," said the trem-
bling Katy.


cam me keepin' such a harkin' to
that gate don't see it noways."


"Oh, he lied the gate, and took it off
before he came in |"


Mother glared at Katy and then at
the gate, then throwing her apron over
her head, retreated Ito the bedroom,
and slammed the door behind her.
Katy never knew what an hour of pain
and disappointment wrung her poor
rough mothers heart then and there
Nevertheless, she and Jabez stepped
into the minister's on Thanksgiving
morning, were married, and went to
housekeeping in two rooms over the
carpenters shop.


Katy certainly was not to blame for
marrying the man she liked; but who
will say that her wrong in deceiving her
mother was dutiful and right?


But a sad catastrophe happened. Sam
thought it only right to celebrate the
first wedding in the family by carouse
at the corner grocery. His wife sat up
for him this time She could not sleep,
for it had been anything but Thanks
giving day to her, and she felt addition
ally bitter to think Sam should trans
gress.


The first storm of the season had set
in at noon, sleet and snow together,
then rain. Then the wind chopped
round, and about eight o'clock every
thing was glare of ice, rain freezing as
it fell.


Towards one O'Clock, Sam plashed
through the mud and ice, up to that
gate. OF course it stuck, even more
than usual. His wife heard him, and
with an unusual softening of heart, re-
solved to let him into the house, the
weather was so very bad.


How glad she was of it q moment after!
for Sam got desperate, flung his whole
weight on it as once before, and as the
gate opened, his feet few from under
him on the wet ice, where the pickets
had dripped and the water frozen for
hours. His head struck the brick wall,
and his skull was fatally fractured.


'Manthy was reused to help her moth
or, but the neighbors had to be called in
before the dying man could be brought
on to his bed. Before daybreak, all was
over.


How much his wife-or anybody else
-mourned Sam Blackman, let us not in
quire. Perhaps a wife always keeps
some lingering tenderness laid away, like
grave-clothes for funeral occasion. But
if this wife had any, her only express
sion of it was to say to Jabez Crane, as
they all came back after the funeral and
gathered round the kitchen fire.


81 wish't you'd do somethin' for me
right of. want ye should take that
are gate right inter the wood-shed and
chop it up for kindlin's. It's nothing
but noosance, and I want it out O. the