Jasper County Democrat, Volume 13, Number 68, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 December 1910 — A THANKSGIVING [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

A THANKSGIVING

That Had Been Made the Happier by a Long Separation.

By SADIE OLCOTT.

[Copyright, 1510, by American Press Association,] Some people have given up the notion that there is a real devil. 1 know that there is, and 1 know it from my own experience. He got into me once so bad that before I could get him out be had broken up the“\v6ole family. I mean my s family—my Mark, myself and our children. Mark, and I were brought up on adjoining farms. He was the likeliest young man in the neighborhood, and a good many of the girls were trying to get him. Amelia Jones was the hungriest of the lot for him and was bound that if she couldn’t get him no one else should. 1 knew she was watching him like a cat. and the way I found it out was this: We were at a cornbusking. She and Dau Tomkins were sitting on the heap of corn to be husked, and Mark and I were sitting near them. Mark struck a red ear and kissed me. Amelia was looking straight at us, and you should have seen the look on her face! It was just as if a rattlesnake was coiled for a spring. I was a fool or I would after this have known that she would strike me. whenever she could. There was a barn dance the evening before Thanksgiving. and Mark danced nearly every dance with me. But Amelia by this time saw how matters were going and pretended not to care how they went. But she was working against me underhanded. She didn't dream, though, that when Mark took me home from

the dance when Thanksgiving day was dawning in the east what he was saying to me. But even if she had known it she’d have tried to break it up. Mark and I were engaged just one year. Amelia tried a number of times to make a break between us, but every time we found out that she was at the bottom of what was told Mark about me. and so there was no harm done. Besides. Mark trusted me implicitly. We concluded to be married on Thanksgiving day. just one year from the time when Mark asked me to be his wife. , The summer before we were married Mark was building a house for us to live in. An uncle had given him a little farm, but there was no house on it, and Mark spent the whole summer getting it ready. He bad a man to

THE DINNER OUR REUNITED FAMILY ATE. help him till he got the framework up. Then he did the rest of it himself. We planned it together, and I took ten limes the interest in it that I would have taken if it had been built by others. I was busy most of the time making up what we would need in the way of bedding and table linen. The house wasn’t quite finished by Thanksgiving day. but it was fairly comfortable. Besides, it Was nice to finish up when we were in it. We were married Thanksgiving morning, and I cooked our first Thanksgiving dinner myself. Mark and I ate ‘ it alone. We wanted to be alone. After the children came we didn’t want to be alone, but we did at this, first Thanksgiving dinner. We ate together. It was a very happy day. but I don’t think it was so happy as when we had 'a lot of little ones at the table with us. Anyway, it wasn't the same kind of happiness. Ten years passed without any trouble whatever, then a lot of it all came at once. A letter came one day for Mark addressed in a woman's band. Either of us opened the family letters, and I opened this mighty quick. It was from some one I’d never heard of. but was all about things that had been happening between her and Mark for .a long while. I was so wild when I read it that I couldn’t absorb anything in particular except the end. which was, “With a thousand kisses, ‘your loving.” etc. That was the time when the devil got into me. I just pinned the letter on a cushion, took the children and went >lght over to mother’s, leavings note for Mark saying I never wished to see him again.. As soon as I got quieted down I thought, after all. there was a slight chance that there might be some mistake. Then I waited for Mark to come .and at least try to .make an explanation. But Mark didn't come. Then I was frightened for fear he had gone away wtth the woman who had written him the letter. I went to the house to see if he bad

left any message for me. 1 found the bouse just as I had left it. I Went in and looked about for a note. I did not find anything at all from Mark. Then it rushed over me all at once what • fool I had lieem J had simply given way to the other woman. 1 bad left everything in a state of uncertainty. If 1 bad waited till Mark came home and showed him the letter he might have explained It. And yet I didn't see how he could. Months juissed and nothing came from Mark. One day in the next October I was walking along the road when who should 1 meet but Amelia Jones. She was unmarried and had become a skinny old maid with a sour face. She didn’t live near us any more, and I hadn’t seen ber for years. 1 doubt if I should have known her had it not been for the look she gave me. It was one of malicious triumph. ‘Oh. for the land’s sake!” I cried. “What hare 1 deme? I’ve gone and helped that viper to ruin me!” I saw it all now. She bad written the letter that had come for Mark. I cou'd have screamed. My first impulse was to turn and curse her. But she had gone on. and I hesitated. In a few minutes it occurred to me that if I charged her with the crime she would only sail away with her nose in the air. It would complete her revenge. 1 went liome and spent the rest of the day crying. I thought over the things about me she bad contrived to get to Mark’s ears when we were engaged and how he had told me of them. And bow. had I repaid him for his confidence? I had simply played into our enemy’s hands. Mark was a very high strung man. and doubtless my action in leaving him without giving him a chance to say a word in explanation and my having considered him guilty of the crime had killed bis love for me. If I could only know where he bad gone I would go to him on my knees.

I lived in hopes that Mark would some day come back to me. but he did not. The house remaini*d just as 1 had left it. Every Thanksgiving day I would go there hoping that, it being the anniversary of our wedding. Mark would relent and come back there. But he never came. There was a small income from some property he had Inherited from his father, and Mark before going away had given an order that this income should be paid to me. So I didn't suffer for funds. Mark bad been gone five years, and every year I bad gone to the house on Thanksgiving morning hoping to find him there. On the fifth anniversary I determined to go there the evening before Thanksgiving and sleep there. I lighted a fire on the hearth and sat in my little rocker that I used to ait in beside Mark before that very hearth. I drew his own big easy chair up beside me. And there 1 sat thinking of him and what a happy family we had been until I bad broken it up by my lolly. I blamed myself alone for falling into such an open trap. And, thinking. I cried myself to sleep.

I dreamed troubled dreams. First I was back at the husking’ with Mark. Amelia Jones was sitting near us on the pile of unbusked corn looking at us, and her eyes seemed like coals of fire. Then we were walking along the road running past the house. Mark was bending over me. telling me the story he bad told me years before. And I said: “This is mot really Mark. Mark went away, and I have never seen him since. And yet here he is walking beside me.” I woke up from this dream, my heart beating wildly. I didn't wish to go to bed. I feared I would lie awake for hours. So I took a book from a table near me and read. But I fell asleep again and recommenced my dreaming. This time 1 dreamed Mark came in and sat in his chair beside me. 1 awoke and what did I see? Why, Mark really sitting beside me. Had It not been for the reassuring smile on bis face I should have thought that what 1 saw was his ghost. I sprang toward him. and he took me in bis arms. ’.‘Oh, Mark!" I cried. “Have you forgiven me?” “Yes, I have forgiven you. and I have things to tell you. When 1 came home and found you and the children gone, the letter pinned to the cushion, I saw at a glance that Amelia Jones had come up after a long silence to strike us. I was angry—angry with you for falling into the trap, for not having confidence in me. I determined to go away forever. “But I pined for my home, my wife and my children. I was about to come back when I was drawn into a speculation. I concluded to wait for it to make me rich before returning. It took all I had put into it- I tried another and another till recently I struck what has paid me. Then I resolved to come back, forgive you. ask your forgiveness and unite our family.” i * > He went to the bureau, took the letter which had been for five years on the pincushion and. bringing it back with him, tossed it in the flame. “Burn!” he said, watching it as It shriveled. “You have made trouble enough. It would be well if there were a heavenly Are in which we could burn all past disagreements." Oh. the happiness of that moment! Though it was late, we went to mother’s. took the children from their beds and put them in their cribs at our own home. “ I had thought that no Thanksgiving dinner could be as happy as the one Mark and I had eaten together on the day of our wedding. But that one was nothing to the dinner our reunited family ate together otf the day after Mark burned the letter that had caused our separation. But it was a happiness that had been sharpened by years of pain.