Rensselaer Republican, Volume 26, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 December 1893 — DARIUS’S SECRET. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

DARIUS’S SECRET.

BY HELN WHITNEY CLARK.

I could see as plain as the-nose on my face that there was somethin' hefty a-weighin’ on Darius’s mind. He wa’nt exactly fractious, but ‘peared like it didn’t take nothin’ •keercely to irritate him. After the chores' was done of a mornin’ or evenin’ he would set in the chirhley corner, an’ sort o’ study about suthin’ and wrinkle up his furrid, fur a hour at a time, ’stid of reading his paper, or figurin’ on his accounts, sensible like. An’ it wan’t a grain o’ use to talk to him, or ask him nothin’, ’cause like enough if you did, he would answer yes or ho, permiseus. So at last I couldn’t stand it no longer. 1 begun to git skeered fur fear he was takin’ softenin’ of .the brains or suthin’ that-away. And one night I spoke right out. “Whatever doesail you, Darius?” says I. ' “Hey?” says he. “Nothin’ don’t - ail me. What should ail me, I’d like to know, Nancy?" “That’s what I’d like to know, says I. “There youve sot fur the last, half-hour scowlin’ and flingin’ your arms about like you was flailin’ oats or frightenin’ bumble-bees. An’ I should love to know what it means,” says I? “fiddlesticks! It’s only your notion. You're as full of notions as an aig is full of meat,” says he. “I haint,” says I. “You’ve been actin’ quare an’’absent-minded fora week or more. I ’lowed 'twould wear off, but it don't. ’Pears like you got quarer an’ absent-mindeder every day of your life. It fairly gives me the nerves to see you set-> n’ there a squinting down your nose, and never sayin’ nothin’ to nobuddy, nor nobuddy to nothin’. I think you might say somethin’, wuns’t in a while.” 1 “All right, Nancy,’’, says he, “What do you want* me to say?” Now I leave it. to you if that wan’t enough to purvoke a saint? It did me, anyhow. “If I’ve got " -to put the words in your mouth,” •says I, “you may as well hold your tongue.” An’ he suttled back in his cheer ;»gin, an’ 'twant long afore he wus a-goin’ on in the same ole way, grinning like a baby one minute, an’ ■scowlin’ like sin the next •“I give it up,” says I to myself, ah’ I tried to think whether he had eat anything lately that could of give him the digestion. Fur there was sarting somethin’ the matter of him; but I couldn’t think of nothin’, without ’twas baked beans. They say them does set heavy on a buddy’s stummick sometimes, an’ we had been havin’ ’em three times a day, fur a week or so. So I lowed be might be a sort o’ biliousy, an’ I made him a bowl of yarb tea, but he wouldn’t tetch it. “Wait till I get sick, afore you begin doctorin’,” says he. “A ounce of prevention is worth a pound o’ cure,” says I. “Don’t keer if it tis,” says he, “I ain’t agoin’ to swaller no doctor’s stuff till I’m laid up on the flat- o’ my back, an’ can’t help myself.” Nor he wouldn’t hear to nothin’ I could say. In general he is the mildest an’ obliginest of men, but once he planks down his foot you snout as well try to move a mountain as him. So he kep* agoin’ on, like he bad; an’ I set it down to mental aboration, as the doctors say. But at last be kind o' changed, an”stid of scowlin’ an' clawin’ the air, be would set an' chuckle to hisself, like he was powerful tickled at suthin',. an’l begun to hev some hopes that he was a-gitting lucent agin. ... - , . It was drawin* pretty nigh to Christmas times, an’ thinkses I; ■“Darius will be sartin to give me -suthin’or other that I don’t want, like be most alius does.” So thinkses I, “I'll give him a hint that a new shawl would be the most acceptable gift hocould buy me.” But ’peared like he wouldn’t take no hinta. “Lookalike ther was a heap ’o wear in ’un you’ve got," says he. “Bat it’s so fady," says I. “ You must dye it,’’ says he, “Dimon dye would make it as good as MAW M new. ||£ l .An’ thinkses I, “there’s none so Hind as them that won’t see.” We was settin’ out to church, an’ he bes gun grumblin’ about his hangkichers “They look like the last o’ peatime,” says be But I was miffed at the way be tret my hint about the shawl. “If you need new hangkichers, why don’t you buy ’em?” says I. An’ he snorted right out at that. “Must think I m made of money,” says-he.

So we jogged on the balance o’ the way as mum as a mouse in a mealchest. ' * - But next, morning Darius was as glib as ever. “What do you say to goin’ to town ®Hky, Nancy,?” says he. “Looks like we mout hev failin’ weather in a few days, an’ there’s that barrel o’ crowt an* them Baldin’ apples I could take along. There’s alius a good sale fur ’em just afore Christmas.” ‘Tip agreeable,” says I. I had sot my heart on buying a real nice present for Darius, an’ had saved up all my turkey money a puppose. An’ besides, I cackilated to buy me a new bunnit. I had' wore my ole one five or six year, an’ ’peared like 'twas gitting sorter out o' style. Aa’ I wanted a new one to wear to the donation party at the passonage Christmas night. “We want to buy some gimcracks fur your brother Lyman’s chaps, too,” says Darius. • So we went, an’ white Darius was sellin’ his crowt an’ Bald’in apples on Broadway Market," !, hustled off to a Millinery Store an’ picked me out a bunnit, a nice black one with snuff colored ribbins .that would be durable an’ not show dirt An’ after the milliner had done it up in a bran new green ban'box with paper wrapped round it*l spied a nice, silver plated powder flask in a shop •winder. ’? f • “That’ll be jest the thing fur Darius,” says I. So I stopped in an’ asked the clerk what he would take fur it. “J want it fur a Christmas present for my ole man,” says I. An’ .he smiled real good naturedan’ said ’twas three dollars. I-nearly screamed at the idee of payin’ so much for a Christmas gift. But he said ’twas already filled 1 an’ I couldn’t find nothin’ I wanted any cheaper, so I ttik it an’ hustled round to where I d promised to meet Darius. ' I come on him sort of Unexpected an’ ketched him stuffin’ away a bundle under the wagon seat. But I never let on, an’ he showed me-some candy aigs, an’ a tin wagon, an’ a couple o’ Jack-in-the-boxes he had .bought for brother Lyman’s youngsters. Next day was Christmas, an’ he couldn’t wait; till after breakfast afore he showed me my present. “I had a time of it,, studyin’ what to give you,” says he,, “an’ that’s why I couldn’t tell what ailed me that time you wanted to dose me with yarb tea. So at last it popped into my head to go to town to one o’ them big stores’ an’ git the woman clerk to pick it out for me. An’ here's what’tis.” An’ he handed me the passel I had saw him stuffin’ away under the wagon seat. “Ain't it a stunner?” says he when I had ondid the paper. An’ I should say it was a stunner; anyhow it came nigh stunting me. Fur if you’ll believe my word, instid of a nice durable shawl like I wanted, it was a blue chany-silk tea-gownd, real baby-blue at "that, trum up the front with swan-down, an' with a trail half a yard long I An’ the waist looked like it wouldn’t medgure a graih over nineteen inches round. “Sakes alive, Darius Doolittle!" says I. “how do you reckon I’m agoin’ to squeeze into that air buddy?” “Ain’t it big enough?” says he.’ “I swan to Peter I never thunk o’ that! Mebbe you could let suthin’ out.” j “Ain’t nothin’ to let out," says I, “an’ if there was I couldn’t wear it.” “Hey? Couldn’t wear it? Why not?" says he, gapin’ with wonder. “ ’Cause I couldn’t,” says I. “It’s too fine.” “Fiddlesticks! ’Taint neither,” says he. “Nothin’s too fine fur my wife." “I couldn’t never wear it,” says I, “even if ’twas big enough; but it aint. I should be a laughing stalk. When a woman gets to be forty odd an’ weighs nigh on to two hundred pounds, witha blowsy face and gray streaks in-f.her hair, she wants to dress sort of approbrious. She don’t want to wear baby blue an look as sailer as coffee." says 1. “Well, if you Can’t you can’t, I reckon,” says Darius, “but it’s a burnin’ shame, fur I give ten dollars fur that frock. The price was fifteen, the woman clerk said; but bein’ ’twas made to order an’ was a misfit, she let me have it fur ten.” “Lawful sakes!” says I. “You’ll scratch a poor man’s back all your life, I’m afeared, Darius Doolittle, if you don't larntobemore equinoxial. But ’taint no use cryla’ over spilt milk,” says I, “an’ mebbe I kin change it fur somthin’ sensible. An’ here’s what I bought fur you,” says I, handin’ it out. I ’spected he would almost caper, he’d be so tickled; but he didn’t do nothin’ of the kind. He stood stock still fur a minute, like he’ been turned to marble statter, an’ then he fairly snorted. “What under the canopy do you reckon I want of a likker flask?" says he, “an’ me a strong prohibitioner?" An’ it flashed over me all of a suddint that I’d made a mistake. Sich a awful mistake, too; it fairly staggered me an’ I come nigh sheddin’ tears. “It’s a—l thought it was a powder flask,” says I. “I thought it would look nicer than that old cow horn o* yourn. And it's full o' gunpowder, too.” “I should say ’twes gunpowder,” Favs he, yankin’ off the stopper. “Take a shift o’ that wunst," and he helt it under my nose. An* bless you ’f ’twah’t the strongest likker I ever smelt. It pretty nigh keeled m™ over. I felt powerful decomposed, but Darius was real tickled when he

found I’d made a mess of it-as well as him. . “We’re both hr the same box. Nancy," says be. “What's sass fur the goose is sass fur the gander, an* you cant’ jaw me about that tea gownd.” “I hadn’tbo idee of jawin’,” says I, as stiff as a poker. An* next day we went to town an’ changed the pocket-flask fur a walking stick, an’ the tea-gownd fur a blanket shawl an’ half a dozen men’s hangkirchers. ” But the story lek out some way or other, Darius couldn’t keep it, I reckon, an’ we like to o’ never heared the last of it. An’ only t’other day I got a letter from sister Sophrony, that lives out on Duck Crick, a-sayin’ she had beared Darius hadtuek to drinkin’ an’ had to be brung home on a wheel borrow, with his laigs and arms a-hangin’ over the.sides. Did you ever hear the beat ol that? --- •