Rensselaer Union, Volume 10, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 December 1877 — THE RED LIGHT. [ARTICLE]

THE RED LIGHT.

A Story of New Year’s Ere. New Year’s Eve. Not one of the ideal New Year’s Evea of poets and romance writers, wherein he moon is always at the full, the snow always a sparkle, like pulverized diamonds, nnu the air always still and cold and clear; but a stormy twilight, with the snow driving steadily from the east, the wind raw and biting, and the sky—what you could see of it—as black as nk. But it was New Year’s Eve, all the same, and Bertha Hooper’s checks were as red as the bitter-sweet berries in the woods, as she sat, all wrapped up, in he train tliaj was steaming northward, on her way to spend New Year with her Aunt Almira Higgins. New Year in tlie country! To Bertha, who had lived all her life in the brick walls and stone pavements of a city, he very words seemed to convey somewhat of cheer and joyousness. And Bertha, as she sat with her eyes closed, and her little gloved hands safely nestled in a gray-squirrel muff, beheld, n her mind’s eye, great fires of logs roaring up wide-tliroated chimneys, and had half composed a poem on New Year and its associations when the ruthless conductor came along for her ticket. “How far are we from Montcourt Station P” she inquired, as she gave up the bit of pasteboard. “Next but one, miss,” said the man, as he hurried on, with his lahtern under his arm. “ Half an hour yet.” She had never been so far New York in all her life before. The driving rain in which she had left her home had changed, as they progressed northward, into the steady fall of snow, which fluttered around them like a white waving shroud. But Bertha Hooper eared little for this. Had not Aunt Almira promised to send Zebedee, her youngest son, to the station with the pony to meet her on the arrival of the sixty-four train from New YorkP And was not Zebedee to'have a lantern with a red glass door to it, so that she could identify him at onoe? She was very pretty as she sat there in her little black velvet toque, with its curling plume of cardinal red. and the wine-red ribbon bow at her thgpat —pretty with the bloom And freshness of eighteen. She was dark, with large hazel eyes, almond-shaped and longshaped, ti clear rosy bloom on either cheek, and wavy dark hair hanging in silken fringe over her broad, low forehead. “ Mont—court—sta—iion P’ bawled the brakekman, putting in a snowpowdered fur cap, and withdrawing it again as quickly as if he had been a magnificent edition of the Jaok-in-»-box, wherein children much rejoice at holiday tfVne. And Bertha Hooper knew that she had reached her destination. ■> and cramped for the length of

j time in which she had been sitting in one position, she rose up, with a little steel-clasped traveling-bag in one hand, and a dainty ailk umbrella in the other, and made her way to the door. All she could see when she stepped out upon the wet and slippery platform, was a blur of driving snow, through which the lights of the solitary little country depot gleamed fitfully; but the next instant something flashed athwart her vision like a friendly red eye—and beneath the reflection over the station door, she saw a tall, fine-looking young man, in a fur-trimmed overcoat, a sealskin cap set jauntily on one side of a crop of chestnut curls, and a red-light-ed lantern swinging froth his left hand, and he stood straining his eyes into the stormy darkness, as- if to catch sight of some familiar face in the little crowd. “Cousin Zebedee!” cried Bertha, aloud, and she made one spring into the arms of this blonde-whiskered young giant. For had not she and Zebedee played dominoes and fox and geese together in the days when she wore blue ribbon sashes, and his hair was a closely-shorn mat of carroty red? “ Oh! Cousin Zebedee, I’m so glad to see you; and I hadn’t any idea you had grown half so handsome!” And she gave him a great hug, at the same time holding up her rosebud lips for a kiss. But, to her infinite amazement, the hero of the seal-skin cap seemed a little backward in responding to her cousinly advances. “I—l beg your pardon,” said he, slightly receding, “but I’m afraid there is some mistake. My name is not Zebedee, and the lady for whom I am looking is some years older than you.” Bertha Hooper started back, coloring and confused; and, as she did so, a fat comfortable looking old lady came trundling along the platform, in an India shawl and a boa of Russia sable worth its weight in greenbacks. “.Charley!” she cried, “I thought I never should find you. Is the carriage here?” “ All here, and waiting Aunt Effie,” responded the young man; but he still hesitated a* second, as Bertha Hooper stood with averted face and motionless figure in the shadow of the building. “ Can I be of any service to you?” he asked. “If you are expecting friends who have failed to meet you ” “ Anybody here by the name of Berthy Hoo-00-per?” shouted a stentorian voice; and a tall, raw-looking lad with a lantern—also lighted with red glass—rushed shuffling around- the corner.

Zebedee himself! Zebedee, redhaired and shambling and awkward as he had been in the old fox-and-geese days. 7- ■ ■■■■■- “ Oh!” said he catching up his lantern, so that the scarlet bird’s wings flashed out like a spit of flame —scarcely more scarlet, alas! than Bertha’s own face. “Here you be! Pm a little late, for the roads is so allfired bad and I couldn’t start the pony out of a walk. Come on! How de do? Be you very cold? 11 - ———-

—»■ “Zebedee,” said Bertha, clinging almost hysterically-to her cousin's arm, “who’s that young gentleman with—with the other lantern ?” “Eh!” said Zebedee. “That feller with the old lady in a patchwork shawl?’’ — “ Yes!” “It’s Charley Harcourt, the Squire’s son,” said Zebedee. “ Just come from furrin parts!” “Zebedee,” said Bertha, with a curious little sound between a laugh and a sob, “ put me into the cutter quick; and drive me somewhere. I don’t care where! Because —’ ’ “Eh?” said Zebedee, staring hard at his cousin, as he packed the buffalo robe around her before touching up the laggard old pony. “Because,” added Bertha, in a species of desperation, “ 1 took Mr. Harcourt for you; and I hugged him and I kissed him.” “Is that all?” said philosophical Zebedee. “He won’t care!” “ No,” said Bertha, “ but I shall!” “You ain’t crying, be you?” said Zebedee, noting the quiver in his cousin’s voice. “How can I help it?” wailed poor Bertha. “’Twarn’t no fault o’yourn,” said Zebedee, consolingly. “Of course it wasn’t” said Bertha, impatiently. “How was I to know that every lantern at Montcourt had a red glass to it?” And poor little Bertha cried herself to sleep that night. The next morning—New Year’s Day, all snowed up into glorious drifts everywhere—Mr. Harcourt drove over to the Higgins farmhouse. The young lady haddropped a fur glove on the Slatform, and Mr. Harcourt felt it his uty to restore it to her. And, moreover—here Mr. Charley Harcourt hesitated a little—he hoped Miss Hooper would excuse him for being so stupid as to allow her to fancy him her cousin. “ I ought to have explained sooner,” said he. ~_—l 1_ “ No, you ought not,” said Bertha. “ The fault was all mine.” “I don’t recognize a fault anywhere,” said he. “ And if I am pardoned ” “Of course you are!” said Bertha, rosier and prettier than ever. “ In that case, I am commissioned by my mother to ask your aunt's permission to take you over to help us finish dressing the church in time for morning service. My horse is waiting. “ May I go, Aunt Almira?” said Bertha, with sparkling eyes. “Of course you may,” said Aunt Almira. And so poor Zebedee was left out In the cold. What was the end of it all? There is but one sequel to stories like this, when youth and bright eyes and human hearts are concerned. The next New: Year’s Eve Bertha Hooper and Charley Harcourt were married. But the bridegroom persists in declaring that Bertha did the first of the love making. And Bertha only laughs.