Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 December 1896 — JENNY. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

JENNY.

<( y DUNXO what in creation to git I your ma for Christmas, Mindy, 1 and Jason Hogarth looked at his daughter inquiringly as if expecting her to suggest some suitable gift. But she was busy at that moment testing the condition of a cake in the over by thrusting a broom srraw into it. and when she had risen to her feet her father said: “I got her a nice silk umbrel’ with a silver handle las' Christmas; paid four dollars an' seventy-nine cents for it; IT! be switched if she's had it out o the case it come in but one solitary time, an' then she knowed it wa'n’t go in to rain. Beats all how savin’ your ma is of things. There's the silk dress pattern I got ’er two years ago this Christmas, not even made up yit. 1 want to git her something this Christmas that she 11 have to use an’ enjoy. What km you suggest. Mandy?" “Ton want me to tell you what to get for ma a Chrisnn.'.s gift, pa?" “Test blamed if 1 know what to git?” *T can tell yon in one word, pa. - ’ “Ton kin? Well. I’D git'it if it don’t tcs>e at too high a ugger.. Never had bet:n crops in my life thin 1 had this year. Tort ma ckne her fail share o’ work an’ 1E anmens 'o git i:‘r something real hams, r e for Christmas. What shall it lie™ His daughter looked at him steadily for a moment and thea sill slowiy and d-s----tir-cti j: “Jenny “• a snUen 'an took the place of the kindly smile on his wrinkled face. His eyea sashed ominously and his voice was harsh and cold ns he said: “Haven't I t .■ J yon, Mandy .Tenness, never to mention that name to me?” *1 kntw that you have,” replied Mandy with gathering courage; “but I never Ba : d that I wouldn’t oo it, and when you asked me what I Thought mail like best for Christmas. I just told you what I knew she'd like She’d rather haTe tnv sister Jenny than anything money can buy. I firmly believe, pa, that ma is shortening her days grieving for Jenny. She just is! I’m going to say my say while I’m at it, whether you like it or not. I know that I owe you respect, but I owe my own and only sister something, too, and one duty is just as important os the other. If I——” “Wait a rniuit, Mandy,” her father said, rising and buttoning up his overcoat. “When your sister Jenny disgraced the family by up an’ running away with Will Martin an’ marryin’ into that good-for-nothin’ Martin family, I said that I’d never own her as my daughter ag’in, an’ I never will. I said that she should never cross my threshold agin, an’ she never shall.” “I know that the Martins are a poor, shiftless lot, an’ that Will was as trifling' as any of ’em. Like enough it was horn in ’em to be so. But there never was anything bad about’ em, and he’s dead an’ gone now. An’ when I think of poor Jenny workin' the way she has to work over there in Hebron to support herself an’ her two little children, an’ you with plenty an’ to spare, I know it isn’t right, an’ if we weren’t so poor ourselves an’ if my husband’s invalid mother didn’t have to live with us, I’d bring Jenny an’ her children right here to live.” “I’d never darken your door ag’in if you did.” “I guess ma would. It’s a burning shame, pn, that you won’t even let her go to Hebron to see Jenny. It’s killing ma. It’s wicked. If I was ma I’d go no matter what you said.” “Your ma knows very well that she’d have to go for good if she went at all,”

replied her father coldly. “You an’ Tom'll be over to eat dinner with us Christmas, - I s’pose?’’ “Yes, I s’pose so.” They parted with manifest stiffness of manner on both sides. “Set! set! set!”' said Mrs. Jenness, as her father walked out of the yard and down the road toward his own home. “The Bettest man that ever walked the earth! I wouldn’t stand it about Jenny if I was mother. She’s dying to see Jenny’s babies, an’ I just b’leeve that, father’d soften if he saw ’em once. If I dared I’d fix it so he should see those two dear little tots once!” It was dark when Jason Hogarth reached his house. He walked around to the rear, where streams of cheery light shone from the kitchen windows. A pleasant odor of frying ham greeted him as be entered the kitchen, where a table 1 with a snowy cloth was set for supper* close to the shining kitchen stove. ..ia “It was so chilly in the dining-room, I thought we’d eat supper out here,” said his wife, a small, slight, gray-haired woman. “I enjoy eatin’ in the kitchen of a cold night like this,” said her husband. “It’s gittin’ colder fast. Supper ’bout ready?” “Yes; I’ll take it right up.” < They talked little while they ate. Jason was inwardly rebellious over what he called his daughter’s “impudence,” and Mrs. Hogarth’s thoughts could not he given utterance, because they were of Jenny. “I must go 4p to the attic an’ git out the butrio robes,” said Mr. Hogarth, pushing his chair away from the table. *TH start so early In the mornln’ I won’t hav« time to git the robes then. I guess

m put right off for bed soon as I git the robes. I’ve got to be off by 5 o’clock.” Five minutes later he was in his musty, cob webbed old attic, candla in hand. When he had found the robes he said to himself: “Wonder if my big fur muffler ain't up here in some o’ them trunks? I’ll need it if it’s cold as I think it’ll be in the morning. Mebbe it’s in this trunk. He dropped on one knee before a small old hair-covered trunk, with brassheaded nails that had lost their duster years ago. Throwing up the trunk fid. he held the candle lower. His eye fell on a big rag doll with a china head. He picked it up and stared at it a moment. His mind went back to a Christmas long years ago. He was a poor young married man then, and he had worked nearly all day at husking corn for a neighbor, to earn money to buy that doll head, and his wife had sat up until midnight to make the clumsy body stuffed with sawdust. He remembered how his little Jenny had shrieked with joy when she found the doll in her stocking the next morning. The candle in his hand shook strangely as he bent lower over the trunk and brought forth a tiny china cup with “From Papa” on it, and a little sampler with “God bless father and mother” worked in rather uncertain letters by a little hand.

There was a string of blue glass beads that he had given her on her fifth birthday and in a heavy black case was a daguerreotype of her with the beads around her neck. The little pictured face smiled up at him from the frame and there was a mist before his eyes when he thought of how many, many times those bare little arms had tightened in a warm embrace around his neck, and of how many times those smiling lips had kissed him and said: “I love you best of anybody in all the world, farver.” Everything in the trunk was a reminder of his little Jenny in her baby days. He sat down on the floor beside the trunk and took the things out one by one, the stern look in his face softening and his heart growing warmer. It was 9 o’clock when he went back to the kitchen. His wife looked up from the weekly paper she was reading and said: “Why, Jason, you ain’t been up in the attic all this time? I s’posed you’d come down an’ gone to bed long ago. How husky your voice is. I’m ’fraid you took cold up there in the attic. What ever were you doing up there all this time?” “Oh, just lookin’ over some old things. I didn’t take any cold. Better go to bed,

jMarthy, if you’re bent on gittin’ up at 4 In the mornin’.” • • • *- * * * • i "Why, Jason, how’d you happen to come in at the front door?” It was 9 o’clock at night, bitterly cold mod stormy, and Christmas Eve. Jason

had just come home from Hebron. His wife had heard him drive into the barnyard and had made haste with her supper that it might be ready and hot when he came in. She had also bathed her eyes hastily in cold water that he might not know that she had been crying. Her heart had been so heavy with thoughts of Jenny. “How’d yon happen to come in at the front door?” she asked. *T 0U mustn’t ask questions so near Christmas time,” he said in a voice so light and joyous and jovial that she looked up quickly. He picked up a lamp and said: “I want to go into the parlor a minute before supper.” A moment later he called out cheerily: “Come in here an’ see your Christmas gift. ma. It’s such a beauty I can’t wait until morning.” When she reached the open door of the parlor she saw her husband on his knees between a little boy of about 4 years and a little girl of 2, his arm around their waists. A little woman, with a thin, pale, tear-stained face showing beneath her cheap little mourniug bonnet, was standing behind Jason. “Why—why—Jenny!” “And this is Waiter Jason, named for me, and this is Marthy Isabelle, named for you,” said Jason joyously.

“Come, come, ma; stop huggin’ an’ cryin’ over Jenny an’ take a look at your gran’-children. What do you say to them for a Christmas gift?” She knelt down and took them in her arms, saying incoherently: “Jenny—Jason—oh, dear—l—l—you dear, dear little things! Gran’ma's babies! You darlings! Y'ou darlings! You’re the best gift, the sweetest gift, the dearest gift in all the world! The little peace child that came to Bethlehem was not dearer to his mother than you are to me. Kneel right down here by me. Jenny an’ Jason, an’ let me thank the Christ who was born on Christmas day for this anN for the beautiful Christmas there will be under this roof tomorrow!”

“I CAN TELL YOU IN ONE WORD.”

GRAN' MA'S BABIES.