Rensselaer Union and Jasper Republican, Volume 8, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 April 1876 — PERCY'S CROSS. [ARTICLE]

PERCY'S CROSS.

JftgaiSjgsflteg »w®* Stood on the slavery SSuh” 1 ’ th****?* l^"*' U firott6d 011111110 wttfmf oddity of oondm* while.forbidding even reasonable conjecture Hwniu| that other existence ot his, "hack in the Slates.” Aad Perky ««yt the people ofSeward Center Just that feelkna. Perky was a perplexiiy. Ho a printer; and his employer, the editor of the Clarion qf Freedom, lmd carelessly 4isckwed the secret that ho was the aorntt of certain Procrustean rhymes in the last nombsr of that excellent family journal, hearing the caption, “ Sadly We Beam,” and having a cut of a hearse at the top of them, these verses had pleased tbs minister very much, and he thought he delected in their somber monotone “ the yearning of a jaded soul for the rest andjoy of the New Jerusalem,” which was a pretty thing to say, Perky remarked, when She editor told him of it Public opinion was somewhat calmer, but not harmonized or satisfied by the minister’s pathognomv. There could be no doubt, they were ail agreed, that Perky was not easy In his mind; but the cause was still as deep a mystery as ever. Various were the surmises and suggestions some kindly, and some otherwise— touching the matter, as poverty, grief, disease, disgrace; hut perhaps the average sentiment of the community was best expressed, alter all, by Aunt Naomi Seybold, when, in answer to some new hint upon the subjects, she said with a solemn earnestness thit was intended to be conclusive and convincing: “ He’s jest a-totin’ of a cross, a-totin’ of a cross.” Of course these things came to Perky’s ears now and then; but if they disturbed him in the least there was no betrayal of it in his looks, hlB speech, or his actions. Indeed, he might have passed for a thoroughly contented, if not a really happy, man, as he sat upon the little bench under the cotton-wood in front of the Clarion office that rare June morning, watching Bkdhlue clouds fold and unild again, like the hap of lid parade. Behind him rose rocks and cedars, and dense t of vines and shadows, which xy waste of raw prairie that In front of him, those two foremost symbols of advancing civilizatiafc. the little tin signs of the “ American Bible Society," and “ Wells, Fargo & 00/s Express,” flashed back the sun’s brightness from the dull pay of the store door at the upper end of “ the avenue,” as they called the generous exaggeration of a wagon-road which led through the village and on to the river out there in the low belt of elms and sycamores, a mile away . And the sky above it all was very "beautiful, he thought, as he turned reluctantly from it at last, and glanced curiously about him, like one in doubt as to the identity of his surroundings. Then he said to himself: “ Perky, old fellow, we won’t finger any long primer to-day; we’ll .rest, and have a ramble.” A moment later

he was gone. Perky was resting and rambling considerably now. The weekly publication of the Clarion was several times delayed by his neglect of his type-setting; and once flie editor had to humiliate himself and expose his gaunt subscription list to great Sril by sending out a half-sheet, “ owg,” he said, “to circumstances over which we have no control.” The mishap had the effect of keeping Perky steadily at work for three consecutive days. It also afforded him occasion to speak to the editor, in a delicate and confidential way, of certain grave facts connected with the newspaper business. “-For instance,” he remarked, “ a paper should be prompt in its appearance as the sunrise, for if it lags people soon lose faith in itß stability, and cease to pay for it in advance; and the half-sheet contrivance should never be resorted to,” he continued, “for the size of a newspaper is a good deal like plenary inspiration, and won’t hear trifling with.” This bit of philosophy being kindly received, he dropped his confidential tone and manner, and went on, after the habit of your true printer the country over, to give' the results of his varied observations in other affairs, including politics, education, religion and, finally, matrimony. “It is every man’s duty,” he declared with some warmth, “to get married—and every woman’s, too,” he quickly added. Then he stopped, blushed a little, and lifting the slug that conce&led the next word of the manuscript on the case before him, resumed his work. They smiled one to another in a knowing way, the editor and the office-boy, and urged him to proceed with his discourse; hut he only shook his head, and answered, a trifle sadly: “Not now, not now." The next day, and the next, he was unusually reticent,' and they noticed that he usually threw back as much as half a line of types from hit composing-stick into the boxes, as if he had unconsciously set up the wrong words. When h« did not appear the following morning they knew he must have returned to his resting and his rambling.

If proof had been immediately required of the fact that Perky had taken another Sqliday, it would only have bt*en necessary to call Aunt Naomi Seybold as a witness, for she' had seen him saunter past ifißjfaDßt-rooin window—the window she always put the cracked porcelain tea-pot that held her rose geranium—aid he had stopped awhile at the Widow H&inUne’s gate on his way dowu the road toward the woods. A halt at the widow’s gate had of late become a regular feature m Perky’s rambles. He had been known to tarry there on some occasions for fully •I hour; and more than once it had been observed that he did not go on over the .Muff, as was his usual custom, but turned ud came back. To suppose that these attracted no attention and wosoked no comment would be to fancy toward Center a community of winged ‘‘Creatures with crowns and harps, which it 3wastoot lie matter had gradually asapmed aa interest in the public mind sccibd only to that of the pending strife for ■J&O county seat between the Center and )he rival town of Konomo. Hence the religious patience with which Aunt Naomi Seybolil watched Perky’s movements from behind her window-curtains, hence, also, pi significance that bad been attached tm his casual remarks iu the Clarion office ‘ upon the subject of matrimony. The Cwsier really believed that Perky was in Ton with the widow. . / The Widow Hainline, it Is proper to «ay, was not a widow at all. Hhe was a divorced wife, who had resumed her BMddsn name, but atill retained die title «f “ Mrs.” on account oi her son Benny, ,a glad-eyed little lad of eight years. Her husband had abandoned her when Benny 1m but two years old; she had obtained sjjfwiistos years later, and the next Milliner the haa come to Kansas, hoping ‘lit '*g«be to get a form for the boy. This KM substantially all they knew about her, -■ogospt that during her nearly three years’ MtfSjWuefoi the Center had been a pwlenee and*liar' fri'irid and methodical so lonely and so peculiar, shouW be contain nil trrr such a thUg To be sure thenrwaano absolute evidence that her thoumto were running In that direction. M m|| rjunfl f Pf*rk v had iK'di , going to and coming from her house

: — r-xyr , able kindness; her face flushed with evident pleasure whenever anybody praised him a little for hit known good qualities or made generous excuse for his faults. And, then, had she not bought a dress with a gaudy pink stripe in it, and did she not lately wear an unusual bow of white ribbon at her throat, and sometimes a big red rose in her hairs Surely these signs, meaning so much with other people, could not be mere accidents or idle freaks with her. So the verdict of the Center soon came to "be unanimous, that if the widow thought she did not love Perkv, she wss very much mistaken. The Center having made up its mind, there was no more doubt and no more discussion. And yet, as s matter of fact, Perky had never once been known to go into the widow's house, nor had he and the widow ever been seen to so much as chat together at the gate. When Perky stopped there it was the boy Benny who came out to see him, and talked with him by the hour, and often accompanied him as he went on over the bluff aud down into the river bottom, where the large trees were, ana the birds and the squirrels, and the queer sound of the runningwater. For Perky and Benny had come to be close companions and friends. The one was rarely seen without the other. The boy had caught something of the man’s besetting spirit of unrest, and the man had borrowed a bit of the boy’s gentle cheeriness, so that they blended very happily. They spent much of their time wandering about in the woods, over the hills, and out on the breezy sweep of upland overlooking the river from the other side. Their talk—-and they talked a great deal —was of the thmgs they h<pf seen and heard and thought together —of the flowers, the stars, the psalms, the miracles, the printing-office and the farm Benny was going to have when he (jot to be a man. Sometimes the boy’s swift questions went far beyond Perky’s power of answering, and then there would be a little silence and a change of the subject. Sometimes, too, Benny could not understand why his -iriead stammered sod looked ashamed

when making inquiry of him about his mother. But there was no distrust between them and no disagreement; and when, as they were speaking one day of the boy’s father, aud Perky said suddenly, as if he had but just thought of it, “ How would you like to have me fbr a father?” Benny replied, without hesitation wA feeling, “Oh, that would be splendid!” Then they walked home without saying another word, and when they parted at the gate there were tears in Perky’a eyes. Benny lay awake a long time that nigh? wondering what it could mean, and tell asleep at last to dream that his father came to him in the vague white robe ot an angel, with a face that shone like the sun. And the face was the face of Perkv. As the summer wore slowly away, Perky’s gloominess grew upon him day by day, and he could not shake it off. It seemed to him, also, that it fook very little exertion to overcome him with fatigue. He could hardly walk to the river ford, and back as far as the Widow Hainline’s, without a singular trembling in his limbs, and a dizzy sensation about the bead; and he would often be obliged to stop and the widow’s gate before he could go on, he was so tired, and there was such a blur just ahead of him. Once, when he was standing there, the widow came out of the house on an errand to a neighbor’s, and, as he lifred his hat to her he sank down exhaustedly at her feet; but he pretended that he had merely stooped to disengage a wanton brier from her dress-skirt, and when she bowed him her thanks, he rose and stood again like an athlete. He had a harassing cough, too, and slept fitfully, and in hjs thin, pale cheeks were ugly spots of scarlet. When they told him ne was sick and in need of a physician, he smiled wearily, and said: Only a little bilious, that’s all.” And on the days when he felt so weak that he dared not venture out—days that came quite frequently in that lazy, lethargic September weather—he was always ready with some plausible excuse to conceal the real cause of his staying indoors. He consented finally to allow another printer to take liis place in the Clarion office—temporarily, and as his “sub” only, for the editor would not like it, he said, if he should give up his cases “merely because he wanted to loaf a few days and get the malaria out of his, system.” He visited the office from time to time to see how his “sub” got along, and to take a look at the exchanges. They showed him the first number of the new paper at Konomo, which was to be the Clarion's contestant for the county printing, and he curled his lip at sight of its double advertisements, and said the grave yawned for a paper that started out by leading its selected matter. Some days he would relieve the “■ sub" for half an hour, or read two or three galleys of proof for the overworked editor; but usually he remained only a few minutes, and many times he came only to the door, looked in as if seeking for somebody, and then turned and went away without speaking.

~ J He had abandoned his customary rambles nearly a month before; and this fact, though no longer new enough to be in itself remarkable, served to give unusual interest to the report that Perky had been seen going leisurely down the road again toward the woods the morning of that important Saturday when "the grim chieftain,” Gen. Jim Lane, was to deliver his first speech in Seward Center. Aunt Naomi Seybold had called to him three times from her open window; but he paid no attention to it except to quicken his pace a little, and she watched him “as stiddy as if she had ft’ bin a-settin’ for to have her picter took,” she said, until he passed the Widow .Hainline’s and disappeared over the hill. Then she hastened up to the store and the printing-office to tell what she had seen, and an hour later the surprising event was the talk of the town. With the atternoon, however, came ‘ ‘ the grim chieftain” with his speech, and after an early supper they had a bonfire and another speech, and in the novelty and agitation of it all, the incident of the morning was forgotten, and nobody noticed that Perky did not return. It must have been quite four o’clock of Sunday evening when his absence was first observed. That some harm had befallen him seemed the only reasonable solution of the matter; and there was no time to lose in delay or in speculation. The editor, accompanied by such of the townsfolk as he could readily get together, promptly started in search of him. They called to make inquiry of Aunt Naomi Seybold, and she went on with them to the Window Hainline’s, repeating to them as she walked along her story of the day before. The widow could give them no additional Information; indeed, the whole of it was an astonishment and a shock to her, she said, and she questioned them veiy eagerly about it, while Benny listened with an indefinite dread and wished they would go on and look for him before night came. They Btsrted directly, down the road to the river. Benny went with them, upon his own suggestion, to point out die places where he had been with Perky; and as he glanced from the familiar old leaning beech half way down the hill, he saw that his mother and Aunt Naomi were-follow-ing closely after them. They found him fust where Benny had fancied they would' find him. It was hardly a stone’s throw from the road and the ford, but such a quiet, soothing, winsome little nook that it might have been a fragment of some other world. He was lying upon the grass, with his arms under his head, and hTs feet hidden from sight by the fallen leaves. He could almost have reached the river with his hand, but Aioi&mAJ'y, ■ ... j. £ .i, »,'>•

the murmuring of It there in the bend among the bewildering roots and stones was so soft and so uncertain that it seemed only an echo. A cluster of haw bushes, landing beneath an overplus of fading and shriveling woodbine, shut off the vision on the south, as the river bank did on the west and the north; butonthe east, up the steep bluff, beyond the massive decaying tree-trunk that lay in the edge of the thicket of hazels like some great broken-hearted giant, «s the little arbor In the rear df the WidowHainllne’a home, where the honeyaucklea grew, and wliero the widow often sat in the cool of the late afternoon with her sewing. When they roused him, Perky turned .his eyes in that direction a moment, theft closed them again, and said as in reverie, “ I must have been dreaming.” Tliev stood watting around for some minutes in an undecided way, and then the editor gently raised him to a sitting posture, ana he tried to smile as he looked from one to another of them and said, “Go on with your picnic; don’t mind me.’’ No one spoke when he sunk down again upon the grass and leaves; but Aunt Naomi Seybold took off her shawl and made a pillow of it for him, and buttoned his open coat over his breast, for it was nearly sundown, and there was » chill in the air from off the river. Ho appeared to be sleeping, the Widow Hainlinc thought, as she leaned forward and gazed intently upon him out of the shadow of the maple iust back of where liis head lay; and Benny knew she must be very, very pale, she trembled so as he felt her Eut an arm around him and press him to er Bide. The setting sun flooded the crisp and stained foliage with an ecstasy of October gold and crimson as Perkv started a little and sat upright again, anu said he wished Benny would hurry back, for it was grewing dark. The widow walked rapidly around in front of him, where the rest were, and knelt close to him and took bis hand in hers. “Julia, darling,” he mhtteredj With a harsh laugh that was half a. moan, and fell back ns if all his strength had suddenly failed him. Hoy she stooped and kissed him —on the lips, on the eyes, on the forehead —and rising to her feet, met the questioning stares of those about her with a look that would have been terrible but for the abounding tenderness there was in it, as she exclaimed : “ I was once his wife, God help him!” “ Then he’s my father, isn’t he, mamma?” cried Benny, “ and we’ll take him home.” ’ * * <3h, child, ”’tEey heard Aunt-Naomi sobbing, “ he’s—he’s done gone home.” When they turned to see what she mean! she was covering his cold, still face with her handkerchief. — Henry King , in Scribner for April.