Democratic Sentinel, Volume 5, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 August 1881 — ROMANCE OF A GLOVE. [ARTICLE]

ROMANCE OF A GLOVE.

“Does it please you, Katy?” “ Oh, it is splendid ! I could not have suited myself half so well, had I been left to choose.” “But you have not seen the wine cellar yet. It is a treasure of its kind. Let’s go down again. ” . They went down the stairs together, he talking gayly, she with a troubled look on her face. After duly admiring the place she put a timid hand on his arm and said : “ But, Arthur, dear, let s have no wine in it.” “ Wiiy ? ” he asked, in surprise. “ Because I have resolved if I am ever the mistress of a house there shall be no liquors kept in it—no ‘ social glasses’ for friends. ” “ Why, Katy, you are unreasonable. I did not know you carried your temperance opinions so far as that. Of course I shall keep wine in my house, and entertain my friends with it, too.” She raised her face appealingly. ••Arthur!” she said, in a tone of voice which ho knew how to interpret. Arthur’s brow grew cloudy. “ But you can not fear for me?” he said, with half-offended pride. “ I must fear for you, Arthur, if you begin as he did. And I fear for others besides—for the sons and husbands and fathers who may learn at our cheerful board to love the po.son that shall slay them.” They went up to the steps again aud sat on a sofa in the dining-room for a few moments, while Katy put on her hat and drew on her gloves. The argument was kept up. It is unm ces ary that we should repeat all that was said on both sides. It ended at last ius similar discussions have ended before. Neither was willing to yield—Katy, because she felt that her whole future happiness might be involved in it; Arthur, because ho thought it would be giving away to a woman’s whims, and would sacrifice too much of his popularity with his friends. He had bought this house, paid for it, and furnished it handsomely, and in a few weeks was to bring Katy as its mistress. All the afternoon they had been looking over it together, happy as two birds witn a newly-finished nest. But when Arthur closed the door and put the key in his pocket, in the chill, waning light of the December afternoon, aud gave Katy his arm to see her home, it was all “broken up” between them, and a notice, “To Let,” was put over the door of the pretty house the very next morning.

It was the most foolish thing to do ; but then lovers can always find something to quairel fbout. They parted with a cool “Good-even-ing,” at the door of Katy’s lodginghouse. She went up to her room to cry; he went home hurt and angry, but secretly resolving to see her again, aud give her a chauce to say that she was in the wrong. He would wait a few days, however ; it would not do to let her see that he was in a hurry to “make it up.” He did wait, nearly a week, and when he called at the modest lodging-house where ho had been wont to visit so often, he was told that Miss Gardiner bad been gone three days. “Gone where?” ho asked, slow to believe. “She did not tell me, sir. She said she was not coming back. Her aunt lives at Bristol.” He then took the next train to Bristol and investigated ; but neither there nor in any Other place, though he searched for months afterward, did he find sign or trace of Katy Gardiner. * * ' + * * * * All this happened more than a year before I saw Katy; but we three “factory girls,” who lodged at Mrs. Howell’s with her, of course knew nothing about it. She came to the factory and applied for work. The superintendent thought her too delicate for such labor, but she persisted ; and, in fact, she impioved in health, spirits and looks after she became used to the work aud simple fare of the factory girls. She was a stranger to us all, and it seemed likely that she would remain so. But one day Mary Bascom’s dress caught in a part of the machinery, and before any one else could think what to do Ivat.y had sprang to her side and pulled her away by main strength from the terrible danger that tlirettened her. After that Mary and Lizzie P.iyne and I, who were her dearest friends, were Katy’s sworn allies.

We all lodged together then in the big “Factory boarding-house.” Bui Katy took it into her head that we should have so much nicer times in a private lodging to ourselves ; and when she took anything into her head she generally carried it through. In less than a week she had found the very place she wanted, arranged matters with the superintendent, and had us sheltered under Mrs. Howell’s vine and tig tree. We four girls were Ihe proud possessors of a tolerably large, doublebedded apartment, with a queer little dressing-room attached—“ and the liberty of the parlor to receive callers in ” —a proviso at which we all laughed. This was “ home ” to us after the labor of file day. Indeed and in truth, Katy made the place so charmmg that we forgot the “factory girls ” when we got to it. She improvised cunning little things out of trifles that are usually thrown away as useless, and the flowers growing in broken pots in our window were a glory to behold. She always had a fresh book or periodical on our table ; and better than this, she brought to us the larger cultivation, and the purer taste, which taught us how to use opportunities within our reach. “What made you take to our style of life, Katy ?” asked Lizzie, one evening, as we all sat in the east window watching the out-coming of the stars and telling girlish dreams. “Destiny, my child,” answered Katy, stooping to replace the little boot she had thrown oil to rest her foot. “ But you might have been an authoress, or a painter, or a—a bookkeeper, or— ” Lizzie's knowledge of this world was rather limited ; Katy broke in upon her. “There, that will do. I was not bom a genius, ahd I hate arithmetic. ” “ But you did not always have to work for a living, Katy?” said May. “You are a lady, I know.” Katy laughed a queer, ajbort laugh. “Yes,” she said, “and that’s why I don't know how to get my living in any way but this. So behold me a healthy and honest factory girl.” She rose, made a little bow, and a flourish with her small hands, and we all laughed, although she had said nothing funny. “ Milly,” said she, “please light the lamp and get the magazine, while I hunt up my thimble and thread. Ladies, I

find myself under the necessity of mending my gloves this evening. Oh, poverty ! where is thy sting ? In a shabby glove, I do believe, for nothing hurts me like that unless it be a decaying boot. Katy’s gloves were a marvel to ns. She never wore any but of good quality, and always the same color—a brownish, neutral tint, that harmonized with almost any dress—but just n<«r a new pair would seem to be one thing needful, from the appearance of the ones she brought out. She sat and patiently mended the little rents, while I read aloud; and when she had finished the gloves looked almost new. The next day was Saturday, and we hail a half-holiday. Katy and 1 went to make some trifling purchases, and on our way home stopped at the big board-ing-house to see one of the girls who was ill. When we came out Kate ran across (he street to get a magazine from the news-shop, an 1 came hurrying up to overtake me before I turned the cor ier. rilie had the magazine open, and one of her hands was ungloved ; but it was not until we reached home that she found she had lost a gloves. It was too late lien to go and look for it. We went and searched the next morning, but could not find it. Katv mourned for it. “It*was my only pair, girls,” said •lie, tragically ; “aud is a loss that cannot Le repaired.”

What people call a “panic” had occurred in financial circles in the spring after Autliur Craig had lost his Katy, and almost without a day’s warning he found himself a poor man. He left his affairs in the hands of his creditors—having satisfied himself that they could gatli- r enough from the wreck to save themselves—aud set his face to London. He had been educated for a physician, ihough fortune made a merchant of him. Learning from a friend that there was an opening for a doctor in Fenwick, he came thither and began to practice. Dr. Sewell had gone off on a visit, leaving his patients in charge of the new doctor; and so it came about that on that Saturday evening he was on his way to visit Maggie Lloyd, the sick girl at (he lodging-house, when just after turning the corner near the news shop, he saw a brown glove lying on the pavement. He was about to pass it by ; but a naan's instinct to pick up anything of value that seems to have no owner, made him put it in his pocket. He forgot all about it the next minute. But when he had made his call and returned to his consulting room, in taking a paper from his pocket the glove fell out, and he picked it up and looked at it with idle curiosity. It was old, but well-preserved. It had been mended often, but so neatly as to make him regard mending as one of the fine arts. It had a strangely familiar look to him. Little, and brown, and shapely, it lay on his knee, bearing the very form of the hand that hail worn it. And as he gazed at it there came to him the memory of an hour, many months past, when he had sat by Katy’s side on the green sofa in the diningroom of “their house” (alas!) and watched her put her small hands into a pair of brown gloves so much like this one. Ever since that never-to-be-forgotten day, the vision of his lost love, sitting there in the fading light, slowly drawing on her glove, her sweet eyes filling as they talked—quarreled, we should say, perhaps—had gone with li m as an abiding memory of her, until lie had come to know each shade of the picture —the color of the dress, the ribbon at (lie throat, and the shaded plume in her hat. He looked at the little glove a long time. He had thought it might belong to one of the factory girls, as he found it near the lodging-house. But it did not look like a “factory hand’s ” glove. Ho would ask Maggie Lloyd, at any rate ; so he put it carefully in his pocked until he should made his calls the next morning. He had suffered the glove to become so associated with the mi mory of a past that was sacred to him, that he felt his cheek burn and his hand tremble, as he drew it forth to show it to Maggie, who was sitting, in the comfort of convalescence, in an arm-chair by the window, watching the handsome young doctor write the prescription for her benefit. “By the way, Miss Maggie, do you know whose glove this is ? ’ Maggie knew it at once. It was Miss Gardiner’s glove. “ Miss Gardiner ! ” The name made his heart beat again. “Is she one of the factory hands?” “ Yes ; but she lodges with Mrs. Howell, quite out of town, almost; she was here to see me yesterday. ” “Oh. I see!” said he, not the most relevantly. “And can you tell me how to find Mrs. Howell’s house ? I suppose [ could go by and restore this glove to its owner.”

Maggie thought this unnecessary trouble ; but she gave the required direction, and lie went out saying to himself : “It can’t be my Katy, of course ; hut the glove shall go back to its owner. * * * * * * Mary and Lizzie went to church that Sunday morning, Katy declared she couldn’t go, having but one glove. I stayed at home w th her, and offered to keep Mrs. Howell’s children for her, and .-•o persuaded that worthy woman to attend worship with the girls. And this is how it came about, that while we were having a frolic on the carpet with the children in Mrs. Howell’s room, we heard a ring at the door; and Bridget having taken herself oil somewhere, there was no help for it but for one of us to answer the summons/ “ You go, Katy,” whispered I, in dismay, “I can not appear.“ Katy g'anced serenely at her own frizly head in the looking-glass, gave a pull at her overskirt and a touch to her collar and opened the door. Immediately afterwerd I was shocked by hearing her utter a genuine feminine scream and seeing her drop on the floor ; and that man, a perfect stranger to me, gathered her up in his arms and began raving over hpr in a manner that astonished me. He called her “his darling,” and “his own Kate,” and actually kissed her before I could reach her.

I was surprised at myself afterwards, that I hadn’t ordered the gentleman out, but it never occurred to me at the time, and when Katy “came to” and sat up on the sofa and heard his speeches, she seemed so well pleased tli it I left them and took the children up to our room, feeling bewildered all over. What shall I say further ? Only that Katy lives in the pretty 'house m the town known as Dr. Craig’s residence, where we three “ factory girls ” have a home whenever we want it. And there are no liquors found on her sideboard nor at her table. One day I heard Arthur say: “You were a siily child, ' Kate, to run away from me. I should have given up the point at last, I know.” “But there would have been the sp’endid cellar and the ten thousand a year,” answered she. “It would have been such a temptation. We are safer as'it is, dear.”

Dr. Weisse has been shooting at dead bodies to find out where the ball lodged in the President’s case, but Dr. Bliss says that shooting at dead bodies to find the effect it would have on live ones is absurd. An opinion is that neit her of them knows much about it, It’s the old story, “Where is Bliss, ’tis folly to be Weisse. ”