Jasper County Democrat, Volume 22, Number 61, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 October 1919 — To the Old Men’s Home [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

To the Old Men’s Home

By B. B. HACKLEY

(Copyrlskt, l»l». by thV McClur. M»w»pap«r Synaieata.) "I tell you. Herndon, Tm getting tired of having an old nuisance around. As dependent as a baby, and still acting like things belonged to him! Yesterday he took a half-peck of those October peaches, rd Intended to dry, to tl\ose dirty Bryce children! Isn’t there a poorhouse or an institution of some kind we could get him into? Answer me, Herndon Copeland I” Young Mrs. Copeland sat on *the porch of the great old queer-winged, red brick country house, her nervously energetic hands peeling peaches. A handsome old man, bearing himself with an gir of stateliness that comported well with the goldheaded cane that lay across his knees, sat on the stile in front of the bouse. The low-spoken answer of the husband did not reach him. “Yes, the home for old men would be more respectable than the poorhouse,” the.woman went on, “but who wants to pay that hundred dollars or so entrance fee?” Old Allen Gifford had been brought up on a Louslana plantation, and, when he had married his young wife had brought him, unwillingly enough on his part, to her home in the Blue Grass. Why he married Myra Herndon, the handsome girl wintering in the South, he never knew, unless it was that when his heart was bleeding over his broken engagement to Marie Balquet, and the rumor of her coming marriage, he was easy prey. Myra had not been unkind to him. She had not sympathized with his vagaries, but she had treated them with tolerance; she had not troubled him in his taste for curios and antiques, and

when his fortune was gone, through his mistaken kindness to a friend, she had used hers for their maintenance without overmuch upbraiding. When Myra was gone and her property, entailed, had fallen to her nephew, Herndon Copeland, there was nothing else for Allen to do but to stay with Herndon. x For some months he had been quite happy. Old Joanna, the housekeeper and cook, waited on him agreeably and patiently; Herndon kept him supplied with Havanas and a little pocket mongy. He still rode across the country when he liked, he collected his curios without mental apology to anyone. Then Herndon had married Sophia Vail. A fortnight'after she came Into the house she unceremoniously removed Alien’s ancient candlestick, his bits of stone, his coins and his sharks’ teeth from the parlor to an old outbuilding. He almost wept when he found a treasured bit of heavy crystal from the hot springs of Arkansas tak’en for a prop to a chicken coop. Then the young bvlde dent away black Joanna and cared for the house and cooked the meals herself. Allen no longer had his hot water brought to his room, his chocolate and his hot biscuits for breakfast. » Sophia declared that coffee and toast Were quite sufficient for all her family, and that those who lived with her might wait on' themselves, as she did. Old Allen was troubled. The ladles of his household had always required servants; they had always been hospitable, generous, thoughtful of the old. No one of them would have dreamed of sending a relative to an Institution of charity. A slow tear —the tear of old age hurt —crept out on Allen’s cheek. He felt In his pocket for a handkerchief, and drew but with It a crumpled newspaper he bad picked up on the road that morning. He wiped his eyes and adjusted his glasses. To his surprise, the paper was a copy of a southern dally, and on Its cover was a picture of the St Charles hotel. He drew ,a/ Quick

oreath. He had not seen the SL Charles since his brother Hubert! wedding party went to New Orleans, thirty, forty, or was it forty-five yean back? x It was the fashion then for other young folk to accompany the newly married ones on their wedding journey. He and Marie Balquet had been of the party —brown-eyed Marie, whose grace and vivacity had enchanted his heart, and of whom, even now, when he ' was old—sixty-nine—he could not think without a quickening of bls pulses. Their quarrel was over a red rose he had given her; that she had taken from her belt and lightly presented to the best man—a mere nothing, when one looked back. Oh, to go back home where he had known her—once more to see the old cypress trees under wh|ch he had kissed her; to gather a handful of lavender x water-hyaeinths from the bayou, as they had so often done together in the old days—before—before they sent him to the Home for Old Men 1 "They’Ve old men’s homes in Louisiana as well as here,” Allen murmured an hour later as he bridled Major, his horse. "I shall “put. by one hundred of the two hundred Felix Sommers will give me for Major to pay the admission fee, to—to an old men's home in my own state; and tomorrow I shall go home.” __ In the late afternoon two days later the decorators, working in the parlors of the St Charles hotel in preparation ,for a great reception that was to folthe wedding of a young Engllshm»n to a city belle, saw an old man stop before an old-time mirror. “It’s the very same glass,” the old gentleman murmured, tapping the face of the great mirror, that held near its frame a flaw or two, where with the years the quicksilver had begbn to slip, “the very same that over my shoulder showed me the little affair of the rose. Wicked thing, why have they kept yon?” “He’d fit on Royal,” observed one of the decorators to a companion. Allen heard him. “I’m in the way here,” "he thought; "11l go down on Royal and look at the curios.”

On the narrow old street, at the door of the largest antique shop, AMen stood aside to let a little white-haired lady, with brown eyes that were sparklingly bright, enter before him. "I had almost forgotten the old gold chain I had Intended for one of my granddaughter’s wedding gifts,” she said to the proprietor. “Let me see the chains qulekly, please; I’ve but a few minutes to spare. Indeed, I ought to be at home now, with but three hours between me and losing my all I” “And Celeste is going to England without you!” The antique dealer spoke with the air of an old friend. “Yes,” she faltered. "Godfrey insists that I go with them, but I’m too old to be transplanted. I must stay on here in my home, alone and lonely, until I am called.” "It is not as though you were podr,” the man consoled her. “No,” she answered; “if I were that Lessle would provide. But oh, Remond, what will my fortune and my great house be to me when I have no one I love to keep me company?” Allen could bear no more. Stumbling forward, he laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Marie—little one—look at* me 1” be cried. “Have you forgotten Allen?” “Come here, Sophy,” Herndon Copeland, standing by his mail box, called to his wife a few days later. “Read these, will you?” “These” were the notice of the marriage of Allen Gifford to Mrs. Marie Balquet Joubert, of New Orleans, and a letter. “My dear nephew,” ran the letter’s old-fashioned writing. “I left you to go to an old men’s home, but on my way I found it was my joyous privilege to go to an old lady’s instead.”

"Cherokee Strip.” The so-called “Cherokee Strip” was opened to white settlement in September, 1893. This entire Cherokee country wns net quite one-quarter of the old Oklahoma territory, being about 9,T00 miles in extent The Creek Indians ceded part of their domain in Indian territory to the United States government in 1866 for 30 cents an acre, and the Semiholes sold their entire holdings for half that price per acre. White men were pre-empted by law from settling on the Indian lands In that territory, and It -was unoccupied for a long time. In 1880 It was necessary to use troops tb drive white settlers out, who had stolen into the territory. On April 22, 1889, these lands were declared open for settlement. When these rich lands were opened for settlement, 20,000 people waited to cross the line when the signal was given.'

Sat on the Stile.