People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 27-25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 January 1896 — Page 22

20

CHRISTMAS EVE.

By ANNA KATHARINE GREEN.

[Copyright, 1895, by American Press Association.] It was the last house at the end of Peaucli amp’s row, and it stood several tods away from its nearest neighbor. It. Was a pretty house in the daytime, but trwing to its deep, sloping roof and jgmall bedjamonded windows it had a lonesome Ibok at t ight, notwithstanding the crimson hall light which shone through the leaves of its vine covered doorway. ■f Ned Chi vers lived in it with his sis fcnomhs’ married bride, and as he was both a busy fellow and a gay one there were many evenings when pretty Lettry Olivers sat alone until near midnight. She was of an uncomplaining spirit, Jiowever, and said little, though there were times when both the day and evening seemed very long and married life pot altogether the paradise she had expected. On this evening—a memorable evening for her, the 24th of December, 1894 *—she had expected her husband to remain jAvitli her, for it was not only Christinas eve, but the night when, as manager of a large manufacturing concern, he brought up from ,New York the money with which to pay off the men on the next working day, and he neverleft her when there was any unusual amount of money in the house. But from the first glimpse she had of him poming up the road she knew that she was to be disappointed in this hope, and, indignant, alarmed almost, at the prospect of a lonesome evening under these circumstances, she ran hastily down to the gate to meet him, crying: “Oh, Ned, you look so troubled that I know you have only come homo for a hurried supper. But you cannot leave me tonight, for Tennie” (their only maid) “has gone for a holiday, and I never can stay in this house alone with that. ” She pointed to the small bag he carried, which, as she knew, was filled to bursting with banknotes. He certainly looked troubled. It is hard to resist the entreaty in a young bride’s uplifted face. But this time be could not hflp himself, and lie said : “I am dreadful sorry, but I must ride over to Fairbanks tonight. Mr. Pierson has given me an imperative order to conclude a natter of business there, and it is very important that it should be done. I should lose my position if I neglected the matter, and no one but Hasbrouck and Ho fieri i knows that we keep tli© money in the house. I have always given out that I intrusted it to Hale’s safe over night. ” “But I cannot stand it,’’ she persisted- “Yon have never left me on these nights. That is why I let Tennie go. I will spend the evening at The Larches, or, better still, call in Air. and Mrs. Talcott to keep me company. ” But her husband did not approve of her going out or of her having company. .The Larches was too.far away, and as for Mr. and Mrs. Talcott, t; y were meddlesome people, whom he had nev-

SHE BEGAN TO EMPTY IT.

er liked; besides Mrs. Taleott >vas delioate, and the night threatened storm. It seemed hard to subject her to this ordeal, and he showed that ho thought so ■by his manner, but as circumstances •were, she would have to stay alone, and he only hoped she would be brave and go to bed like a good girl, and think nothing about the money, which he would take caro to put away in a very safe place. “Or,” said he, kissing her downcast face, “perhaps you would rather hide it yourself; women always have curious ideas about such things. ” “Yes, let me hide it, ” she murmured. “The money, I mean, not the bag. Every one knows the bag. I should never dare to leave it in that. ” And begging him to unlock it, she began to empty it with a feverish haste that rather alarmed him, for he surveyed her anxiously and shook his head as if he dreaded the effects of this excitement upon her. But as he saw no way of averting it he confined himself to using such soothing words as were at his command, and then," humoring her weakness, helped her to arrange the bills in the place she had chosen, and restufling the bag with old receipts till it acquired its former dimensions, he put a few bills on top to makethe whole look natural, and, laughing at her white face, relocked the bag and put the key back in his pocket. “There, dear; a notable scheme and one that should relieve your mind entirely 1” he cried. “If anyone should attempt burglary in my absence and should succeed in getting into a house as safely locked as this will be when 1 leave it, then trust to their being satisfied when they see this booty, which I shall hide where I always hide it—in ,the cupboard over my desk. ” > “And wheu will you be back?” she murmured, trembling in spite of herself at these preparations. “By 1 o’clock if possible. Certainly lar 2.” .. - .r . . ; “And our neighbors go to bed at 10,”

she murmured. But the words were low, and she Was glad he did not hear them, for if it was his duty to obey the orders he had received, then it was her duty to meet the position in which it left her as bravely as. she could. At supper she was so natural that his face rapidly brightened, and it was with quite an air of cheerfulness that he rose at last to lock up the house and make such preparations as were necessary for his dismal ride over the mountains to Fairbanks. She nud the suppei dishes to wash up in Tennis’s absence, and as she was a busy little housewife she found herself singing a snatch of song as she passed back and forth from dining room to kitchen. He heard it, too, and smiled to himself as lie bolted the windows on the ground floor and examined the locks of the three lower doors, and when he

“WHO IS THERE?”

finally came into the kitchen with his greatcoat on to give her his final kiss, he had but one parting injunction to urge, and that was that she should lock the front door after him and then forget the whole matter till she heard his double knock at midnight. She smiled and held up her ingenuous face.

“Be careful of yourself,” she murmured. “1 hate this dark ride for you, and on such a night too. ” And she ran \?ith him to the door to look out. “It is certainly very dark,” he responded, “but I’m to have one of Brown’s safest horses. Do not worry about me. I shall do well enough, and so will you, too, or yon are not the plucky little woman I have always thought you. ” Sho laughed, but there was a choking sound in her voice, that made him look at her again. But at sight of his anxiety she recovered herself, and pointing to the clouds said earnestly : “It is going to snow. Be careful as yon ride by the gorge, Ned; it is very deceptive there in a snowstorm.” But he vowed that it would not snow before morning, and giving her one final embrace he dashed down the path toward Brown’s livery stable. “Oh, why do I feel so!” she murmured to herself as his steps died out in the distance. “I uid not know I was such a coward.” And she paused for a moment, looking up and down the road, as if in despite of her husband’s command she had the desperate idea of running away to some neighbor.

But she was too loyal for that, and j smothering a sigh slio retreated into the house. As she did so tho first flakes fell j of the storm that was not to have come , till morning. It took her an hour to get her kitoh-! en in order, and 9 o'clock struck beforej she was ready to sit down. She had been so busy she had not noticed how the wind had increased or how rapidly the snow was falling. But when she went to the front door for another glance up and down the road she started back, appalled at the fierceness of the gale aud at the great pile of snow that had already accumulated on the doorstep. Too delicate to breast such a wind, she saw herself robbed of her last hope of any companionship, aud sighing heavily she locked aud bolted the door for the night and went back into her little sitting room, where a great fire was burning. Here she sat down, and determined, now that she must pass the evening alone, to do it as cheerfully as possible, and so began to sew. “Oh, what a Christmas eve I’’ she thought, and a picture of other homes rose before her eyes, homes in which husbands sat by wives and brothers by sisters, and a great wave of regret poured over her and a longing for something, Bhe hardly dared say what, lest her unhappiness should acquire a sting that would leave traces beyond the passing moment. , The room in which she sat was the only one on the ground floor beside the dining room aud kitchen. It therefore ■was used both as parlor and sitting room, and held not only her piano, but her husband’s desk. Communicating with it was the tiny dining room. Between the two, however, was an entry leading to a side entrance. A lamp was in this entry, aud she had left it burning, as well as the one in the kitchen, that the house might look cheerful and as if all the family were at home. ,She was looking toward this entry, and wondering whether it was the mist made by her tears that made it look so dismally dark to her when there came a sound from the door at its elfd so faint that she could not determine its nature and yet so certainly not due to the wind that she felt her heart stand still and her feet grow paralyzed. Knowing that her husband had taken peculiar pains with the fastenings of this door, as it was the one toward the woods, apd therefore most accessible to wayfarers, she sat where she was, with all her faculties strained to listen. But no further sound oame from that direction, and after a few minutes of silent (error she was allowing herself to believe that she had been deceived by her

THE PEOPLE’S PILOT, RENSSELAEK, INI)., THURSDAY, JAN. 2, 1896.

fears wh«m she suddenly heard the same sound at the kitchen door, followed by a mu filed knock. Frightened now in good earnest, buc still alive to the fact that the intruder was as likely to be a friend as a foe, she stepped to the door, and with her, hand on the lock stooped and asked boldly enough who was there. But she received no answer, and more affected by this unexpected silence than by the knock she had heard she recoiled farther and farther till not only the width of the kitchen, but the dining room also, lay between her ami the scene of lipr alarm, when to lior utter confusion the noise shifted again to the side of the house, and the door she thought so securely fastened swung violently open as if blown in by a fierce gust, and she saw precipitated into the entry the burly figure of a man covered with snow and shaking with the shock of a storm that seemed at once to fill the house. Her first thought was that it was her husband come back, but before she could clear her eyes from the cloud of snow which had entered with him he had thrown off his outer covering and she found herself face to face with a man in whose powerful frame and cynical visage she saw little to comfort her and much to surprise and alarm. “Ughl” was liis coarse and rather familiar greeting. “A hard night, missus l Enough to drive any man indoors. Pardon for the liberty, hut I couldn’t wait for you to lift the latch ; the -wind drove me right in. ” “Was—was not the door locked?” she feebly asked, thinking he must have staved it in with his foot, that looked eminently fitted for the task. “Not much,” hechuckled. “I s’pose you’re too hospitable for that. ” And his eyes passed from her face to the comfortable firelight shining through the sitting room. “Is it refuge you want?” she demanded, suppressing as much as possible all signs of fear. “Sure, missus—what else! A man can’t live in a gale like that, specially after a tramp of 20 miles or more. Shall I shut ttfe door for you?” he asked, with a mixture of bravado and good nature that frightened her more and

! more. “I will shut it,” she replied, with a | half motion of escaping this sinister stranger by a flight through the night. But one glance into the swirling euow- ! storm deterred her, and making the best of the alarming situation she closed the door, hut did not lock it, being more afraid now of what was within the house than of anything that was now likely to enter from without, j The man, whose clothes were dripping water by this time, watched her with u cynical smile, and then, without any initiation, entered the dining room, crossed it and moved toward the ! kitchen fire.

‘ ‘ Ugh ! Ugh! But it is warm here I’ ’ he cried, his nostrils dilating with an animal like enjoyment that in itself was repugnant to her womanly delicacy. “Do you know, missus, I shall have to stay here all night? Can’t go out in that gale again; not such a fool. ’ ’ Then with a sly look at her trembling form and white face he insinuatingly added, “All alone, missus?” The suddenness with which this was put, togethor with the leer that accompanied it, made her start. Alone? Yes, but should she acknowledge it? Would it not be hotter to say that her husband was up stairs. The man evidently saw the struggle going on in her mind, for he chuckled to himself and called out quite boldly: “Never mind, missus; it’s all right. Just give me a bit of cold meat and a cup of tea or something, and we’ll be very comfortable together. You’re a slender slip of a woman to be minding a house like this. I’ll keep you company if yon don’t mind, leastwise until the storm lets up a bit, which ain’t likely for some hours to come. Rough night, missus, rough night.” “I expect my husband home at any time,” she hastened to say. And thinking she saw a change in the man’s countenance at this she put on quite an air of sudden satisfaction and bounded toward the front of the house. “There! I think I hear him now,” she cried. Her motive was to gain time, and if possible to obtain the opportunity of shifting the money from the place where she had first put it into another and safer one. “I want to be able,” she thought, “of swearing that I have no money with me in this house. If I can only get it into my apron I will drop it outside the door into the snowbank. It will be safer there than in any other bank.” And dashing into the sitting room she made a feint of dragging down a shawl from a screen, while she secret-

INTO A MOUND OF SNOW.

ly filled her skirt with the bills which had been put between some old pamphlets on the bookshelves. She could hear the man grumbling in the kitchen, but he did not follow her front, and taking advantage of the moment’s respite from his none too encouraging presence she unbarred the door and cheerfully called out her husband’s name; - ...

The ruse was successful She was enabled to fling the notes into a mound of snow, where they would soon he covered from sight, and then relieved and feeling more courageous, now that the money was out of the house, she went slowly back, saying she had made a mistake, and that it was the wind she had heard.

The man gave a gruff but kuowing guffaw and then resumed his watch over her, following her steps as she proceeded to set him out a meal with a persistency that reminded her of a tiger just on the point of springing. But the inviting look of the viands with which she was rapidly setting the table soon distracted his attention, and allowing himself one grunt of satisfaction he drew up a chair and set him Self down to what to him was evidently a most savory repast. “No beer; no ale. Nothing o’ that sort,'eh? Don’t keep a bar?” he growled, as his lips closed on a huge hunk of bread. She shook her head, wishing she had a little cold poison bottled up in a tight looking jug. “Nothing hut tea,” she smiled, astonished at her own ease of manner in the presence of this fearful guest. “ r 4Jien let’s have that, ” he grumbled, taking the howl she handed him, with an odd look that made her glad to retreat to the other side of the room. “Jest listen to the howling wind,” he went on between the huge mouthfuls of bread and cheese with-which he was gorging himself. “But we’re very comfortable, we two! We don’t mind the storm, do we?” Shocked by his familiarity and still more moved by the look of mingled inquiry and curiosity with which his eyes now began to wander over the walls and cupboards, she took an anxious step toward the side of the house looking toward her neighbors, and lifting one of the shades, which had all been religious-

ARMED WITH A CLUB.

ly pulled down, she looked out. A swirl of snowflakes alone confronted her. She could neither see her neighbors, nor could sho be seen by them. A shout from her to them would not he heard. Sho was as completely isolated as if the house stood in the center of a desolate western plain. “I have no trust but in God,” she murmured as she eame from the window. And, nerved to meet her fate, she went hack into the kitchen It was now half past 10. Two hours and a half must elapse before her husband could possibly arrive. Sho sot her teeth at the thought and walked resolutely back into the kitchen. “Are you done?” she asked. “I am, ma’am,” he leered. “Do you want me to wash the dishes? I kin, and I will. ” And he actually carried his plate and cup to the sink, where he turned the water upon them with another loud guffaw, as if enjoying her discomfort. “If only his fancy would take him into the pantry,” she thought, “Icould shut and lock the door upon him and hold him prisoner till Ned got back.” But his fancy ended its flight at the sink, and before her hopes had fully subsided he was standing on the threshold of the sitting room door. “It’s pretty here,” he exclaimed, allowing his eye to rove again over every hiding place within sight. “I wonder now”— He stopped. His glance had fallen on the cupboard over her husband’s desk.

“Well?” she asked, anxious to break the thread of his thought, which was fast calling up a demoniac expression to his gaunt, but powerful features. He started, dropped his eyes, and turning looked at her with a momentary fierceness. But, as she did not let her own glance quail, but continued to look at him with what she meant for a smile on her pale lips, he subdued this outward manifestation of passion, and, chuckling to hide his embarrassment, began backing into the entry, leering at her with what she felt was a most horrible smile. Once in the hall he hesitated, hesitated as it seemed to her for a long time; then he slowly went toward the garment he had dropped on entering and stooping down drew from underneath its folds a wicked looking stick. Giving a kick to the coat, which sent it into a remote corner, he bestowed upon her another smile, and still carrying tho stick went slowly and reluctantly away into the kitchen. “Oh, God Almighty, help me!” thought she. But there was nothing for her to do but endure, so throwing herself into a chair, she tried to calm the beating of her heart and summon up courage for the struggle which she felt was before her. That he had come to jrob and only ■waited to take her off her guard she now felt Certain, and rapidly running over in her mind all the expedients of self defense possible to one in her situation, she suddenly remembered the pistol which Ned kept in his desk. Oh, why had she not thought of it before 1 Why had she let herself grow mad with terror when here, within reach of her hand, lay such a means of self defense? With a feeling of joy (she had always

i hated pistols before and scolded Ned i when he bought this one) she started to her feet and slid her hand into the ; drawer. Rot it came back empty. Ned , had taken the weapon away with him. For a moment a surge of the bitterest j reeling she had ever experienced passed i over her; then she called reason to her ; aid and was obliged to acknowledge : that the act was but natural, and that | from his standpoint he was much more ! likely to need it than herself. But the I disappointment, coming so soon after hope, unnerved her, and she sank back in her chair, giving herself up for lost. How long she sat there with her eves on the door, where she momentarily expected her assailant to reappear, she never knew. She was conscious only of a sort of apathy that made movement difficult and even breathing a task. In vain she tried to change her thoughts. In vain she tried to follow her husband in fancy over the snow covered roads and- into the gorge of the mountains. But imagination failed her at this point. Do what she would, all was misty in her mind’s eye, and she could not see that wandering image. There was blankness between his form and her, and no life or movement anywhere but here in the scene of her terror. Her eyes were on a strip of rug that covered the entry floor, and so strange was the condition of her mind that she found herself mechanically counting the tassels that finished its edge, growing wroth over one that was worn, till she hated that sixth tassel and mentally determined that if she ever outlived this night she would strip them all off and be done with them. The wind had lessened, but the air had grown cooler and the snow made a sharp sound where it struck the panes. She felt it falling, though she had cut off all view of it. It seemed to her that a pall was settling over the world and that she would soon be smothered under its folds. Meanwhile no sound came from the kitchen, only that dreadful sense of a doom creeping upon her—a sense that grew in intensity till 6he found herself watching for the shadow of that lifted stick on the wall of the entry, and almost imagined she saw the tip of it appearing, when, without any premonition, that fatal side-door again blew in and admitted another man at once so ominous and so threatening that she succumbed instantly before him and forgot all her former fears in this new terror. * This second intruder was a negro of powerful frame and lowering aspect, aud as he came forward and stood in the doorway there was observable in his fierce and desperate countenance no attempt at the insinuation of the other, only a fearful resolution that made her feel like a puppet before him, aifd drove her, almost without her volition, to her knees. “Money, is it moneyyou want?” was her desperate greeting. “If so, here’s my purse and here are my rings and watch. Take them and go. ” But the stolid wretch did not even stretch out his hands. His eyes went beyond her, and the mingled anxiety and resolve which he displayed would have cowed a stouter heart than that of this poor woman. “Keep de trash,” he growled. “I want de company’s money. You’ve got it—s2,ooo. Show me where it is, that’s all, aud I won’t trouble you long after I close on it. ’ ’ “But it’s notin the house,” she cried. “I swear it is not in the house. Do you think Mr. Chivers -would leave me here alone with $2,000 to guard?” But the negro, swearing that she lied, leaped into the room, and tearing open the cupboard above her husband’s desk, seized the bag from the corner where they had put it. “He brought it in this,” he muttered, and tried to force the bag open, but finding this impossible he took out a heavy knife aud cut a big hole in its side. Instantly there fell out the pile of

“WHERE’S THE MONEY?” HE HISSED.

old receipts with which they had stuffed it, and seeing these he stamped with rage, and flinging them in one great handful at? her rushed to the drawers below, emptied them, and, finding nothing, attacked the bookcase. “The money is somewhere here. You can’t fool me,” he yelled. “I saw the spot your eyes lit on when I first came into the room. Is it behind these books?” he growled, polling them out and throwing them helter skelter over the floor. “Women is smart in the hiding business. Is it behind these books, I say?” They bad been, or rather had been placed between the books, but she had taken them away, as we know, and he soon began to realize that his search was bringing him nothing, for leaving the bookcase he gave the books one kick, and seizing her by the arm, shook her with a murderous glare on his strange and distorted features. “Where’s the money?” he hissed. “Tell me, "or you are a goner.” He raised his heavy fist. She crouched, and all seemed over, when; with a rush and cry a figure dashed between them and he fell, struck down by the very stick she had so long been expecting to, see fall upon her own head. The man who had been her terror for hours had

at the moment of need acted as ner protector. She must have fainted, but if so, her unconsciousness was but momentary, for when she again recognized her surroundings she found the tramp still standing over her adversary. “I hope you don’t mind, ma’am,” he said with an air of humbleness she certainly had not seen in him before, “but I think the man’s dead. ” And he stirred with his foot the heavy figure before him. “Oh, no.no, no!” she cried. . “That would be too fearful. He’s shocked, stunned; you cannot have killed him.” But the tramp -was persistent. “I’m ’fraid I have,” he said. “I done it before. and it’s been the same every time. But I couldn’t see a man of that color

“WATER!” SHE CRIED. “BRING WATER!”

rngnten a lady like you,” he gxplained deprecatingly. “My supper was too warm i|i me, ma’am. Shall I throw him outside the house?” “Yes,” she said, and then, “No; let us first he sure there is no life in him. ” And, hardly knowing what she did, she stooped down and peered into the glassy eyes of the prostrate man. Suddenly she turned pale—no, not pale, but ghastly, and cowering back shook so that the tramp, over whose features a certain refinement had crept since he acted as her protector, thought that she had discovered life in those set orbs, and was stooping down to make sure that he was right in this surmise, when he saw her suddenly lean forward and impetuously plunge her hand into the negro’s throat, tear open the shirt and give one look at his bared breast. It was white. “O God! O God!” she moaned, and lifting the head in her two hands she gave the motionless features a long and searching look. “Water!” shecried. “Bring water.” But before the now obedient tramp could respond she haa torn off the woolly wig disfiguring the dead man’s head, and seeing the blond curls beneath had uttered such a shriek that it rose above the gale and was heard by her distant neighbors. . It was the head and hair of her husband.

They found out afterward that he had contemplated this theft for months, that each and every precaution possible to a successful issue to this most daring undertaking had been made use of and that but for the unexpected presence in the house of the tramp he would doubtless have not only extorted the money • from his wife, but have so covered up the deed by a plausible alibi as to have retained her confidence and that of his employers. Whether the tramp killed him out of sympathy for the defenseless woman or in rage at being disappointed in his own plans has never been "determined. Mrs. Chivers herself thinks he was actuated by a rude sort of gratitude.

Old World Christmas Proverbs.

Every one in America knows the old world proverb, “A green Christmas makes a fat graveyard,” but few others of the old world Christmas saws are current here. Some of these saws are exceedingly interesting and not less instructive as showing the changes that time and location have made in the proverbs of the country people. Here are a few: i “A warm Christams, a cold Easter.” “A light Christmas, a heavy sheaf.” “A green Christmas, a white Easter. ” “If there Ts a wind on Christmas day, trees will bear much fruit.” “If ice will bear a man before Christmas, it will not afterward. ” “The shepherd would rather see his wife enter the stable on Christmas day than to see the sun shine in at the stable door. ” “If the sun shines through the apple tree on Christmas day, there will be an abundant crop the following year.” The meaning of all these is clear enough, but there is one that is not so clear: “If Christmas finds a bridge, he’ll break it; if he finds none, he’ll make one. ’ ’

Origin of New Year’s Customs.

Now Year’s customs in the United States are evidently the result of social evolution of that law the scientists call “natural selection and survival of the fittest.” In other words, each set of the early immigrants brought or devised its own customs, and those best suited to the nature Of tho country and genius of the peoplo have become general, while all others have been quietly dropped. It is not easy to trace the origin of tho Knickerbocker oustom of gentlemen calling on their lady friends and taking refreshments, but it is evidently one of the “fittest,” for it is becoming national. Its progress westward and southward can be traoed as certainly as any other sooial or any political development, and it seems subject to a curious law of aotion and reaction. A western village or small olty takes up the fashioD, and its observance becomes more general every yeas for some time; then it falls into disuse for a year or two, only to revive again with more style and more general observance.