Jasper County Democrat, Volume 6, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 March 1904 — SIMPLE JUSTICE [ARTICLE]

SIMPLE JUSTICE

Joshua Everitte was a very just man. He prided himself upon it and eahrled himself accordingly. If there were a dispute between his neighbors, he, like Solomon, was always called in to settle it, which he did indiscriminately and with justice. But there came a time when Justice and Joshua Everitte refused to acknowledge each other. This was when his young and only daughter wished to wed. Jenny Everitte was a very sweet and pretty girl, and it was not surprising that Harry Eld ridge, young, handsome and appreciative of feminine beauty, should 'fall in love with her or that she should reciprocate his affection. Now, among Deacon Everitte’s other qualities and peculiarities, which were not few, he, like other men, having his full slinre of these latter, were an uncomfortably strong will and a still stronger dislike for city people in general and city young men in particular. Harry Eldridge was from the city. That, therefore, was sufficient cause, in the deacon's opinion, for liis refusnl to sanction a marriage between him and Jenny. In vain did the young girl beseech and entreat her stern sire to relent, appealing at last to ids love of Justice In hopes that the quality upon which he prided himself might win him over. But here the deacon was more inexorable than ever. Justice! .Was he not exercising it now in its fullest degree? Was it Justice to allow a fine girl to throw herself away upon a city whippersnapper? Decidedly not That was Injustice- rank Injustice, He would never be guilty of such an act. "But, father, I love him,” pleaded the girl as with clasped hands and wet eyes she stood before this arbiter of Justice, seeing no signs of relenting in the hard, set face before her And which grew harder still at these words. Love! What was love? A hallucination. a mere idiosyncrasy of the human mind, fevered imagination, excited by something pleasing to the eye, a delusion 'which soon vanished when the object which occasioned it departed; sheer nonsense, of which young people were prone to be guilty once in their lives, but which, when they grew older and therefore more sensible, they would scorn to indulge in. Thus reasoned the stern old deacon, sending the young lovers to the depths of woe by Ills set refusal to their pleas. But “love will find a way” and laughs mockingly at locksmiths, even though they be in the form of a stern deacon. In tills case love* cunningly turned the tables against this autocrat and used his argument to its own advantage. The attempted assassination of a millionaire by an anarchist, his ownership, of vast wealth being the cause, gave love its victory and the deacon his defeat, he having expressed himself very strongly on the subject in the presence of the lovers, maintaining it nn outrage and declaring that a man's savings were his own, lie the accumulation an honest one, and which any man with a spark of justice would acknowledge. “You, then, believe that what a man saves is his own?” questioned Harry Eldridge, while a gleam of triumph brightened his eye. “Most certainly, sir; most certainly,” replied the deacon. “What n man saves is his own decidedly, and no man, sir, no uiun has a right to believe otherwise.” The lovers exehang ed glances and a few minutes later were deep in a whispered converse behind the barn. That afternoon Joshua Everitte and bis daughter drove down to the sound, she with the Intention of taking a dip and he of watching her. Scarcely had she donned her bathing suit when Harry - Eldridge appeared upon the scene similarly attired. He, however, did not go Into the water, but, seating himself some little distance away and ©ut of sight of the deacon, watched his sweetheart as she swam and floated about as light and graceful as a swan. Suddenly she threw up her arms and, struggling for a moment, snnk beneath the water. Deacon Everitte shouted and rushed forward as fast as toe could Just as she rose a second time, struggling as before. The poor old man w r rung his hands in despair, but no one was in sight, and he was on the point of going into the water himself despite his rheumatism when Harry Eidridge dashed by and, plunging in, reached her just as she rose for the last time and amid the cries of her father brought her safely' to the shore. Joshua Everitte, after assuring himself

that site still lived, grasped the young man’s hand, begging to know what be could do to repay him for his noble act. “Give your cqnsent to our marriage, as your daughter now belongs to me," was the answer. "Belongs to you, sir! How so?” demanded the deacon, himself again at these words. “Did you not say this morning that what a man saves is his own?” a reply which caused the deacon's face to grow purple as he heard his own argument thus turned against him; but he bad to answer “Yes.” “Then,” wickedly continued the young man, "don’t you think as I saved her life she rightly belongs to me?” And Joshua Everitte, with his love of justice, wai forced to acknowledge that she did.—New Y'ork Press.