Pittston Gazette

              * f&tttabliftlitHl 1850, I VOL. XlTlIIKo. 1# \ Oldest Newspaper in the Wyoming Valley. PITTSTQN, LUZERNE COUNTY, PA., FRIDAY, DECEHBER i7, 1897. A Weekly Local and Family Journal. j i#i.OO per i in Advance. ana me still young motlier ana ner tempestuous offspring.out, just rusting out, in lgnome ease, in disgraceful idleness. 1 never thought to have found you here. Of course 1 supposed you were fighting, but you loved your ease better than you did my good opinion"— "She in right. Hail Columbia! Who can it be?" said Seth, rising quickly in close to her chair. Stern resolution was written in every line of his worn face. "come to an understanding.' to tbQ future. The suspense grew unendurable. • He walked swiftly toward his horse. His build was upon the tethering rope. He stood still in the darkness, listening. If no sound from the advancing c.ira van was to be detected above the clamor of the frogs and the shrill voices of couutlcss inseC t rovers of the uight, he would turu the tired brute's head toward the mystery and ride to its solution. and sometimes she cries into the Dig chest. My papa is a soldier. He don't come to see mamma any more My grandfather is a soldier too. I am a gentleman. I ain not a soldier. " Annabel and tho boy were sleeping, intwined so closely in each other's arms that their pretty slumber Unshed checks touched, blending their soft roundness "1 don't think 1 quite understand you, Strong." The querulous clamor of innumerable frogs, to whom life in the slimy fastnesses of u bramble fringed bayou near by seemed suddenly grown unbearable, did not tend to enliven his reveria Both time and spot, a starless night and unpeopled space, were prolific of gloomy suggestion, and not even the careful recalling of every kind word spoken by Mamie and tenderly reproduced by memory could render him even temporarily oblivious of the present that was full of menaca his astonishment Strong lifted himself more deliberately. Not even the unprecedented possibility of visitors to Neck or Notbiug on this iuoleuieot evening could stir him beyond the point of looking behind the iloor fur his umbrella and lifting his lantern from the floor with a tentative swing to decide if there was any oil in it Then he joined Seth and Yiney in the open doorway. "No?" into one curving profile. "Ease! Good God!" "Do you mean to say that you are going to do something that your conscience does not approve of simply because you thiuk 1 want you to do it?" "Everybody is that who is worth calling 'man' nowadays,.my boy." Seth had long ago climbed the cliff and gone home, promising to "fetch sissy over lirst thing in the morning." "Ye*, ease, Strong Martin. Father, my darling, delicate man of books, is sleeping this moment, if he ever does sleep these awful days, on a pile of straw, I suppose, with snakes and things crawling all over his blessed body. Perhaps he tramped all day long on an empty stomach too. They say our soldiers are all half starved to death. But what do you care? And his shoes—father's, 1 mean. He made a picture of them in his. last letter, for 'my diversion,' he wrote. It threw me into hysterics. The letter was written on wall paper too. But I'd rather, yes, ten thousand th(.UL*nd times rather, have him tramp all over the state of Virginia without any shoes at all on his feet than to stay at home and have the finger of scorn pointed at him. Bless bis dear old heart! 1 made him two shirts out of the parlor curtains last week and sent them to him with some 60cks I knitted for him. I do hope they, will fit him—the shirts, 1 mean, but they did look dreadfully corkscrewy, and perhaps, oh, perhaps, he'll get shot in one of those very shirts. But I don't core, 1 don't care, he's doing a man's part, while you"— Sfs&tr ®P .fB BSbtm PA70, "Then Seth is a coward?" He had been an open mouthed sharer with Strong in Miss Colyer's explanation of her errand. The recital had been, to his simple, direct nature a revelation of astounding iniquity. Strong received it with contemptuous credulity. To him nothing that went to prove the darling of Saus Souci a fraud was difficult of acceptanca Evidently she did not understand him. Ho would not enlighten her. Poor little one, he would not by one feather's weight add to her sorrows or her anxieties. He smiled wistfully down into her upturned face and answered evasively:"Seth is a hero. Seth is a martyr. Seth has to stay at home to feed small boys, who let their hats get away from them on duck ponds, and good for aothing women, who can neither fight nor hoe corn." He did detect another sound. Vague and uncertain at first, then definitely hurrying feet bearing down upon the spot where he stood cloaked in darkness. A panting sound, as of an animal sore pressed and terrified, then out of the blackness about him a single figure emerged. It was a woman's. He called out in sharp surprise: BV 'EACMSWB What they saw was a close buttoned, mud bespattered carryall, between the shafts of which stoCxl a steaming, weary beast of burden with dejected, down dropped head and dripping harness. Impenetrable darkness surrounded him. Overhead, when the night wind itirred the branches of the sycamore tree with its fitful breath, an occasional star became visible, glimmering coldly ind unsympathetically upon him from a sky that seemed immeasurably far removed. A rod or two away, invisible but audible, his tired horse crunched the supper of corn and oats flung loosely on the ground before him and stamped his feet in irritated protest against the swarming mosquitoes. Other sounds —none. "Then are you good for nothing, Liza?" copyright; (897 Br rwe author "Conscience generally does get worsted in a hand to hand combat with love, don't you think? I simply mean that I am going to do battle for my principles. I am going out to take my chances of being shot at along with countless better men, perhaps a few worse ones." CHAPTER XIH. zy 111 were to oe picKea on oy a i ankee bullet or snuffed out by camp fever, you came down this afternoon to urge my enlistment" "Yes, emphatically." Then, with a rippling laugh: "Dren, you are deliciously entertaining. What would we do without our one small gentleman?" While the fire burned Strong Martin mused. Outrfde a pelting, iDersisting rain was falling. No gleam of sunshine had illumined the gray lichen crowned roof of his cabin all that day. Through his uncurtained, shutterless windows he could see the rain dropping in translucent beads from the black, decaying shingles that overlapped the roof as forbiddiug, shaggy eyebrows overlap the Withered cheek of old age. W bat they heard was the sound of voices parleying behind the wet curtains—women's voii-es, young voices which stimulated tbe curiosity of the two men without enlightening them. In her own graphic style Mamie had told them of Adrien's marriage during his college term to a daughter of the woman from whom he rented a room. Seth looked at him with sorrowful rebuke. • '' Who is it and where are the rest?'' "It's me, Suzanne." There was a dash of triumph in ber voice. She had kept the faith. She bad promised Strong to "see that affair of Adrien's wife and boy properly attended to." She was also keeping that other promise about Mamie Colyer. Her whispered farewell to Strong, "She shall not jleave me until her father or h' r lover claims her," had assumed the aspect of a solemn obligation, and the professor's daughter had become a valued member of that little colony of heroic women who filled the big house at Sans Souoi with an atmosphere of cheerful effortand brave endurance, without which its desolate mistress would have been given over to despair. "Good people. Just as good as gold. Annabel is a fool about him. Most women are fools about somebody, I supposa The silliest part of the wl ole performance was thoir giving their consent to keep this marriage a rh ret until Adrieu took the helm at home. I fancy he underrated his grandfather's constitution Bah! Hut that poor little simpleton," nodding vigorously toward the sleeping apartment, "cared for nothing in life so long as Adrien Strung came to see her tolerably regularly and was decent to her and the boy. Now, however, that this rumpus has separated them things have come to an awful pass, and 1 just lorped Annabel to assert herself and claim her righta Her voice was husky with her speed or with terror. He could not readily decide which. She came to a sudden halt so close to him that, in spite of the unlifting darkness, he could see her tall form swaying backward and forward to the rhythm of a horrible chant. "You air as raw these days, Strong, as a piece of liver. 1 reckon it comes of not being quite satisfy with yourself But you needn't cut up rough with me. God knows, and so d'. you, Strong Martin, that nothin ou tbe top of this green earth would please me better than to be foot loose right uow, when there's eo much man's worn to be dona 1 don't /ou u« quite reaay yet to teu me to my face th-t I am - liar and a coward, are you?" - * *" "I suppose we'\» got to see it through,'.' said Strong, and he plunged resolutely out into the rain, closely followed by Seth. A few strides brought them to the stile, against whose outer steps the carriage was drawn closely for the convenience of the travel era She leaned back wearily in her big chair and closed her eyes. Tears were crowding hot and fast under their lids. "I don't know what to say or what to unsay. It seems so wicked for you to keep all your strength and health and vigorous young manhood shut away from the world in this way—but, Strong, Strong"— He had been sent by his father ahead of tbe column to find a camping place for the night. The cliffs that clasped Neck or Nothing in an everlasting embrace had lung 6ince shut out tbe last pallid ray of the twilight which still liugered on the upper plane like a belated wraith. In {'ont of String's hermitage stretched the dun expanse of the river, racing peaward with a resistless energy that bent the pale green crests of the willows on its margin until they shivered in chilled contact with the rushing waters —soundless, sullen waters in these war begirt days! No peaceful passenger packet to churn them with the boisterous whirl of huge paddle wheels, no white winged pleasure craft cleaving the current with shining prow in friendly contest of speed. "I knew it I knew it You was fools. All fools. Mammy tried to warn you, but you wouldn't be warned. Now where is they? Ask Qod A'mighty. And where will yon be if yon don't mount that horse and gallop for your life? Ask de good Lord that too. I come here to give yon a las' chance for your life Mammy tol me, come what come, I worn't never to forgit that she nussed you and me in her arms at the ve'y same time She say I worn't to let a hair of your head come to harm. You was a fool to come along with them that was tryin to drive the folks back outer reach of freedom. They ain't po' quarter folks no longer, they's men and women, and you can't drive 'em in herds no longer. They don't want to be driv back to Lakelock, whar freedom can't find 'em, and they ain't goin to be. Good Lord, jus' look at him standin as still as if he were turned to stone. Go, Strong Martin! If life is sweet to yon, go." A child's fretful protest against broken slumber, a woman's querulous response, a cheerful gurgle of encouragement, a lifted curtain and a boundless She stood up swiftly and stretched both hands toward him with the look of a terrified child in her eya "Houses, if you can, but water must be nigh at hand, houses or no houses. Thar's 200 head of stock all told to be watered before we turn in to sleep tonight, boy a You can take Sandy 'long with you and send him back to pilot us. No use your comin back; better save your horse. You'll have need of him." He had taken tight hold of his coat lapels with his wrinkled, freckled hands, as if feeling the necessity for Strong personal restraint. His lean. Stooping figure was uplifted defiautly. All the temper he could possibly command ou such short notice flashed from his protruding blue eyea surprise. "Mamie! My dear! What is it?" "If anything should happen to you?" "Well!" " 'Pon honor!" A hot rush of tears rendered her next words unintelligibla Strong sprang from his chair and began the circuit of the room like a hunted thing seeking a point of egress. "You will respect me—dear." "Strong Martini" "Mauiio Colyer!" "If anything should happen to you— I would be your murderer. And the world—oh, Strong, the world would be so horribly empty." But father and lover still tarried— tarried through the signless days ■when hope, finding nothing to feed upon, sickened and died; tarried through the short gray days of a somber winter, when the ungathered crops of Sans Souci, missing the harvester's hand, whitened and fell earthward, as uncared for as the winter's snow; tarried through spring's resurrection days, when the birds sang Resurgens and built their nests in the apple trees that shed their blossoms over the tangled flower beds in Gabriella's neglected garden; tarried through the long, hot summer hours, when the women applied themselves to inventive work and Seth grew more stooping with each day's labor over the growing vegetables that mast be served on the madam's table. He had promised to take good care of all these women, and, with the patient watchfulness of a faithful dog, he was doing it. Into the inner temple of their anxieties and their emotions he could not enter, even with the sandled feet of reverence, but that neither by day nor by night physical harm should come to them he had sworn, and he, too, was keeping the faith, carrying about with him the smoldering fires of his thwarted ambitions, chiding himself for the mean envy that would leap up fiercely in hia heart whenever he thought of "the rest of the fellows." Of course the woman was the first to grow coherent. Had the gift of prophecy been given to old Eben Martin? "You kuow she only has her mother's business (or a support, and now the bonnet business don't amount to much- Her brother, little Fred Welsh, is in the army. Only 16 years old. 'ihink of jtl Father is ii\ it. too, lighting in Virginia. " This with a proud uplifting of her head. "DCar me, 2 hope be isn't faring any worse than we are at home— no flour, no coffee, no sugar, lots of patriotism, sweetened with glorious anticipation. Dry diet, though. And, as I tell Annabel, when she has got to a pass when she can't even keep her boy properly shod, it is time she was putting him where he belonged, iu the affections of his grandmother and his great-grandfather. I am going to leave them in that grand Louse we passed this afternoon. I really did not have the courage to stop with Annabel looking so frouzy and the boy acting like a young Comanche." "If it wore not so excessively damp on this stile, J should feel impelled tq sit right down ou this platform until 1 got the better of my feeling®. Annabel, Aim, my dear, where do you suppose we have fetched up finally?" "I am not worth one single tear from a good wc,man's eyes," he said, stopjung in front of her and speaking in a stifled He held her in his arms a moment, just long entfugh to press his lips reverently upon her shining hair. That was all. Then he stood back, holding her small trembling hands in a tight clasp. All this Strong had dona Found the tenantless cabins of a deserted plantation, found the water course and sent Sandy back to meet and pilot the advancing caravan that represented all the mobilized wealth of Sans Souci. Strong laughed as he leaned over and passed a soothing hand over his brother's baggy kneed trousers. voice. From behind Misa Colyer's damp handkerchief assent came with cruel prompt uess. "Save your ammunition for the enepjy, buddy Seth. I wasn't flinging at you. 1 don't think any of the Martins are cowards, and you are the pluckiest Martin of the whole tribe. But, Seth Martin," seizing the tongs and giving another savage lunge at the fiv$, "this is not the Martins' %'ut. It is Adrien Strong's fight, cursc him, and it is Randal Ohambliss' figlit. It is a fight for and about the nigger. And the ouly ones concerned in it are those who own the nigger and those who don't want him to bo owued. It is not your fight, it is not father's nor mine, if every black skin in the universe was freed tomorrow, it would be better for you ami the rest of the Martir.sj " "1 had not meant to say anything to you until I could look you and the professor squarely in the face. Everything in the future is veiled by a black cloud of uncertainty. We will bide our time, my sweet, and I will grow strong, knowing that you believe in me." Instead an occasional "transport." dark with swarming masses of blue ooated soldiery, being conveyed from one strategic point to another, or recurrent gunboat, its dingy sides pierced by forbidding portholes, stealing warily past, with lookout alert upon the bridge, descrying in every tender green crown of water, willow or cotton wood a possible sharsphooter or ambushed guerrilla. A white, tired face, pretty but peevish, had been tbrust from \jetweon the parted curtains. fv» it Miss Oolyer had addressed herself. Alone he had watched the yellow sun sink lower and the somber crowns of the cypresses that stood knee deep in the dark waters of the bayou, leaving long trailing souvenirs of the dead day in swift fading bannerets of purple and gold. Then darkness, sudden, dense, uplifting. "I know you are not Of course you •re not. But 1 told you a woman had to make a fool of herself about somebody." "I will enlist tomorrow." "What for?" "At Mr. Martin's, haven't we? You told that awful imbecile to take us to Mr. Martin's." She emerged into view suddenly, with recovered composure. She swayed, closed her eyes, clung to him for a brief second of childlike abandonment, and then asserted her customary solf possession with a pathetic little smile. "En I done it," said the "awful imbecile" iu stolid resentment. "Them thar is bofe of 'em Mistorses Martin." "Tkowi is no denying that," said Strong,such a bright ring to hi* voice that beih glanced away from the phenomenon of their lady visitors to stare pt Strong in fresh Lowildermant. He laid his strong hands on her swaying shoulders and forced her into a semblance of composure. "Because you want me to." "That is an excellent motive. Strange it did not move you to enlist earlier in the action." To fight off a creeping sense of uneasiness, he resolutely turned his thoughts backward. Not very far, only to that moment of time when he had written his note to Mamie Colyer, explaining his sudden call to assist his father in moving Governor Strong's possessions "beyond reach of danger" and telling her of his resolution to enlist. The note had closed a trifle lugubriously"Stop your idiotic howling and tell me in plain English what you are shrieking at me, if you don't want me to choke it ont of you. Where are the people?"For nearly a year now the din of tumult had been piercing the silence of or Nothing with distance dulled reverberations, causing its lonely tenant to wince under a souse of his own sluggish insignificance in a world where •vt ry man had a destiny of one sort or another to curve out for himself. " Mamie, will yon hold your scorn in hand a few moments!1 It cuts like a wbiplat-h. I want to say a few words in self defense." "I have grown so absurdly weak all of a sudden. It must be because I am so tired. We won't talk any more tonight Good night, Strong." Then, as if in concession to the pleading in his eyes—"dear Strong," she whispered it into his love lit eyes and fluttered away from him as softly as a swallow on the wing. Suzanne's voice dropped to its usual slow monotone. Her arms were imprisoned in an iron grip. She nodded her head in the direction from which she had come. Seth laughed inept dulonsly, tie had no cicw to Strong's one love secret. Mamie Colyer's name and her bold championship of his cause were tog sacred for idle comment. She summarized the situation crisply With praotical acceptance of the inevitable."Well" "Mtbbe so, but as they ain't never goin to be free I reckon us Martins will just have to bother long with em like we've been doin, father and sou, siuce the ypar Qua. I don't much fancy that trip over to the Macon hills. It won't be no play work movin all the hands and the work stock back 40 miles from the river, to say ncthin of the, sheep and cattle. It might a-b'en a easy job in the days (,f famer Abram and Isaao and Jacob, but it will bo somethin of an uudertakin for the old man and mo." He did not sit down. With his hands folded behind him he stood in front of her, resolved for this one time only to vindicate his attitude in words. Every man but himself. His attitude toward the world that had misjudged him was (me of morose resentment toward the question which had set bis oountry aflame—one of supine indifference outwardly. "And yciUT mother will take two badly wrecked women and a famished child in for the night?" Mamio was demanding eagerly, looking down upon them from the stile, with her skirts "gathered closely about her trim ankles in preparation for descent "Of course we must expect a scene, but I prefer daylight for a pitched battle always." "Perhapsif lean fetch home an armless sleeve or a broken leg I may become more valuable or less valueless in your eyes than I am now, even though the uniform I propose to don be blue." "Back yonder. Bury in'em." "Buryin who?" "I don't think I am a coward. Perhaps I deceive myself, but 1 am not in sympathy with this thing. 1 think it is an accursed mistake from beginning to end." As the bedroom door closed behind her the opposite one, leading into the kitchen, opened abruptly, and black Suzanne stood before him, quivering with repressed excitement "Is you heard the news?" It was then that Seth suggested Liza. Liza was the saving clause in the Martin family. No affair involving tact or sensibility could be carried to an effective climax without her supervision. "Ole man Eben and Charlie Martin." His strong hands fell away from her shoulders. She could hear him choke with the 6udden rush of terrified emotion. He reeled like a drunken man and leaned against his saddle to keep from falling at her feet Seth had just delivered himself of the latest war news, and both men were pondering it with knitted brows and lip# tight shut. Seth, gentle, anxious eyed, accepting all thing as directed by some mysteri- Liza had scolded him in a whisper, standing on tiptoe to kiss him goodby. She had called him the hermit pessimist and credited his heavy heartedness to habitual morbidness. She had promised him, with a quaint nod of her small, wise head, to "see that matter of Adrien's wife and boy properly attended to," and she had comforted him immensely concerning Mamie Colyer, saying sapiently: Liza was "solid comfort" to him in those days. She would come out to him where he was hoeing the cabbages or watering the asparagus bed to "talk over things," their chief topic being Adrien's affaire. "My mother lives three miles from here," said Strong, holding out hi6 hand to assist her. Both of the men the resolute face of Annabel's little champion anxiously. She looked supremely self reliant and adequate, but would she prove adequate to "the madam?" "You are a JJnion man?" She looked at him in horror, recoiling as from some visible reptile. "What news?" He turned upon her in irritation. Her low, intense voice snapped fn twain the golden thread of u blessed reverie. She drew back vith a frightened gasp. "I am. I repeat the whole thing is an infernal mistake, according to my way of thinking. After awhile there will be more men to hold my views. Just now our people are intoxicated, they are dashing themselves to pieces on a rock hidden from sight by the high tide of frenzied emotion. They are fighting like heroes, but hopelessly, for an idea. A starved child wrestling with a well fed giant. "Do you mean—do you mean"— The sentence refused to be completed. Suzanne did it for him. "Suppose the negroes won't go?" "Up to the big house everything turn upside down. Mars Adr'en hurt Ole marster goin to him. He goin to run the folks and the stock back from tlfc river befo' he start Folk b'on packin up ever since dark. Only the ole folks and the cripples goin to be lef' in the quarters. The men and the boys is goin first wid the carriage horses and the work stock. They gettin ready to start soon as daybreak. " "Won't go!" Seth roared, "Well, I reckon wo don't expect to waste no time cousultin their wishes on the subject. The plan of tbo campaign is already mapped out. Wo are just waitin for the word go froui the gov'ner. Pa will lead the van with the men and the mules, aud I will be rearguard to the women and children and cattle. You see the gov'ner wants 'em all run back to the hills beforo he starts out himself.""Goodness! Anna, do you hear that?" "The people have killed 'em. They tol ole Eben he mus' let 'em turn back and go down the river to where the gun- How queerly it had all turned out! Annabel Sumnere, the daughter of a Shingle ton milliner, reigning almost supreme at Sans Souci 1 "I don't hear anything but this cross. Ugly boy crying for something to eat Adrieu, I shall certainly go crazy if you don't shut up.' "I think I'll fetch our Liza. She's got a headpiece worth havin, and if there is anybody on this green football that can stand up to the madam when she mounts her high horse it is our girl Liza." "We lonely women will have to colonize for self protection. After all of you go away, Seth will be the only white man within a radius of 20 milea Poor old Sethi I will have to teach Mamie how to weave. Amy is getting on splendidly. Eight yards yesterday. I intend to keep Miss Colyer with us until her father or you come for her. Dear me, what a lot of heroes we are turning off our reels!" Liza accounted for it sagaciously: "After all, Seth, it was the general condition of affairs that made my task so easy. Do you suppose if 1 had walked up to old Mrs. Strong during peace times, with Adrien just off on one of his pleasure jaunts, and presented Annabel and that boy with the very same evidence, she would even have heard me to the end?". Mamie sprang resolutely to the ground. "Le«»d the way, Mr. Martin. We cannot spend the night on this stile Driver, fetch in Mrs. Strong's bags and boxes.'' "In union there is strength. Fetch our Liza, by all means," Mamie had said, with tragic eagerness, aud Seth had gone away,'promising faithfully to be back promptly in the morning with that potent damseL "But all this has no bearing on my personal attitude. This iB the slave 3WDer's fight. I am nothing but the son af a slavp driver. . I hart bopud to shed *ome luster on a naiue that had been dimmed by centuries of low service, but not by donning a gay uniform and dashing my way Into fame as a warrior. All my soul went out in direction of the learned professions. Strong had already tucked her cold little hand in his arm and turned hitface toward the cabin. It was good to have her there. Her sweet, strong face, seen only dimly an yet by the light ol his lantern, was unchanged. Her powet Sf lifting the burdens from other spoolers was in fall force yet. He scarcely gave a thought to the mystery of hei companion's name. "Way over on the Lakelock place. Marster say if freedom can fin 'em there he'll give up. Theso is queer times sho'." "For where?" "Starts out where to?" "To join the army and Adrion." It was with a sense of infinite gratitude to destiny, which so rarely played him a kind trick, that Strong had mended the fire, surreptitiously blown the dust off the wooden mantelpiece with pne blast from his powerful lungs and fssayed a general betterment of his shabby sitting room while Mamie "took A peep' * at her sleeping charge# in the ■till shabbier bedroom. "I thought he was a Uniou man?" And she bad laughed while the others were •weeping. Yes, decidedly, Liza wan just the sort of woman one wanted about in an emergency. The madam, white and tragic, had stood, as if turned to stone, holding back the trailing tendrils of a madeira vine with one long, jeweled hand, as she gazed in dry eyed consternation at the slowly moving column headed by her father-inlaw. Bebecca, rotund, plebeian, sincere, had voiced her misery loudly and shrieked adjuraiions and counsel after them until they were hidden. Liza alone had stood inscrutably smiling, bright eyed and composed. "No, sir," said Seth, drawing the hone briskly across the edge of his hoe. "So he was. So ho was. He wanted to save the Uuiou. You know he did. Ole mau Strong is true grit to the backbone. Don't you mind his 6peeeh at the tDig ratification meetin? How he begged 'em almos' with the tears in his eyes not to do nothin that couldn't be undone? How he warat'4 'em they was playing with a sword that could cut two ways? Don't you Strong, when the ord'nanee of seoesh was passed an everybody was a-whoopiu an ahollerin an grabbiu for blue cockades, how the ole man s head dropped till his white beard touched the lDottoin button on hi« TCBt? I was a-lookir. sqrare at him, and I could almos' a-swore, Strong, that I saw the water a-standin in his Ole eyes." "Who goes with them?" "Not she. But it was all so entirely different The governor just gone, Adrien reported wounded, everything that was startling and incredible become everyday happenings, the boy so appealingly beautiful and Annabel ao conspicuously in a decline that the milliner side of the house will soon be eliminated, the madam so desolate and the old house so empty—really, the affair adjusted itself, Seth. Any goose oould have done as much." "Ole Eton Martin and your brother Charlie. They done pick out the primes' ones in the lot for to go. That boy looks fitner for bis bed." Seth had fiut delivered himself of the lat- "Perhaps the idea of a Martin dispensing justice from the judge's bench allured me with its novelty. The Martins had been groveling so long. Justice, the administration of even handed justice, u alluring to the fancy of one who has suffered keenly from injustice." est tcar flexes. ous potency whose decrees were not to be questioned; Strong sullen, resentful, rebellious, wretched. '"Hold your gab, Suzanne. Send Yiney here and tell her to fetch my valise. " Isn't this just too funny?" She cuddled a trifle closer to htm. "Don't be selfish, you are carrying two-thirds oi that umbrella over your own shoulders and one-third over mine." "Do you mean—do you mean"— boats was helpin black folks to get to freedom's land. He laughed at 'em and tol 'em he worn't to be scared by no niggers livin; he was goin to work 'em on Gov'ner Strong's place till he were ordered to take 'em back homa Then he never laughed no more. They didn't shoot They done it quick and quiet with ax helves and hoe handles. Dan Bludsoe is a-leadin 'em now, and they— Hush, I hears 'em com in now." What a beatification the world had magically undergone for him! Even the dismal pattering of the rain on the grassless dooryard had suddenly grown musical The monotonous thud of the locust branches against the closed wooden iihutters had lost their power to irritate. The sparks danced upward in the black throated chimney with fascinating scintillations. Neck or Nothing had been glorified by the unexpected coming of a girl. The shadow of a black cloud flitted across Suzanne's grave face. She made no motion to carry out orders, just stood still, lacing her long, pallid lingers in and out, out and in. "Well?" savagely from Strong. "Is you a-goin?" Ai he «t there opposite Seth, with his elbows supported by his knees, his long hair tumbling riotously about his forehead, toying with a pair of clumsy tongs which Vulcan might have designed in ponderous mood, there was a pathetic suggestion of wasted force about Jam. His form, which had broadened and itrengthened under the open air agencies of cropmaking and deer hunting, h*d the sinewy grace of a young athlete's."Pardon me." "I know, I know. Don't let us open that wound." He immediately shifted the entire protection tQ her, by which time they had r» ach? d the cabin door, where old V iney stood looking at them in severe surprise. She nodded her head quickly. Liza was thinking about all of this herself, sitting there on the sunny side gallery of the big house, where the Lamarque roses clambered. Dren's modest assertion that his grandmother could not do without him had made her smile and—remember. She'was thinking of that morning, 12 months since it had dawned, when she, trembling with nervousness, had gone boldly into the madam's presence and told her all there was to tell her about Adrien's wife and child. Ah, well, it had turned out all right for everybody bat Amy Chamblisa "Poor Amy!" was willing to forego every indulgence, almost every necessity, for the means of purchasing books. I was going to be a great lawyer. Nothing short of the topmost round on the legal ladder was to have satisfied my ambition. I had no help, but I did not mind that. Destiny's spiteful mood lasts long. I am still at tho foot of the ladder." "Yea" "And her—your sweetheart," nodding toward the room suddenly converted into a guest chamber. Forward, in reverie, to the long tedious night, when, favored by the darkness, they had launched their fleet of flats and swiftly placed the rushing waters of the Mississippi river between themselves and home. Captained and piloted by four resolute spirits of the dominant race, manned and propelled by sullenly acquiescent slaves, standing confused on the borderland between bondage and liberty, the fleet crossed the swift current and touched the farther bank, reluctantly moving backward, still backward—who knew? Perhaps forever out of reach of the angel of liberty, whose beckoning hand they had discernod as yet but dimly upon the horizon of their future. "Your dragon?" whispered Mamio. "Perhaps you did- The governor is rather emotional, and he was a Union man all the way through," said Strong ooldly. "My housekeeper. Placate her if you do not care to starve to death before morning," said Strong, laughing light heartedly. "Hell hounds 1 I will ride to meet them!" He soared in temporary superiority to all that was rasping and incongruous in his daily life. The silver lining to jiis cloud was beginning to show. Rose tinted possibilities began to float in dazzling multiplicity before his eyes. From this precarious exaltation of spirit he was suddenly hurled by that challenging question; "And you?" "Suzanne, do as I tell you," There was a new air of self assertion about him. It was as if he had suddenly come into recognition of a self entitled to 6ome respect Suzanne turned and left tho room puzzled and awed. By the time Yiney arrived, amazed but deliberate, he was sealing tho envelope which inclosed his hastily written explanation to Miss Colyer. CHAPTER XVI. Seth, never erect, but grown still rounder shouldered and more slouching as the years bent him earthward under their unyielding demand for his best, looked old and careworn by contrast "Oh, I've got used to starvation and every othpy poppiiivabie horror since 1 started out on this awful trip. I don't mind it for myself, but Annabel is sc delicate and that boy of hers is such a young fit nd, you know." "One small boy's head to be hatted, »nd five women, each owning two hands, normally furnished with five fingers* apiece, all engaged on it How many fingers all la U.ring for you, Dren? There is a sum in addition." "You make me feel like I had took a drink of ice water when I wasn't thirs-. ty, Strong. Well, Union man or no, the gov'ner is gettin ready to go out himself." A low, dull reverberating sound pen etrat«Dd the cabin walla, "Listen! That is the cannon atYickstmrg. How many men within its beleagured walls will bite the dust before its stubborn resistance is broken by sheer force of numbers? How many widows and orphans are manufactured every time that almost unheeded noise breaks on our ears? Do you suppose every man fighting behind those ramparts went into this thing from a calm conviction of the righteousness of the cause? How many went into it under stress of physical excitement? How many were stung into it by fear of public opu»io»* His gentle blue eyes were fixed wistfully upon the young giant sulking on the other side of the hearth from him. Several times his lips parted, as if he were growing weary waiting for Strong to speak the words he ought to speak, but as often he closed them again patiently."(jro out where?" He did not "know, "and he did not care to know. They had passed by Vi- Liza Martin held up one hand. On its index finger a small unfinished hat of plaited palmetto gyrated swiftly. The boy to whom tbat intricate mathematical problem had just been submitted brought an ancient hobbyhorse to an abrupt halt and precipitately dismounted, the better to criticise the unfinished hat "Poor who?" "To the front, or wherever thero's fish tin to do. He says he can't sit in the chimbly corner sucking his thum's while other men are taking their chances for the bulJet*. Qh. I tell yon there ain't no discount on ole man 8trong." She looked at him with cool inflexibility, settled herself bo far feck in the big splint bottomed rocking chair that ouly the small pointed toes of her well worn boots touched the sunken bricks of the hearth, folded her plump handq with the air of one prejored to listen long and attentively and said, "Well?" in a coaxing, encouraging tone. He looked up as his old nurse, panting with the unusual excitement of this midnight demand on her energies, came to a halt by his table. She had not known she had sighed the words audibly. She had forgotten all about Dren. Forgotten that he was still standing there "watching bis hat grow," with his short legs planted far apart, his tumbled yellow curls, softly moved by the wind that filtered through the rose trellis, lying in shining masses on his shoulders, a beautiful specimen of the young aristocrat, whose plebeian strain was strangely and mercifully hidden so far from sight C i "W'at's this yer foolishness I hears from Suzanne? She says you goin out with the folks." Then had come the parting with the governor. When this day, that had just gone down in lurid magnificence, had been young and jocund, the governor bad given his parting injunctions to Overseer Martin and taken leave of them all in his kindly, stately fashion. He vu a man of infinite patience, bat even Seth's patience had its limitations, which were reached suddenly at last Strong winced and involuntarily moved farther away from the chimney corner. Presently he broke out passionately."I am going out with father and Charlie." A moment of reflective silence. With his pink palmed hands folded behind his back and his yellow curled head poised judicially he delivered himself adversely, "My hat that did float away on the duck pond was a nicer hat than that" But it is qot easy to relax shame locked lips. She beat an impatient tattoo with one boot "Then you is goin into trouble, that's all I got to say. Hi, w'at you think black folks is studyin about to let theyseffs be druv outer reach uv freedom w'en it's knockin at de do'? Times is gone by when ole Eben Martin and one of his boys, nor two of 'em, nor tho whole lot, kin drive more'n 100 black folks plum' back inter the swamp, lak so many bead er cattle. Folks is folks now, Strong Martin, and you kin climb yon cliff and go tell ole Eben Martin that ole Yiney say so." (jftrcing slowly lifted the heavy tonga, made a lunge at the glowing logs that "I have learned tonight bow potent a factor the fear of scorn may become. I had uo public until you came. No one's scorn mattered a rush. I was content to let them fight it out among themselves, I did not believe that every man who wore a uniform was a hero any more "It is a shame. The whole thing is an infernal mistake. Making batchers out of men who wouldn't harm a hair on a dog's back if left to their own devices. Now, if the army was made up exclusively of such sneaks un Adrien Strong, the oountry could survive its loss. "You'll get these fellows out to Lakelock, Martin, and as soon as you have housed them pitch a corn crop. Never mind about cotton. The place is so infernally far back from anywhere that you couldn't get it to market if you made it But go in for food crops. Keep them at work feeding themselves until this d d nonsense has blown over and we'll settle back on the old footing. I am glad Strong is going with you. Don't shove the ox teams too hard." not a shower of red gold sparks flying merrily up the black throated chimney, and replacing the tongs against the Whitewashed jamb thrust his hands in his pockets, stretchod his legs to their utmost capacity and asked with an ostentatious yawn: "How does sis get on teaching Miss Chambliss high art?" "I have told you all about myself, Strong, all abont darling old daddy, fighting like a hot headed boy, and he $3 years old, all about the closed college, every professor in the army, all about Annabel's troubles, and now I think I am entitled to some return confidences,"Adrien was not given to long silence himself, and distinctly disapproved of them in any one upon whom he was for the time being dependent for his entertainment"I know it was, you small ingrate. That was the work of a professional." She pulled him nearer to her by one rosy ear. "And, Dren, now that hats are worth their weight in gold, you must become more circumspect. You should never have let it float away. But, Dren, I gave you a sum in arithmetic to do, and you have not done it How many fingers have worked on this aat of yours? Come, now, I will help you a little. "My grandmother says my father used to ride 'Stonewall Jackson,' " nodding toward the tailless, eyeless and maneless hobbyhorse, "but he wasn't called 'Stonewall Jackson' then. He was called'Tim.' Just plain'Tim.' My grandmother says when the men stop fighting and all of her people come back home she is going to make her carriage driver break a sure enough pony for me —not a wooden horse Her carriage driver is Uncle Dolbear, only there ain't any horses here now." "And j/ouf" "Adrien Strong don't pass for a sneak in Virginia, where the fightin is hottest" - ney and gained the fin-place, where he was clumsily retarding Miss Colyer' efforts to get ont of her wet waterprool and muddy little rubber shoes by awkward assistance. He was quite content to leave Seth to cope with the pretty, white faced owner of that j»eevisb voice and with the famished child whom Mamie had called "a young fiend. " "I have nothing to tell you." "Nothing to tell?" "Nothing." I Seth flung his rough hands out with an impatient gesture. "Perhaps not." "Father is simply carrying out Governor Strong's orders. And 1 am going to assist him to do so." "Very well, I reckon. They seem to Jike each other. Are together nearly all (he time since Ran went into the ar my." Then, with a nervous catch in bin Sntle YoJee. "Von don't think of going ter it at all, I jedge, Strong." Strong looked so ugly as he snarled out those two words that Seth forbore communicating the laudatory rumors that were afloat in the neighborhood Adrien Strong, "Nothing to tell in these stormy times, when just to be a man is an extra privilege?" Then the white haired old aristocrat had ridden away from them as gayly as a troubadour going to do battle for the guerdon of a lady's love, shifting all responsibility for the well being of his slaves upon Eben Martin's well paid shoulders. "Nothing." "All right He'll need yon, ole Eben Martin will. He'll need all the help yon and a lot mo' lak you kin give him." "What have yon teen doing since yon carried off the first honors at college?""Mamie Colyer brought the palmetto from the woods, Mother Martin cured it, Grandmother Strong split it into nice little narrow strips, your mother plaited it, and here I am sewing it into shape. You ought to feel tremendously important, Dren." Silence foil between the two men. Seth's mission had failed. He would wait and take bis supper of black coffee d: Without altering his position Strong removed his eyes from the dancing, ■parks to Seth's anxious face. Some of the sparks seemed to have been insnared in their somber depths, they glowed with such intense fire as he slowly ground out his reply between his clinched toetk. "How many mo! of you is they?" Vi ney asked, with sour inhospitality. The look which accompanied these words was so sinister that Strong searched the old crone's face anxiously. MWhat do you mean, Viney? Speak plainer, old woman." Miss Colyer tjirned a placid faceup on her. "Nothing." "What are yon going to do?" "Nothing." "Well!" How Strong had envied that old man of the privileged class riding away to enroll his name among the aspirants for military renown I "You are a fortunate boy, Dren. What would you do without your grandmother?" Baid Liza, placing the hat crown softly on top of the shining yellow curls. And fried bacon with Strong, then climb the cliff and go home. The darkness deepened within and without. Old Viney came into the room with a globeless kerosane lamp in her hand, placed it in the middle of the table, nung a pine knot in the fire and hobbled slowly out again. "Only two more of us, auntio. Yonng Mrs. Adrien Strong and her little boy. I promise yon we will all be as good &H gold if you don't turn us out into tlf storm again." A volume in four letters. He did not look at ber. He knew just how full of scorn her bright, clear eyes were just then. He would have found it a pleasant relief at that moment to have inarched up to the mouth of a loaded cannon. A second later lie was grinding bis teeth in iu.],ott nt ruae. His -hort h""r of hli~s was culminating in '' I done said all I got to say. I wouldn' a-said that much if you wasn't goin 'long. 1 can't seem to forgit somehow that 1 nussed you and my Suzanno at the same time, and w'en you was a little chap you always call mo mammy same as her. Don't go, son. That all I ask." "I do," said the boy, promptly appropriating her honiaga "The old man seems real glad to go," said Eben, looking after the slender, stooping form reflectively, "and yit I'm sho' his heart worn't in this thing at the fust of it. 1 s'pose he feels like be muB' go in fur his country, right or wrong. I reckon it's somethin, like if you or Seth was to git into a quarrel with an outsider and Charlie there was to stan off till he inquired inter the merits of the case. I think it'd be mo' lak my boy Charlie to pitch in and fight for his brothers fust aud then talk about it later on. Hey, Charlie?" "What would my grandmother do without me?" "I don't doubt it." Liza laughed and stooped for a fresh coil of the plaited palmetto. "Yon see, we expect great things of yon, Dren. Yon are all the man we have about to protect us when Seth is out in the fielda But how about that sum? How many hands all working for you?" "You insufferable little egotist!" "Go into it* No, I'll be if I do!" "What is an e—a—what?" Then, oblivious of all etymological interests, "I see your mother coming up the walk. What makes her puff so? My grand- For a second of reflective silence Beth smoothed the creased kneecaps of bis Jean trousers with his long freckled hands. Then his courage came back to {rim. f?The Martins ain't cnttin a very good figger in this row nohow, and it jdn't perticularly creditable to us, seeing how many of us there is—men Martins, I mean. The old man is out of the Joestion. The niggers are so upset they on't know whether tbey be staudin on their heads er on their heels, and he's just bold in himself in readiness to stampede 'em all, mules and niggers, over on to the Macon hills as soon as Vicksburg falls, which it is p'ison sure to do. The insistent rain, niado invisible by the interior illumination of lamp and firelight, pattered dismally upon the hard beaten surface of the dooryard. The plock on the roqgh pine shelf over £he fireplace gave a premonitory cluck and struck seven. And into thin area of speechless surprise Seth surged at that moment, bis : rimsoned face and hatless head environed by the flying lists and gyrating beels of the young fiend, whose disgust Cor these nocturnal proceedings was | boundless and outspoken. "In you heard the neu-sf" than I believed that every man who did not was a coward. But I have come to look at thiugs differently. Where's the use trying to steer against the current when it is so much easier to drift with it? "Put all of my clothes in my valise, Viney. And see here. Do your best by those ladies in there until they get away. They will go after breakfast. As for you—take all there is in the pantry. I've nothing else to bequeath you." gloom and bitterness. [Continaed on Fourth Page ) With u shj:Lit forward motion she hud set tbe li .ny rC cker iti motion, ai.d locking ut iiiin with concentrated iu;eie*t said demurely j "Twelve," said Adrien laboriously. of Globe for | RHEUMATISM,! £1 NEURALGIA and simikr Complaints, 1 and prepared under the Btrliw-nt MEDICAL LAWS,M prescribed by eminent pbysicUns ■ DR- bichter's ■PAIN EXPELLERl I World renowned! Remarkably soccepsful! 1 ■Only gt-nnlne with Trade Mark " Anchor.-' ■ ■F. Ad. Richter 'Co., 215 Pearl St., New Torn. ■ 31 HIGHEST AWARDS. I 13 Branoh Houses. Own Glassworks, S Endorsed iferofojnmeiKled Parrer & Puck, 30 Luzurnc  O. C. OUck, GO North Main St jfl H Houck, 4 North Main St Pitttston, Pa. P - - -vou, • ... j "Twelve! You must be counting in your own, Dren, and they don't count for much at anything yet awhile. Yon are wrong, Dren. Yot generally are wrong." Viney made a second grand entree, laden down with plates and cups and saucers, which she arranged upon the table with considerable clatter and no taste whatever. 8be was hobbling slowly toward the door once more when something caused her to lift her tor tinned head and to stand still in an alert ; attitude of surprised attention. CHAPTER XIV "I have 6tood under pretty hot fire tonight, Mamie. Your guns were heavily shotted, and beforo yon came 1 had been trying to convince my brother that this was no concern of ours. "And yon?" The faintest 6treak of light was brightening the gray eastern skies when, with his valise in his hand. Strong opened the front door of his cabin and began the toilsome ascent of the cliff ou foot The professor's daughter suddenly passed from recitative, slightly tinged with apology, to a challenging tone, which made Strong Martin's heart thump heavily against his ribs. "YCD» mij;hl fake out a contract to supply the army with turnips. There if uo riDk in that." At which home thrust Strong had winced The recollection of it brought the hot blood to his cheeks. He had not rarod to remind bis father that a better iimile would have been Charlie's interference in an altercation between his orother and himself, for he was going into this fight himself as soon as he should have helped locate the colony on Lakelock, and he did not care to submit ais own motives to the chilling influences of discussion. The boy received this cutting summary of his own inadequacy with composure. He was more deeply interested in the work Liza had resumed than in his own possible shortcomings. He grew white to the very edge of liia hps. ,'jHe turned her bright, dry eves from bis tnrtun dice to say in low "I have been trying to convince myself that I was not needed on cither Bide—I, such a miserable failure, already forgotten by the world. 1 could not fight for slavery. 1 did not want tg fight against, the men who owned slaves. But you have said things tonight that have made me long to court a bullet bole or saber thrust as a pleasant relief. CHAPTER XV. Overawing Beth by an assumption of reckless indifference was one thing. 8eth was slow and receptive. Satisfying Mamie Colyer in the matter of his own dubious inertia quite another. Mamie was both fi'Ty apd exacting. tone conLi ence to the b. ek "Antl wt*ijo«l iwu uivich right In tbosij tempest driven times the unusual was the usual, aud to it was awarded an unquestioning acquiescence born of stoical resolve; therefore Strong Martin shoald not have been jostled out of all sense of bis own identity by the crowding events whose initial note hud beeu struck when Mamie Colyer miraculously descended upon Neck or Nothing.in my estimation. And he needs all the help I can give him while we stay here or if we skedaddle. We're jus' waitin for tbe gov'ner to give tbe word, and the gov'ner he's just waitin to hear from some army friend he's wrote to tor advice on the situation And Charlie, he's such a delicate chap that ma would jnst fret herself plum' crazy if be was to 'list. And so"— Strong split the sentence in twain With an unpleasant laugh. "Audi to, as I am not needed any where in particular, and no one is at afi Mfcr-ly t-. frrt' him C Ivcs 'flam' cra- "I yhers w'eels," she said, turning automatically toward the two men on tbe hearth. now.' "Is that going to be a hat or a cap? "A hat." "Mamie!" "With a brim and a blue ribbon band?" "Wheels!" It wan tbe cry of a wouwltd auimnl Ho lixikcil at her across the broken t rick hearth, with all th« agouy of his soul stamped oil bis face. Ibe hot light in her even was queuchfd iu sudden tears. She flung out her bauds with a passionate gesture. They laughed incredulously. No oup ever Bought Neck or Nothing on whtels under the brightest sunlit skiea Who should be groping thither in this Btorni drenched darkness? "A brim certainly. A bine ribbon band! Dren, you are exacting." His cheeks flamed hotly, but his lips refused to franjo the inadC*quate apologies which he knew would bring that laughing scorn into her bright eyes which had once been the terror of the whole college crew. His sullen silence irritated her. She had been alone with him now for nearly two hours. Viney's rrabbed hospitality had culminated in prr.TyDi»ir"» thq hMroari tit Nwk or "I may uot- be worthy to stand side by side with the professor, my dear, but at least 1 shall no longer skulk in the chimney corner. My duty in this matter has not beeu quite clear, my path not well defined. You will have the credit of having armed two combatants—your father and your lover." "Tomorrow night my duties as a *1ave driver will end—and then I, too, shall enter the lists." "I think my grandmother can give me a bine ribbon baud. My grandmother can give me everything I want She gets everything out of the big chest in the hall up stairs. My grandmother has everything. Don't yon think so too?" "Evidently you approve of your grandmother, Dren." "You kin snicker s'long as you aint j got no manners, but I yhers 'em all de saute. Dey done stop.'' Pacing the rounds of a huge sycamore With a violent start he came back into the present. Why did he not hear some sound from the looked for caravan? Could that imbecile Sandy have misdirected it? He was unwilling to Iit his horse- fir rrtp—i ride. Fff "How could yon disappoint me so? Yon proLuitiD d me yon would do great things for my sake, because I believed in you straight through. Your opportu- H'r, a one. bss come. tree that marked the limits of his second day's march from Sans Souci, he found it almost impossible to believe that only 60 hours of time and as many miles cf sjui' lay frftv ~?ii Uim rr.f' *bD rjibui Lt Ulfil UCl(iND tklii. Ii be U..U bit She hobbled to the front door and flung it open with atuwruve wndinjr s vHlryw b»nd of li«?bt nttrwnr* *ii'' Wot hfeiMK villi« til,tU« c^Uiu All the scorn was gone out of her farf\ Wttt"- whifp f\r;l f'nd Fb" l;'t tfc-Ti ~~~j '"ict TsrC1 i,i)liuixf l.Dr ti»« v.liue l..ceCi,  I. biAlujf «u w-« w» "•kwi IK. !.■** \vDiulu u«h*1 itDD s*j"»ui.iOuii. I*. t. 11IU Vi.,a. SjliV i lOC-. i