People's Pilot, Volume 4, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 December 1894 — THE TROUBLESOME LADY. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE TROUBLESOME LADY.

BY PAMENCE STAPLETON

COTxtawm yt'i&.U’TWUKX. CqJ

CHAPTER IX.—Concluded. She drew away from him indignantly. “I am not a child, Mr. Oliver, and you must not treat me as one. In some things, in suffering and worry, I am older than you are; and few women could come out unscathed from the horrors of that ranch. I did. I kept my reason because I was frivolous and had my little dog to love, and a "bright sunshiny day would chase all my night terrors away. I’d say, ‘Minny, it's good just to be alive.’ But always I have been afraid in the dark; when I was a child queer faces used to peer at me, faces circled in yellow light. As I grew older, I was more afraid of them, and slept in a lighted room. At the ranch Henri used to crawl up the porch and peer in the window with a mask on, until I shot one night; then it was not so funny. It amused him to torture me. I won’t tell you any more, because you can’t understand. But I shall not go to Denver. It would be a mockery.” “Dr. John telegraphed you need not —you must not come. Shall I tell you any more?” “No.” She rose and scattered the petals of one of her flowers on the carpet, brushing her dress with a trembling hand. “Nor will I put on black. I shall go home. What is my home, Mr. Oliver?” she cried, accusingly. “You have brought me here; I was domg your bidding. My aunt has left me; she has taken my baby. The man I married is dead; he has no interest in me but to haunt me. Everybody is gone. I who have made all the trouble im left to bear it alone. If she comes pack she will know of this —my being here; she will distrust me; even Dr. -ohn will. I seem to have grown old \nd wise, and, oh! so tired of the world!” “Come here, Minny,” he said, in a •trange tone. She started and looked mto his face. It had a different expression somehow, yet the gray eyes were very kind, and there was a tender *mile about his mouth. She hesitated, then she returned to the sofa, sitting

gingerly at the extreme end. He turned so as to face her, but sat no nearer. “Minny, we are both culprits—innocent ones. We have been punished long enough. If I thought—but lam twice your age, you have not been happy in bondage, and it would be bondage still, though a loving one. No red-haired young men in it, no wild journeys alone, no drawing back when once entered in. If I dared to dream, I would hope that you cared for me. I would say, Minny, I love you; letusgo .away from our troubles and have a long vacation. It is dreadful to talk Xhis way in the shadow of death, hut I cannot let you go back to Maine alone tr to the terrors there in that lonely ■house. I do not know where your vint is, or when she will return; and .f people should talk of this time, I pould silence them if you were my rife.** She was strangely quiet, but he saw the roses tremble on her breast. “You talk, Craig,” she said, sadly, “as if this were part of your sacrifice for helping me once, for being a kind friend.” “How cruel women can be—even the eweetest of them! How. can I be different, when I must remember the dead in Denver? Yet, Minny, I could talk love to yon; other women have

■aid I did that thing well, and I did not care fcr them; your little finger is more precious to me than all the women I have ever known.” She sighed and moved a little nearer, a blush on her fair cheek. “Even to touch you. to take your hand, seems dreadful,” he cried, hastily. “What a coward custom makes of us all! If it were a year, now, instead of a day. Let the worst come.” He took her cold little hand in his and drew her to his side. “Shall we go forth on our holiday, Minny, leaving no address, forgetting the past, and be as if the world were new and we but just created?” “You talk nicely now,” she said, slowly, holding herself er.ct and stately in spite of his restraining hand, “but you said bondage, and that has frightened me. I have been scolded so much and driven about; I want to be loved and made a friend of. If you would be as sweet as on that ride, if you—” He drew her close and pressed his lips against that soft round cheek, blushing so prettily now. “Try me, Minny. I swear to you those dear eyes shall never shed tears from any word or act of mine. I have loved you since you came out in the light that dismal night and I thought you a little girl.” “And I loved you,” she whispered, lifting her tousled head from his arm, “when you looked so disgustedly amazed at things in that ranch that I told you, and all of a sudden smiled on me as you are smiling now. Craig, I mean to try and be grown-up and good always.” “No, no; just be yourself. And, now, dear, go smooth your hair and get your things on. We will be married in the quietest way. I know a couple of fellows I can get for witnesses; we can pick them up on the road.” She jumped up. all rosy and smiling. At the door she looked back. “May I take the dog, Crai/J ?” she said, hesitatingly. He smiled. “Of course,” he said, resignedly. “You don’t have to ask ‘may I?’ we are comrades, you know. By the way, tell the chambermaid to pack your trunk. Pay her. We will go away in the early afternoon. I want to be free from all memories.”

She kissed her hand as she ran away, and he, somewhat dazed at the turn matters had taken, lopked out on the street with unseeing eyes. In his heart, though, he was happy, deliriously so. He had loved her from the first, and there had been few holidays in his busy life. He would forget that ghastly specter lying at the morgue in Denver, and for months live for love. The world lay all before them; they would put the past by. “I will steal my happiness from life,” he cried. “Let the world condemn me. I can fight her battles; and no man knowing my story and hers, seeing her frightened, tortured by that maniac’s memory, would do otherwise than I do now.” Mrs. Minny appeared in her jaunty traveling-suit, her sealskin jacket, a dainty dotted veil over her hat, and her dog under her arm. “I never get married like other people,” she said, cheerfully. “Look at ‘me in these clothes; and the other time I had on an old dress, too.” Oliver winced. “Perhaps at the third you’ll have better luck, my pet.” “I have said something awful, I suppose,” she laughed, “butl am so happy I don’t care, and I said good-by to that ghost room. Oh, I’m so glad I’ve got somebody alive to be with!” “I believe you are going to marry me out of fear,” he said, as they drove along in the carriage. “You don’t think that, sweetness,” she said, contentedly; “and you have got your lovely look. You always were like a man out of a novel to me. A city bachelor, Aunt Hannah says. Won’t she be surprised? but, do you know, she said I had leanings towards you all the time?” Mrs. Minny was very reserved when the two strange gentlemen joined them, and when the marriage service was being read trembled a little, until Skye yawning dolefully—he had not slept well, poor dog, in the hotel cellar—made her smile, and she was radiant when the solemn ceremony was over. They were married in a shabby parsonage of an out-of-the way church, by an underfed parson in threadbare clothes, and Minny’s generous heart rejoiced when she caught a glimpse of a fifty-dollar bill Oliver paid for the few moments’ talk that meant so much —the ceremony that is, after all, the strongest link in the chain of human happiness. Oliver had told his two friends something of the events preceding this strange marriage, so they were tactful enough to say the right things at the little dinner the four had in the very private room where Minny had eaten the day before. Skye behaved pretty well, and the only cloud on his mistress’ brow was when one of the strangers stupidly asked if the dog was going on the wedding trip. “Of course,” she said, decidedly. “Of course,” echoed Oliver, meekly, and the two guests smiled the old, old smile of the married man Who knows. “It was a little like Hamlet,” Minny whispered when she and her husband, and of course the dog, drove to the depot—“the wedding-feast." He laid his finger Lightly on her lips. “Sweet, there are things best unsaid.” “You will find me so full of faults,” she sighed, in remarkable meekness. “Skye, give me your paw; this is your new papa, and if he gets cross, why, I can pet you. It will be no new experience to you, unhappy dog.”

Then Oliver laughed and hugged her. “What a child you are!” he laid. At the depot he sent a telegram to Dr. John: “I have married Mrs. de Restaud. We are off on a trip, and want to hear nothing from Denver. Toll my clerks I won’t te home for four months. Have sent word to Jones & Bailey to take my casta lam happy, and she is divine. We have the dog along. "Craig Ouna” When, after two months’ absence. Oliver telegraphed Dr. Jehn to forward his mail to St. Augustine, the first letter he opened was cm addressed te

himself from Newcastle, Mb Mrs. Minny leaned on his as he read: “Drab Mb. Oliver: The first thing I saw on my getting home from Paris, France, was a letter In my niece Minay’s unreadable handwriiing, which she says is Italian, but is as hard to read as •» picket fence. I would have wrote right away, but the bouse was In such * muss from shiftless people—l left some Baileys in charge of it—that 1 bad to turn to and go to housecleanlag before I could live in the place. I made out that Minny is married to you. and most likely on tho very day her first busband was being buned. Ido hope folks here won’t leara of it; my family has given tho village more to talk about than they ever had before, and they are dragging me over the coals now. Most of ’em knows I’ve been to France, and they pester me to death Inquiring round. “I guess you about felt obliged to marry Minay to take care of her, and I foresee she set a store by you be ore her first husband died. I was right, too, in questioning you about her. Well, folks’ ways is different nowadays. If I’d had Niece Minny’s bud luck with one man I never should have taken another ona” (Oliver looked back.lnto the rosy face leaning over his chair. “Well, Minny?” “You dear thing.” cooed Mrs. Minny, with a soft little kiss, “she don’t dream how lovely

you are: Read on. 1 don’t care. Aunt Hannah's letters are like cold shower baths—they send chills all over you and little stings, but make you feel good afterwards.”) . “I am sure, though, you, being well on in years, can regulate Minny’s conduct, and be stern with her, too. Mrs. Poole is mighty bitter towards Minny for her goings-on with Sam and says he’s taking to smoking cigars and playing billiards since she rodo with him and acted so flirtatiously. But Minny didn’t do much.” (“Aunt Hannah’s relenting,” laughed Mrs. Minny.) “And that Poole boy ain't half baked, anyway: none of the Pooles ever were. I want you to see that Minny wears her rubbers when it’s wet, and takes care of herself; for her mother's folks is weakly, and her mother died of consumption.” (Oliver drew his wife to his knee, and, dropping the letter, looked at her anxiously. “The Pattens are awfully long-lived,” she said, merrily. “Don’t be a goose. She didn’t think I would hear that, you know.” “I shall take you to Dr. John,” he said, seriously, “when wo get home.” “I like him so much!” she murmured. “In my trunk I nave his smok»ig-cap; I’ll give it back, now I have you. I kept it to remember our ride by.’’ Oliver took up the letter again.) “I can’t have no regrets that Mr. de Restaud is dead. He was a dreadful profitless man to everybody, and made Minny unhappy enough. I hope he had change of heart afore he died in that asylum; but Dr. John wrote he didn’t know anything. It was good of Dr. John to go there and stay by him; there ain’t, to my mind, many men angels walking about on earth, but the doctor’s one of ’em. Before I forget it, bring him with you when you come down next summer, as I hope you will come, Mr. Oliver, for I set a store by you on account of your kindness to the poor child.” (“You see she pats you on the back now,” chirped Mrs. Minny.) "Before I close my letter I must tell you about my visit to Paris, France: and. though it seemed heartless to take Frankie away, Minny is honest about it and she will tell you I done right I was mortal afraid Henry would steal him off, and, as ho is a croupy child, ho would get his death; so I just took him myself across ocean to Henry’s folks. Iwa'n't much sick on the voyage, nor the baby, but was bothered most in France on account of folks not understanding me. Howsomever. there was some Philadelphia people along that 1 got acquainted with, and they set me right, for they could talk with the French. Finally, when I got to the general’s house, coming In a cab that charged a mortal bill for waiting, on account of me being interested in talking, I found the general in—a fine old man, too, and he could talk English reasonable well. lup and told him every thing, keeping Frankie on my lap: ‘Now,’ says I, ‘if you don’t want this poor little child and treat him as your own, I take him to my home, for I’m well-to-do, and the little creetur’s growed into my affections.’ Goodness me, ho knowed most of it, that man Lewis having kept him informed. He set right down and talked friendly as possible, said Minny ought to have come to him, he would treat her as a daughter; then his eyes filled with tears,and he took little Frankie In his arms, and told me their Alphonse was dead, and his eldest son’s wife was a helpless invalid who wept night and day. I took my things and went upstairs with him to her room—such a grand house!—and there she was a pale little creetur, that could only jabber in French; but baby smiled on her—babies knows any language—and she shook hand? kind with me, and the upshot of the matter was I stayed two weeks in their house, till Frankie got acquainted with the new nurse. I forgot to tell you I never thought of that cab till I was eating dinner three hours afterwards, and I jumped right up and was running out, but Henry’s brother, a respectable, sol-emn-looking man, sent one of the help out, and a bill there must have been, but he wouldn’t let me settle. 'Fore I left, news of Henry's death come and upset them all, and then Lewis and Annette was expected, and as I didn’t want to see them two—especially him —I went away. They sent a cordial invite for Minny to come, but I told them I guessed she'd like America best, as I do. where you can tell what folks say when they are talking. “The general give me to understand they would legally adopt Frankie,.and I told ’em you would sign any documents—as I know you would—for the boy's sake He will have a fine property some dav. I was awful lonesome going home. My old arms was empty and I cried myself to sleep lots of nights. “I will now elose. Be good to Minny, Mr Oliver, and come down early and stay all summer. Yours to command, "Hannah Patten.” Sometimes, as the years glide by, Mrs. Minny’s arms are empty, too, and her heart yearns for the little baby over the sea. No other child has come to her, and her husband frowns at the mention of a journey to France; he is ; jealous of even the little hold the lost baby has on her affections; so there is a thorn in her bed of roses. Skye, too, is old and sleepy; or is it herself who has no desire for play? Is she becoming grown-up and different? Will he love her just the same, perhaps more? He must tire of her childishness. But he does love her, and so fondly Oliver, on his part, saw the decay of his political prospects with calmness. He heard one day at the club something they did not wish him to hear. A knot of men were discussing the possibility of his securing the nomination for governor in the coming election. ’‘Never in the world.” said one of hie

friends. “There is some story about his wife; she does not go in society at all—a pretty little thing. I wonder, though, how a man can throw away his future for a pretty face.” “What was wrong?” asked another. “I'm not sure,” answered the first. “I do know he married her the day after her husband—that crazy French fellow De Restaud—died, and that he ran away with her one night from her homo up in the North park. Oliver had a shooting-box there. You couldn’t make him governor; regular exodus of our wives to the east; they never would call on her.” The words stung Oliver a little; but that evening, when his wife went to meet him at the door, wearing a little yellow gown, too. as in that night in the past, with Skye at her heels, he smiled in content. How infinitely small were all honors men might give man beside the real heart-happiness of love! He thought he would rather be married than be president; and he blessed the kindly fate that led him to the valley of the Troublesome and the little Troublesome lady there. THE END.

MRS. MINNY LEANED ON HIS SHOULDER.

BUT HE DOES LOVE HER, AND SO FONDLY.