Decatur Eagle, Volume 1, Number 26, Decatur, Adams County, 7 August 1857 — Page 1

I II I. I) ECA T I I! EA G I E

VOL. 1.

THE DECATUR EAGLE.

PUBLISHED EVRRY FRIDAY MORNING. I office, on Main Street, in the old School House, one Square North of J. & P Crabs' Store. Terms of Subscription : I for one year, $ I 50, in advance; $1 75, within six months; $2 00, after the year has expired. IJ* No paper will be discontinued until all arreragesare paid, except at the option of the Publisher. Terms of Advertising: One Square, three insertions, $1 00 Each subsequent insertion, ’-'5 ; n i~y . ■ than one square; over one square will be counted and charged as two; over two, as three, etc. JOB PRINTING. We nre prepared to do all kinds of JOB WORK, in a neat and workmanlike manner, on the most reasonable terms. Our material for the completion of Job-work, being new and of the latest styles, we are confident that satisfaction can be given. Law of Newspapers. 1. Subscribers whodo not give express notice to the contrary, are considered p* wishing to continue their subscriptions. 2. If subscribers order the discontinuance of their papers, the publisher may continueto send them until all arrearages are paid. 3. If subscribers neglect or refuse to take their papers from the office they are held responsible till they have settled the bill and ordered the paper discontinued. I. If subscribers remove Io oilier places with- ; out informing the publisher, and the paper is still sent, to the former direction,they are held responsible. (Jj’Tlie Court have decided that refusing of I take a paper from the office, or removed and | leaving it uncalled forispaiMA facie evidence of intentional fraud. The Use of Flower’s* BY MARY HOWITT. God might have made the earth bring forth Enough for great and small. The oak tree and the cedar tree Without a flower at all, He might have made enough, enough. For every want of ours; For luxury, medicine, and toil, And yet have made no flowors, The ore within the mountain mine. Requireth none to grow. Nor doth it need the lotus-flower To make the River flow. The clouds might give abundant rain All dyed with rainbow light, All fashioned with supremest grace, Up-springing day and night. Springing in valleys green and 1 ow. And on the mountains high, And in the silent wilderness Where no mar passeth by; Our outward life requires them not, Then therefore had they birth? To minister delight in man, To beautify the earth To comfort man—to whisper hope, U hene'er his faith is dim, For who socareth for the flowers Will care much more for him! Why are husbands like dough? Because women knead them. ‘I think our church will last a good many years yet,’ stud a waggish deacon to his minister; ‘I see the sleepers are very sound.’ A strong minded woman in now defined to be she who spoils a very respectable woman in vain endeavors to become h very ordinary man. Strong- minded woman in Albany, and the adjacent places thereto, have commenced cutting their hair short like men. What a pity they can’t raise moustaches. A voung ladv enquired the other day, of a sailor, why'a ship was always called ■she? •Because,’ replied the sailor, ‘the rigging costs more than the hull.’ There is but one passage in the Bible where the girls are commanded to kiss the men, and that is this golden rule; Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto vou, do you even so unto them.’ A company of ladies, the other day, discussed the following question; What is the great duty of man!’ One of them contended with success that it was to pay dry goods bills 1 Did you ever hear of the wife that wrote to her husband in California, and commenced her letters thus: ‘Oh, tell me not that absence conquers love! the longer you stay away the better I like you.’ Who can tell why people in the ‘Great Desert’ need never suffer from hunger? Because of the sand which is there (sandwitches there.) And how came the sandwitches there? Why, Ham went there, and there his descendants nre bred and mustered (bread .and mustard )

LIFE’S CONTRASTS; OR, The Dwellers at Moreland Farm. BY MARY C. VAUGHAN. Claudia Moreland, even in childhood, ! was endowned with a rare and exquisite beauty that charmed the eyes and attracted the regard of all who looked upon it. To this radiant loveliness of face, this glowing fairness of complexion, those liquid eyes of blue, those sunny, gleaming curls were added and indiscribabU j.a fuhu-Bs ui undulating tnobon, and a woundrous power and mobility of expression. In those early days her whole being was encircled by its appropriate atmosphere—that of an entire and unceasingly watchful love. Her father was a wealthy j farmer—a man of education and refine- I ment, who prized intercourse with Nature far above the conventionalisms and falsen- ( esses of life among the great aggregates I of humanity—a gentleman in the true and , literal sense of the term. Her mother was a woman eminantly fitted for her sphere—an intelligent, practical housewife, with brain, and eye, and hand equal- ( ly alert throughout the entire realm over | which she held sovereignty; yet able, by ! means of an admirable system, which gov- ( erned all her household operations, to appear in the presence of her frequent guests and always at her stated periods of rest and recreation, with that graceful repose which characterizes the true lady. The daughtei of the New England clergyman as distinguiched for his learning as for his piety, she had been well and thoroughly educated; and, in connection with her husband, had instructed her children at home in all the rudiments of knowledge. Her sons had been prepared U enter upon a collegiate course before leaving the parental roof, and her daughters needed nothing to perfect them in education (according to common and conventional ideas), except the year’s tuition in modern accomplishments, which they were sent to a neighboring city to obtain. Claudia was many years younger than ■ the other children of the family; and the household would have been left desolate without the joyous light of those voices which the harsh tones of sorrow had never rendered discordant, had she not remained, when they all were gone, to delight the eyes of her parents with her radiant beauty and her winning grace, and to cheer their hearts with her loving ways. She had ever been the pet of the household, concentrating around her its whole mighty aggregate of affection; but the time came when the names of her young sisters were spoken in grief-broken tones, or with the tender reverence that follows into the tomb the memory of the baautiful, early dead; and Claudia was left the only daughter of her bereaved parents. A feat fill and fatal epidemic had entered the boarding-school where Claudia’s o I elder sisters were resisding. Both were seized by its terrible symptoms, and before their agonized parents could answer the hurried summons to their bedside, one was dead, the other fast sinking toward the same fatal consumatiou.

Scarcely were these young formrs laid beneath the green sod of the little family burial-ground, than the elder son came home to die. An ardent and enthusiastic scholar,, he had laid the foundations of premature decay, at college, by his unceasing devotion to books. While studying his profession his efforts had never been suffered to relax, though he was constantly warned by his failing health. At length, just at the completion of his studies, when the honorable career of a long life seemed bright before him, he sickened and, with strength turned to utter weekness before the inrods of his longhidden disease —consumption, he saw all his hopes vanishing as Death beckoned him toward the grim gates of the grave. Months of lingering suffering followed, and then the hour of release came, and another green mound was heaped above the stilled heart in the hill-side enclosure where the young sisters already lay. Claudia’s only surviving brother returned to the home of his childhood at this period. Graver and less enthusiastic than the brother he had lost, he had yet marked out for himself acareer which he would have followed with the persistent perseverance that belonges to deep, silent natures like his, but he quietly sacrificed his inclinations, and the wishes that had grown to be a part of himself, upon the shrine of duty. Sorrow and bereavement had done the work of years, and his parents while yet not far down the declivity that ends at the graveside, had become suddenly aged, and were bent beneath a premature feebleness. They needed the comforting presence of their son. they needed his affectionate cares, they needed the sustaining powet of his strong, young manhood. Elnathan Moreland gave up his scientific investigations, and went home to cultivate his father's acres, and to live where it was right thMhe should live And be-

“Our Country’s Good shall ever be our Aim —Willing to Praise and not afraid to Blame.

DECATUR, ADAMS COUNTY, INDIANA, AUG. 7,1857.

ing well assured that his course was right, i he soon ceased to lament his sacrifices. — : i lie found pleasure in the life to which I they led him. Even his powerful mind found employment, if not sufficient for its i i (entire capacity, enough to keep the rust of idleness from geathering upon it. And i I what was better far, his heart was fed !i ■ and nourished by the affectionate natures ■ I ' amidst which he dwelt, and it awoke from i ! the torpor which had grown upon it amidst i the inanition of his studentlife. He convoi-Bod and read hjs Aqjfier , ...other, he superintended the culture : and improvement of the large farm, he i 1 took upon himself the education of his ': little sister, whom it was resolved never 'i •to send to school, and he found himself abundantly occupied, especially when he : ( had added to his pleasant employments ' ( the long rambles over hill, and field, and i by brook-side with the scientific friends ( who frequently visited him. Thus passed several quietly happy i ■ years in the old homestead. The parents i [ with hearts divided between the living and those who had passed away, awaited death with calmness as that which should be at once the signal of short separation i and eternal renuion. The years glided lon quietly that no change marked their ! flight, save that wrought in the young < Claudia whose lovely childhood expanded gradually into a beautiful womanhood, I and the statelier gravity of Elanthan’s ! earnest mien, and the occasional silvery | monitor among his dark locks to tell that Ihe had reached the height of his years, and h»d already commenced the descent. When Claudia was seventeen her moth|er died, and the daisies had blossomed I but once upon her grave when her hus-j band followed her; and thus the lives that ( had blended together through years of joy and sorrow were not long divided.— It was as if the patient, loving wife ven- ’ Hired first into the dark yalley, which ; all must tread alone, and stood upon the i thither brink of its mighty river waiting; Ifor him from whom noteven death could sunder her loving heart. Elnathan Moreland and Claudia were left alone in the homestead. Their lives passed on with the usual monotony durjmg the winter mouths tiiat followed the ■ death of their father, but with summer came several of Elnathan’s ancient college friends. With the desire to cheer his sister’s loneliness, he had invited one of ( those friends to bring with him his sister, and at the same time wrote to a distant relative, a widow, asking her to come and assist Claudia in doing the honors of the ( house to her guests. Mrs. Walter very ' 1 gladly accepted the invitation, for a nar- | row income had long compelled her to un--1 congenial associations and a poor home, 1 which she was quite willing to exechange | ' for good society and the luxuries of wealth. | Elanathan thought he was doing his j sister a service in making these arrange-1 ments, while for himself be would, from; ( habit, have infinitely preferred the unin- . ! terrupted society of his male friends. It. . is to be feared that Claudia did not duly | appreciate the sacrifice which her brother j had made. She stood greatly in awe of | Mr. Kenyon, who was violent in temper, I and arrogant in manner, and whose ‘specimens’ in the form of hideous reptiles and . ] impaled bugs were the terror of her life I I during all his visits. Some portion of this : i awe she felt, in anticipation, of bis sister, I for, at the very least, she thought it impossible for one so nearly connected with j ■ this disagreeable man, to possess any winj ning quallites. But all parties were agreeably dissapi pointed when Miss Kenyon arrived. Mr, Kenyon always traveled in his own car-1 riage, a queer vehicle contrived expressly i for use in his scientific excursions, to con-1 I vey his apparatus of various kinds, and I ; the boxes of specimens which he was con- j stantly accomulating. Miss Kenyon, who had no other escort, had for once consent-: ed to accompany him, and out of the! midst of packing boxes, and geological hammers, and other scientific lumber, I when a chaise seat had been placed for the ! occasion, he helped her to descend before the porch of Moreland Farm. Had Miss Kenyon been one whit less graceful and self-possessed, Claudia, who ; in her capacity of hostess stood upon the ( ■ porch waiting to receive her, could not I have repressed the smile that threatened merge into merry laughter. But the lady stepped down with quiet ease, and received the welcome of the young mistress of the mansion with a dignity that seemed to assert her superiority over all accidental surroundings or appliances. With the same air she followed her, hostess to the chamber which had been prepared for her, and rejecting all offers , of service, with a manner that amounted ( ito a dismissal, she was shortly left alone, i Then she satdown to think, and achange , came over the dark beauty of her face.— ( ! For Elizabeth-Kenyon was very beauti- j ful, with a wierd, or rather as her ene- , mies, of whom she had many, were wont , (to say, with a diabolical beauty. None over whom the threw the spell of her * i

influence ever escaped her —though in ag ny of penitence or remorse they cursed the ■ followed her. She had noted the flitting and suppressed smile with which Claudia had witnessed her descent from the carriage. From that instant she hated her, and the object for which she had consented to come to Moreland Farm had been more firmly de ided upon, as a means, at least, of reve ,3. A mocking light glittered in her dr . brilliant eyes as their glances folJJprelt £.!arjia fr<v.>. ifie roam and she had vnietuiiy secured the door, and listened to the tread of her light footsteps along the corridor and down the staircase she allowed a derisive laugh to burst from her lips. Leaning her head upon hand she thought deeply, until the striking of the clock upon the mantel reminded her that it was time to prepare for dinner. — Then she rose murmuring, 'Yes, yes, that will do admirably, though I wish he were not to stiff and priggish, and were a shade more presentable,’ and with the same derisive smile upon her features, she rapidly but skilfully performed the duties of her toilet. When Miss Kenyon entered the parlor where the guests were assembled awaiting the summons to dinner, she had never appeared more radiantly beantiful. — At dinner, when she was seated beside her host, she delighted him with a display of graceful wit, that while it charmed, compelled him to pause more than once in wonder, and aroused a slight mortification as he detected the rust that had gathered upon his own colloquial powers. — Perhaps Miss Kenyon read this latent feeling, for she adroitly led the conversation to topics connected with his favorite i pursuits, where the disadvantage was soon i lost. On these, as on all subjects, she [conversed well and fluently, adopting the nomenclature so well, and using her knowledge to such good advantage, that the superficial nature of her acquirements ; was not easily detected. Every one was charmed with Miss. Kenyon, and those of [ the guests who had met her before, took (blame to themselves for previous ill judgments, and decided that she had never appeared so well, or so truly womanly as in the non oirUa of tide country home In t< uth, she exerted all her fascinations on that first evening. She well knew how important are first impressions, and she made them, strong and deep, as she conversed with all, by turns grave or gay, witty or with a soft, half expressed sadness of tone and mien. But when she was again in her chamber the mocking smile returned to her face. Standing before her mirror, clad in her long, white dreesing-gown, her face look ghastly pale. She lifted the heavy masses ofblack hair ; from her temples, and bound them back (so closely as to leave the broad brow ex- ! posed. Then she bent forward, and by I the strong light of the wax candles that I burned in the brackets on each side the I old-fashioned toilet, she traced in the I clear miror the lines of thought, and care, i and passion which in that hour of selfI abandonment, seemed to make Elizabeth Kenvon ten years older than she had appeared but an hour before, when surrounded by a charmed circle of listeners in the J parlor. | When she had gazed a time, she brought her desk and taking out materi- ! als sat down to write. There was a fixled and painful expression upon her face I that told of a decision made, of a will ' strong enough to triumph over feeling, I and to trample even upon her own heart. I The letter she wrote was long, and need not all be given here. But one paraI graph more immediately elucidates her i purpose, and may claim a place; j ‘Of course, dear Harry,’ she wrote, you attach no meaning of my jesting ' words the night we parted. If even you were in an earnest mood, which I have iso little vanity as to doubt, you should i have known that Elizabeth Kenyon was no wife for you. Neither of us could do j a more foolish thing that to speak such I words in earnest; and to prove to you what my feelings really are, I will now disclose the object which brought me to this farmhouse where 1 am now staying. Moreland Farm is the property of Elnath an Moreland, a bachelor of forty years, : and who lookseven older. He is a man of wealth, a gentleman by birth, and a scholar; and, indeed, but for his modesty, would hold a distinguished place among men of science. Moreland Farm is more like an English manor house than an American farm house. The wealth and taste of its former and present proprietors have been lavished upon it, and it is, in fact, a most picturesque and comfortable residence. And—now I come to the gist of my letter— l intend to becone its mistress. Do you understand? I shall be the wife of Elnathan Moreland within six months! Then you shall be our favored guest, and I will cease io rely upon my powers of cajolery, and fascintion, and all the diabolical capacities with which you confess that you believe me endowed, if vou do not, within another year, oh tain the band of Cloudia Moreland, the

beautiful sister of my husband—that-is- [ to-be—and the heiress of no inconsidera- | ble fortune! What say you—will yon! cease your pnrsuit of Elizabeth Kenyon, I whom you know so well that I wonder, continually, how you can love her, and let her marriage be the stepping stone by which you can climb into a position be-! side the heiress, Claudia Moreland?— ; Write at once, and tell mo if you join in the compact —for you have something, even now, to do to aid my plot, and which i ,_:n j; ,>.. . _ . Much more she wrote hurriedly, frantically—as if in haste to put her determination beyond her power of retraction — then, without reading what she had penned, site sealed up the sheets, and directed the envelope to ‘Harry Harland, New York.’ She laid the letter beneath her pillow, and extinghishing the lights, lay down, not to sleep, but to toss in burning [ restlessness through the long hours that. ‘ yet remained of the summer night. Sleep I only visited her eyelids fitfully after the i dawn had stolen in; nevertheless, when she appeared at the breakfast table a skillful toilet had repaired ail damages to her complexion, produced by her vigil, and : not even Claudia herself seemed fresher I than she, as she smilingly and gracefully > returned the salutations of tha assembled ; guests. Claudia was less at ease. With the instinctive repugnance which tiure and childlike natures feel for those who are evil, she shrunk from Elizabeth Kenyon. The feeling which repelled her from the side of her visitor was undefined, even ! vague, but too real to admit of a doubt of its existence. She could not join in Mrs.; Walter’s praises of Miss Kenyon, nor respond to her brother’s few words of grave (commendation. A dim presentment of ! evil hung over her and oppressed her usu- , ally healthy spirit with a morbid gloom. | She wished to force herself from Miss Kenyon’s presence, but saw no opportunity of escape. j We would not dwell upon the evil arts ,of a vile and unprincipled woman. It is enough that she triumphed, as the unscrupulous so often do. The object was accomplished, and the next Christmas saw her installed mistress of Moreland Fann. Claudia had suffered much since the announcement of her brother’s contemplated marriage, yet she had not dared to confide to him her vague fears. He was so much older than herself, so much wiser, and, above all, he was so much in love with the first woman who had ever awakened in him that passion, that Claudia felt instinctively that her remonstrances would be vain. And so, without a word of warning, this man of noble, transparently pure nature was wedded to a woman whose whole life had been a succession of lies and vile plots; who, even at the altar, perjured herself in giving her hand to him while her heart was avow- ( edly in another’s keeping. Moreland Farm was Claudia’s home—she had no legal claim to it, for it was solely her brother’s property, but neither his parents nor himself had contemplated her leaving it, except for the shelter of a husband’s roof. But when a new mistress was installed there, her comforts were materially decreased, while she was daily made to feel that she was considered an intruder, by acts and words too closely veiled by courtesy to admit of resentment. She became very unhappy, and for the ! first time a cloud rested upon her fair brow unnoticed by her brother. He was 1 ' too much devoted to his fascinating wife to have eyes for another, At this period Harry Harland was introduced at Moreland Farm. The plot worked well. Its hidden wires were held ; bv a skilful band. She knew the value 1 of sympathy to a saddened heart, and she took care that Claudia should need sympathy whenever Harland was at hand. He, too, knew how delicately, and with an affectation of chivalric respect and devotion, to manifest his interest in Claudia’s annoyances. He knew well when tinhour came that he might hint, that if her . home had become intolerable, another, prepared by loving hands, was ready for her acceptance. He knew how a young and untried heart may mistake its own | emotions, and believe gratitude to be the love it stimulates. Here, too, the wicked triumphed, and Claudia became the wife of Harry Har- ! land. Her brother, deceived by his wife’s ; representations both of liarland’s worth , and of Claudia’s attachment to him, willingly consented to the marriage, and gave his sister to the vile accomplice of his wife. Claudia, who had lived all her life, until her brother’s marriage, surrounded by the tenderest love, soon found herself the i victim of coldness that at times became even abuse. Harland was a spendthrift and a gambler. He extorted from her her money, her jewels, everything which he could convert to money for his purposes, and waited impatiently for the time . when she s.hould come possession ol her property on attaining her majority. And when that day ami b< scarcely relaxed

j his abuse, because he found that some 1 portion of the estate was settled inalunaj bly upon In i infant heir. Meanwhile he kept his greeds eye up(on Moreknd Farm. The marriage of ED tialhan Moreland had been childless, and I the estate encumbered only with the wid- ! ow’s dowry, would revert to Claudi.i in case of his death. As the years rolled ! on, and Elnathan’s failing health made his death seem near, Harland's spirits rose. !He had long since squandered al) of his ;rv-s tvi ui’ue, and but tor the small income derived from that portion settled upon their child, they would have been in utter poverty. At this period, a child was born in Moreland Farm, and scarcely had the cradle of the heir been installed in his nutsery. than Elnathan Moreland died; [and thus life and death met beneath its I roof. The widow and her child wee left in ' sole possession of the large property, and ; Harland gnashed his teeth in impotent rage as he saw the prize for which be had waited torn from his grasp. Moreland had left no will and no portion of his pro--1 perty passed into Claudia’s possession. [ Strange as it may seem to those who have not deeply studied the nature of woman, Claudia, who had been first attrac- | ted to Harland onlv by gratitude, had learned, in the early days of their union, , to love him; and through all the sorrows and trials of her life with him, had clung to him with an almost unparalleled devotion. She never opposed his desires or i thwarted his wishes; not even when he (proposed, soon after her brother’s death, [ that Elizabeth and her chil l should rc- ; side with them in the city. She shrank ( from the very anticipation of such an inmate as Elizabeth, but even that shuddering repulsion she hid beneath her usual quiet but alert obedience to Harland’s slightest requests. Elizabeth came, and Clnu lia felt that her last gleam of hope had died in gloorri as she crossed the threshold of that desecrated home. And she was right. Hithto Harland had manifesten toward her sonic occasional and fitful gleams of tenderness. but from the period of Elizabeth** coming, an unvaring and contemptuous coldness marked bis manner. He entirely neglected her, devoting all his time ami thoughts to Elizabeth, who, on her part, hesitated not to show by her triumphant manner, that well understood the position which she held. Claudia’s health had resisted repeated trials, but under this last and worst, it utterly failed. A year from that time of Elizabeth’s entrance into her house, she became so ill as to make it necessary to seek medical attendance abroad. Elizabeth accompanied the sufferer to a distant city, and to the residence of a notorious I quack whose advertisements of wonderful ( cures had made his own fortune and that of sundry newspapers. She remained with the invalid a short time, and then, on pretence of the illness of her child, returned to New York, carrying the report that she was recovering and already convalescent. Claudia was left to the mercy of this unprincipled and irresponsible imposter. Three weeks afterward a letter from him announced her death to her husband; and the same day the coffin eontainning her remains was landed in New York. There was an ostentatious funeral ( and a display of mourning badges and white ’kerchiefs, but few tears were shed ! except by the orphant girl, whose only friend had departed. But what hellish arts, or devices, the death of Claudia had been compassed, none may know. Suspicion was strong among the few who knew the facts of the 1 relations of the parties—but suspicious unsupported by proofs avail nothing.— And ~o one had sufficient interest in the matter to seek for proofs. Even when, a few months later, the marraige of Harland and Elizabeth was announced, though a thrill of horror was felt by many, though the affair was made (the subject of comment in the various cir- ' des of city life, another item of news—i something more startling, or more terrible, soon swept away even its memory. Harland and Elizabeth retired to Moreland Fann upon their marrige. They were forgotten in the city, and their feW’ neighbors at Moreland Farm, though they might wonder and exclaim, knew too little of the case to do more. There, then, in plenty nnd prosperity. If the pale fac?s of victims es their artsever arise before them indreatn or fancy, if ever the memory of those 'pOTn and loving natures comes back to them from the past in mild yet terrible rebuke if ever the pictures on the walls of those who once dwelt there, in an aromal atmosphere of love, look frvwningly upon their fierce and blasphemous quarrels, only their own stricken consciences attest what they felt. Outwardly they are bnpand prosperous—their day of retribution has not yet come—it may never come, save in the stings of accusing sonscience. Hut none need envy their late. When the »; 4 :! triumph, it is better, like Clati-

NO. 211. .