Democratic Sentinel, Volume 11, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 September 1887 — HER WANT OF LUGGACE. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

HER WANT OF LUGGACE.

BY EVA MONTEITH.

HENEVEB I find a .woman who can travel without a thousand and 'one packages, baskets, shawls and bundles, and be willing to carry something herself without leaving them all for me, I’ll fall at her feet instanter and never get up until she sets the wedding day. Do you girls think a fellow’s all hands, or do yon intend to tie these to my back and around

my shoulders? 0, women are a nuisance, anyhow!” Itwasjust like good-natured John Heed to grumble and scold, and do twice as much as was asked, and as nobody ever minded him more than to aay, “Now, Jack, you don’t mean that,” he' went on his way, full of quirks and oddities, and yet with a heart soft as a gentle woman’s. He had three romping, laughing school-girls under his charge, and so completely had they loaded him down with luggage that he had grumbled and fussed ever since they had started, much to the amusement of the young ladies who were used to his ways. At the last moment a gentleman called Mr. Heed as de and asked if he would be so kind as to take charge of his sister, who was en route for the city to take a position as teacher in a large school there. In response to the introduction, “Miss Carlton, Mr. Heed,” she only bowed, and then turned for a last good-by to her brother. Jack looked about him in dismay, frightened at the idea of an addition to his load, but could see nothing but a gray shawl snugly strapped, which she carried easily. Her traveling costume was neat and perfectly fitting, and there was an air of tidiness and composure about her that just pleased John’s taste exactly. He was listening intently to what Miss Carlton said, but when she ceased turned to Elbe’s side with some jesting remark about an entirely foreign subject, and when the girls had a chance to teaze him about “this lady who had no luggage for him to carry,” he only answered in his solemnly ludicrous style, “Time will show, time will show. ” After a time the day grew hot and the way dusty, and, tired and worn out, the girls lost their liveliness and were content to lie back among the cushions and sleepily let the time glide away. Poor Jack, left to himself, sought Miss Carlton, expecting to see another “faded flower,” as he emphatically declared each of his charges to be. On the contrary, she was wide awake, fresh as when they left home, no trace of weariness or fatigue on the bright face that was lifted from the book when he came to her. She was one of those women that dust seems to have no affinity for. “A tidy, neat body,” as the old folks call them, “who always look as if just out of a bandbox.” She quietly cleared away her things from the adjoining seat and they were soon chatting away as though they had been friends for years, instead of the chance acquaintances of a few hours. Her voice was sweet and clear, and her language was refined and cultivated, and her manners were bo free from all affectation, that John felt a composure and a relief from embarrassment in her presence that he rarely enjoyed when with other women. The truth was he was in love; and the girls, fully awake now that there wa.s something to interest them, were not long in understanding the case, and now prepared to tease most heartily the “dear old fellow,” who was as bashful as a schoolboy.

But at dusk the city was reached, and after seeing his party safe at the academy John went home to his boarding house, so abstracted that he was unconscious of the greetings of old friends. When alone there shone before him those clear hazel eyes, into whose depths he had looked that day for the first time, but that would over be remembered. A fair face framed in nut-brown hair, with a smooth brow, and faintly tinted cheeks, made a picture for his memory that he sought to recall clearer and more vividly hour by hour. “A woman who could take care of herself” had always been a boastod prodigy that he had challenged his girl friends to find, and now that he had known this quiet, demure teacher, he was still dissatisfied. Seeing that she was self-reliant, he was anxious to teach her to lean upon him, and knowing her ability to take her place among the world’s workers, he longed to shelter her in his own homo and toil for her, that she might not labor. Ho shrank from the thought of her being alone, and, with a great gush of love and sympathy, remembering his own solitary life, yearned to enfold her with a tender affection that should know no weariness. But as the weeks lengthened into months, and the months rolled away, the distance seemed to lengthen between them, and the girls who watched with intense interest the wooing, used to laugh and tell him he did not know how to “court a lady.” “Just ask her, John, if she’ll have you. That’s the way. O! you need not pretend that you don’t intend to some day. Why, you might as well pretend ignorance of your own existence. You’d* give the world if she would say ‘yes,’ and yet you are not brave enough to try.” Miss Carlton received his attentions as she might those of a brother, quietly and yet with no affected reserve. She was always glad to meet him, but her manner was always polite to all,

and her urbauity uniform, and without seeming to avoid him, she never gave him an opportunity for anything nearer and more confidential than she did other young men. John was sorely puzzled to understand her. His knowledge of women, either society belles or school girls, was totally different to the ways of this little woman who was either wholly unconscious of his love, or a flirt skilled in all of the arts of coquetry, and using her experience with a master hand to keep him close enough to charm him, and yet far enough to chill any declaration of love. One day the girls burst into his office with a shout, “Some news. Jack, for you. You might as well give up now. You’ll never get her. No use crying, either. You will have to accept one of us now, and so you might as well be binding up your wounded affections. We brought you a sprig of willow; that’s what forlorn maidens and lovers wear.” “Now, girls, it’s unfair to get a fellow excited this way. Who is this mysterious ‘she,’ and what shall I wear the willow for ? A handful of candy to the one that tells the plainest, most easily understood story. Proceed, Effie; Grace and May are busy stealing my lead-pencils.” “Now, Jack, you know we mean Miss Carlton. She’s the only woman you ever loved, and I don’t wonder you like her. She’s the only teacher that we girls can be&r, and we all just worship her. Why yesterday, when we were watching for you, Grace got to talking about you; she’s always at that. 1 believe she wants you herself, but she won’t get you. You always did belong to me, didn’t you, Jack? Bob your head—yes—well, then she told Miss Carlton how you despised women who could not look out for themselves, and how you scolded us for having always such a lot of baggage. And then we all told her about that day she came in with us, and what you had said about courting the first woman you saw who carried no extra luggage. And I said, ‘Well, whoever gets Jack Heed will have an easy time, for he’s rich;’ and Grace snapped me up with, ‘Yes, and somebody’ll take him for that, too.’ Miss Carlton’s cheeks flushed—ain’t she pretty when she blushes, Jack?— and she said, taking her locket from the ribbon, ‘Here is a dear, good man, girls,’and oh! the prettiest face you ever saw; if he wasn’t her beau I’d have him. And then she pushed that little old-fashioned pearl ring farther back on her finger, and sighed. And when May asked her if it was her brother she said, ‘Oh, no! but he is very dear.’ ” Jack’s tawny mustache concealed the firmly shut lips, but the wrinkles came in his forehead, and he looked sad for a moment, but the girls kept him chattering until, satisfied with promises of an unlimited stock of candy the next time he came, they swept out, taking all the sunshine with them, and leaving the old law office, he thought, mustier and darker than ever. So his day drqpm had had its rude awakening, liis air castle was shattered and in ruins, and his idol the beloved of another. He had at first regretted the idle talk of the girls, but it had at least saved him from paining both the lady and himself by the proffer of an affection that must have been rejected. But so completely had he given his whole heart to her that it did not swerve from her though now he knew how useless it was to hope. He had no thought of going to her to try to win from her a response to his pleadings. She knew who to tell that it might reach his ears as delicately as possible, and having read his love by his actions, now wanted him to know how fruitless wore his desires. And yet why had she manifested pleasure in his company, for though she was shy and timid yet she had seemed to enjoy nis society, and had always received him with at least apparent g ratification. I Lis little gifts cf flowers and books or music had been accepted cordially, and, of no intrinsic value, had been carefully kept, aud he had dared to hope it might be for his sake. But that was all over now. He would gradually make his visits less frequent and in time he would fade from her memory and thon- well, there were the girls; they at leas' would always be glad to see him. The winter and the spring passed slowly by, for they all missed Jack at the academy as the long evenings

dragged by. He came occasionally, always the same old kind fellow, and yet they felt a change they could not describe. Ho was more quiet and still, and yet at times when with Miss Carlton he seemed to forget liis troubles and for awhile was the same romping, scolding “old brother,” as the girls generally called him. But of late his visits were less frequent and he rarely met the little teacher, as she, too, seemed to avoid him, but when she was in the parlor, she took but little part in the convers .tion. The school term wore to its close, and the girls, chattering and wild as a lot of magpies, surrounded John and pleaded with him to go home with them and have a “good time.” and wondered why he glanced hastily at Miss Carlton and

answered, *VII go up home with you, Effie, but I cannot stay. I am going West in a month, but I’d like to tell your father and mother good-by.” The slight form bent lowe • over the box and the shapely head, witli its coronet of brown braids, was a little turned, but there was no sound of surprise. But the trio burst forth with amazement and grief, and protested that if “Jack went they would go, too.” On the train and off for home again. No scolding from John this time, though he had enough to carry to break down a pack-horse. He gath-

ered up everything in his reach and stretched out his hand for the gray shawl, neatly strapped, as he remembered it a year before, and though the owner attempted a protest, he made no reply, but took it with the rest. May and Effie declared him a petrified bear, but Grace persisted in taking his part, assuring them that he was brokenhearted when he thought of not being able to marry all of them, and called on Miss Cariton for proof. “Miss Bessie, isn’t that the reason? He is so selfish that the thought of anybody else getting one of us makes him m'serable.” But before she could say one word J ack blurted out, with his gaze on the face before him: “That’s the very reason.” “Well, Jack,” retorted Effie, “if you could have us all what would you do about our ‘traps.’ Yon made fuss enough last year, and now you want four women to look after.” “But I don’t. I only want one of you, and her ‘traps’ won’t worry me, I promise you.” And he significantly lifted the gray shawl, and, laying it across his knee, seemed to be intent on smoothing the wrinkles and creases from its folds. The girls looked at each other and then at Miss Carlton, and last but longest at Jack. He was an enigma. The tables seemed turned, and he alone of the party was composed, the girls being all curiosity, and their companion nervous and restless. But the conversation drifted off to other channels, and soon they were deep in a discussion of the merits of their respective photographs. Jack quietly took one of each; but looked up in Miss Carlton’s face and said: “May I?” She laughingly replied: “I hardly know. It is the only one I have, and it is promised; but I will have some more soon. I promised it to my uncle in exchange for his, which I wear in my locket. By the by, girls, would you believe he could have changed so much in three years ? I should hardly have known him when he came to the school to see me had I not been expecting him. He was so deeply in love ■qyith all of you that I suppose I shall have to call you all aunties. He made me promise when he gave me my locket and my ring that I would give him a good picture; but, never satisfied with any that have been taken of me, I have never done so. But there is a good artist, brother tells me, at home.”

Jack leaned across the way and said, with fun and earnestness strangely blended, “May I carry your ‘traps’ the rest of my life ?” The girls tried to look unconscious, but it was useless. It was too ludicrous, and peal after peal of hearty laughter rung out on the air, and made a spiteful old maid, sitting a few seats away, say crossly, “A lot of school-girls, who don’t know how to behave, making fun of their betters.” But after awhile Jack changed places with Eff'e, and when they were all worn and tired out, with tb» authority and right that seemed but natural, he qu'etly unstripped the gray shawl and wrapped it about the little woman, who leaned close to him and let h m fix her head comfortably near his shoulder. She seemed to have lost her old, independent ways, and let Jack wait upon her as if he had never declared “he despised a woman who could not take care of herself.” So much easier is it to preach than practice. The girls were delighted,and showed their joy by first hugging .lack and then Miss (. arlton, winding up with a modest petition to the former happy personage for more “chocolate cream,” which was so abundantly answered that they were in a state of bliss for hours. They gave Jack up readily, only pleading for the uncle, who had been a skeleton at the feast for so long, protesting that they must have somebody to love, now that dear old John was to be taken from them, and with groans and laments of most woeful grief they consigned him to the care of Miss Carlton, avlio insisted that they only wanted to get rid of him so they might bewitch another. But Jack only laughed and said: “I told you I’d marry the first woman who traveled without a bushel of baggage, and I am going to.”