Rensselaer Republican, Volume 15, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 September 1883 — THE THREE GOOD GIFTS. [ARTICLE]

THE THREE GOOD GIFTS.

“Lill, Lill! run to the door—quick! There’s some one coming down the road.” Lill Penfield started to her feet with alacrity, thus ruthlessly destroying all the bright visions which had built themselves up around the glowing logs in the deep chimney. “How much is it for a foot passenger ?” said she, calling up the narrow, wooden stairway. “But it isn’t a foot passenger,” irritably retorted Delia, with her mouth full of hairpins. “It’s old Miss Merrydeer, with her donkey cart. Ten cents.” It wafc a stormy March sunset, red and threatening along the west, with a frozen breath of icicles in the air, and black masses of cloud piled overhead, through which old Miss Merrydeer’s cart seemed to advance. Lill Penfield stood on the toll-house porch, looking with surprised eyes at the gaunt, old woman, who sat on a heap of cut branches and whipped up a phlegmatic donkey in front of her. “Oh, you’re always ready enough to stop,’’-sarcastically remarked old Miss Merrydeer, as the donkey came to a dead halt in front of the toll-bar. “Now, then, young woman” (to Lill), “why ain’t I to be allowed to go on ?" “Ten cents, please,” said Lill, timidly holding out her hand, with all that she had ever read, dreamed or heard about witches coming back into her mind at the sight of the yellow, old face, with its fringe of white elf-locks, the red cloak and the nose that was hooked like a bird of prey. “Ten cents 1” shrilly shrieked old Miss Merrydeer. “And for what, I should like to know?” “It’s the toll-gatq, please,” explained Lill, wishing more than ever that her cousin would come down stairs. “I don’t know anything about tollgates,” said Miss Merrydeer. “Stand aside and let me go through. The road was here long afore they built the toll-gate. It’s swindling—that’s what it is. Get up, Neddy!” She settled herself back among the /green spruce boughs and protruding roots with an air of determination, and .chirruped to her drowsy steed as if she meant to ride rough-shod over all opposition ; but just here Della Penfield ■came running down stairs and swung the bar back to it’s place. “Ten cents, Miss Merrydeer,” said she, “or you can’t pass. That’s the law.”

Miss Merrydeer uttered a curious grant of dissatisfaction. “If it’s law, it ain’t justmq,” said she, fumbling iu the pocket of her tattered w old coat—a garment which had evidently been cut down from a man’s ulster. “There, as true as you live, that there dime has fell out and got lost in the woods!” “That% nonsense,” said Delia, tartly. “Ten cents—and do hurry. I can’t stand here in this wind all night.” “But I hain’t got it,” bluntly spoke <rat the old crone. “Lemme pass!” “Not without the 10 cents,” said Delia, resolutely. “I’ve pa’s orders, and I must stick to ’em. If you haven’t got tbe.nptoney you must go around by "HTVnml • “But four miles further,” said old woman, despairingly. “And 'WtfflmW *' ro d> ftQ d so am I. And •it’s growin' colder every minute, and flfftreh winds is hard on my rheu«You should have thought ojf that be“ore,” said Del>e, indifferently.

“Delia, why don't yon let her page V whispered Ml. “She’s so old and—” “01d? a pettishly repeated Delia. “Why, she’s the worst old harpy in the country. We always have just this wrangle every time she goes through the gate.” And she bolted the gate with ostentations noise. Old Miss Merrydeer was slowly and reluctantly turning the donkey’s drooping head around, when Lill herself came to the rescue. “Stop a minute, Miss Merrydeer,” said she. “Here is a 10-cent piece. It seems such a pity for you and the poor old donkey to go so far around this bitter cold night. And—and you can pay me the next time you come this “Eh?” said Miss Merrydeer, shrilly. “Who are you?” “I’m Lill,” said the girl. “Mr. Penfield’s niece, from Omaha.” “Ah!” said the old woman. “Well, whoever you be, you've done a, kind and merciful deed this night. And you’ll get your reward for it too. Shall I tell your fortune?” once more stopping the donkey as he was half-way through the toll-gate to Delia Penfield’s infinite .disgust. “Oh, yes, I’ve a charm. We that live in the woods find ont many a spell that other folks know nothing of. Well, here it is. Three good gifts for you. There’s a lover coming-; there’s a gift of money coming, and there’s a clear conscience to go to bed upon this night. Good-by—good by.” And the donkey trotted awav over the frozen roads, Mb hoofs ringing like muffled bells, while Dell adjusted the bars with a laugh, and both girls ran hurriedly back to the glow and shelter of the fireplace. “Is she crazy ?” said Lill, earnestly. “Not half so cragy as you were to listen to her,” said Delia. “It’s old Miss Merrydeer. Every one knows her. She gets roots and herbß from the woods and boils them into drinks. There are families aronnd here that would rather have Miss Merrydeer in sickness than any other doctor in town. And she’s a nuxpe, too; and some thinks she sees ana hears more than other people. ” “How old is she?” / “A hundred at least,” said Delia. “Now, let ns make haste and get the tea ready, for pa will be half frozen when he comes.” “I wonder if my three good gifts will come true ?“ said Lill laughing. “Oh, undoubtedly!” Delia answered, wi*h the most marked satire. But Delia Penfield herself was surprised, about a week subsequently, when a letter arrived for Lill from “the lad she left behind her.”

“What do you think, Lill?” he wrote, “I am coming East. I am coming to the very same part of the country where you are. Do you know the old red mill ? Well, Oriel Hall has bought it and we are to run it in partnership. And when we have saved a little money, Oriel is coming back West for the girl he is engaged to, and I—well, Lill, you know the rest. It may be several years first, but we must be patient ! For the present, dear, it will be enough for me to be near you.” “There’s the lover!” cried Delia, as Lill sat radiantly dreaming over the letter. “And the clear conscience wqll take for granted. Now, if only old witch Merrydeer would, supply the money, I should really believe in her.” “I guess,” said Jeboram Hawley, the hired man, who had come in at this moment with a pot of glue to warm over the kitchen stove, “that old Miss Merrydeer won’t supply many more things in this world. She’s at death’s door with pneumony. That’s what I’ve heard.” “Is she, poor old thing?” said Delia, carelessly. “Take care Jeboratn, don’t spill that glue!” . “SMb’s got a lawyer’s clerk there a making of her will!” chuckled Jeboram. “He’s to take out his pay in four bottles of Ague Spruce Cure and a gallon of root beer. But law! there ain’t ho use —shell never die! Shell fly up on a broomstick some day, or disappear in a flash of lightning.” * The next day, however, came a tattered little messenger to the toll-house —a bright-eyed colored lad. “Old Miss Merrydeer wants to see the young woman as she give the three good gifts to,” said he, rolling ( his cof-fee-colored eyeballs around. “Pm to show her de way. Bight off, please.” Lill looked at Delia in amazement. “Shall I go?” said she. “Oh, surely I ought.” “It’s a lonely spot,” Delia—“up in the woods without a neighbor’s house in sight. Jeboran had better follow you at a little distance. Old witoh Merrydeer may turn you into a white dove or a red fawn, for all that I know.”

She laughed, but there was a certain vein of seriousness that underlay all her mirth; so Lill started out in the gray March afternoon, with flurries of snow pricking her cheek like frozen needles ever and anon, and the rilnpy frost crackling under her feet, while, some few paces behind, trudged Jeboram, charged to look as little as possible like an escort. “For nobody knows,” said Delia, “what the old witch may take offense at.” But, to confess the trnth, Lill was frightened when she entered the little one-storied oabiu, one side of which was all awry with the force of many a winter’s tempest, in whose low-ceiled apartment old Miss Merrydeer lay dying. “Is it my bonny girl?” she said, lifting her glance to the new comer’s faoe. “Yes, it’s she as gave me the dime. Out of her own pocket she gave it to me. Everyone rise turned their backs upon me and laughed to see the old witch go by! No one ever gave me anything before but sneers and curses. For what

good to anybody was old witch Merrydeer? But she took pity on her, Lord love her! And I promised her three good gifts. I’ve made her my heir ess, that’s what I’ve done. Come here, pretty one, and put your hand in mine. ” Bnt even as Lill touched her warm palm to the old crone’s fast-purpling hand, she gave a quick gasp, turned 1 over, apd died. LUI closed her eyes, tied up the poor old toothless jaws with her scented pocket handkercMef, crossed the hands on the pulseless breast, and went home again, learving Jeboram to do what he could for the watchers and attendants. And, as she walked, she carried the strange, aromatic odors of pine and birch, and dried penny-royal bunches in her dress, curions remembrances of old Miss Merrydeer. They buried her on the mountain side in a quaint little graveyard, where the oows grazed at will, picking their way among* the moss-grown tombstones, and where the fence had long ago fallen to ruins; and people laughed at the idea of Lill Pennfield being constituted heiress of the dead woman’s estate. “Oh, yes; the will is all right and tight enough," said Uncle pennfield. “But, after all, what does it amount to ? An old hovel crammed chuck full of yarbe and roots, twenty gallons o’ root beer, four dozen bottles of ague cure that never yet cured anybody, and four acres of land with the stones so clese together on’t that even the sheep can’t get their noses down to browse. ’Taint much of a fortin’, according to mv way o’ thinking!” “But she meant kindly toward me, poor thing!” said Lill, softly; “and all because I gave her a—dime!” The next afternoon, however, Uncle Pennfield came back from town with a beaming face. “Look here, Lill,” said he. “You’ve got the fortin’ after all. What d’ye think ? Old Witch Merrydeer had SBOO in the savings bank, and it’s yours. I declare I never would have believed there was that much money to be made out of roots and yarbs!" “Eight hundred dollars!” cried Delia, springing to her feet. “Then Lill can marry Tom Catesby after all, when he comes East.” For to these simple people SBOO signified a fortune. So this gentle-natured heroine inherited the good gifts after all. Tom Catesby came East and set np in life as a miller, with Lill at the household helm. And of course they lived happily ever after. Who ever heard of a pair of true lovers that did otherwise ? While the neighbors' all marveled exceedingly and remarked, with various nasal inflections and wagging of the head, that it was “most extraordinary, but old Miss Merrydeer always was queer!”