Rensselaer Union, Volume 10, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 May 1878 — THAT VOICE! [ARTICLE]

THAT VOICE!

A day in June, 1908, and one of the loveliest early summer days the world ever beheld —a. cloudless sky, goldenbright sunshine, soft fragrant air, joyously sweet songs of birds, faint musical murmurs of brooks and plashings of fountains, delicately green grass, lingering violets and budding roses. On the lawn in front of the elegant mansion of Leon Fishback, Esq., a party of young people are playing “ Follow-follow-follow-me ” a game somewhat resembling (so their mothers and grandmothers tell them) an old game called “puss in the corner,” played a quarter of a century or more ago, only in "Follow-follow” the players, instead of beckoning to each other, beckon to a group of. metallic balls, around which they stand in a circle, and he or she who proves to have most magnetic force the balls follow with a rush, while the remainder of the players rush as wildly in their efforts to secure the place left vacant by the flying one. At this moment the balls are rolling pell - mell, helter-skelter, k nocki ng against each other with a pleasant ringing sound, after a pretty, fairhaired maiden, whose little feet, clad in slippers all gleaming with silver and gold,- flash in the sunshine beneath her blue satin Turkish trowserlets as she springs lightly over the green sward amid the exquisitely modulated laughter —no one shouts loudly in this refined twentieth century—of her merry companions. In the back garden, on a green clover-sweet grass-plat, stands a broad, deep basket of newly-washed, snowy white linen, anda hanging-out machine, planted firmly in the middle of the plat, is industriously raising and lowering its wooden arms, grasping various pieces in its wonderfully constructed hands, and hanging them upon the stout no-clothes-pins line which is slowly revolving around it, and to which they adhere without farther trouble. In the dairy the rosy-cheeked dairymaid is reading a love poem while the automatic milker is milking the beautiful white cow that stands just outside the door; in the kitchen the cook is indolently rocking to and fro in a low rocking-chair, watching the " magic rolling-pin” roll out the paste for her pies, ready to stop its pendulum-like movement the moment the crust is

smooth and thin enough; and a small servant-boy, with his hands in his pockets, lounges against the wall in one corner near a tall stool, whistling softly to himself as he waits until the pair of shoes the electric blackingbrush is polishing thereon attain the proper degree of brilliancy and mirrorlikeness. This is a prosperous place, this domain of Leon Fishback, Esq., and Leon Fishback himself is a tall, handsome, energetic, positive mah of one-and-thirty—a bachelor, who gives a home to his widowed sister and her four halforphaned children, and in return is taken care of by her, with the assist* ance of the ola housekeeper—to tell the truth, with a great deal of assistance from the old housekeeper—as well as any brother was ever taken care of by any sister. Still, people, as people will—especially people with grown-up single daughters—wondered that he had never married. It was not for want of opportunity he had not done so—oh, no indeed!—for a dozen lovely girls, half a dozen more or less charming widows, and several ladies of neither class, had, since his coming into the property of his uncle and godfather, Leon Fishbabk, Sen., (whose ashes in a solid gold casket stood in a sort of shrine, made of a hundred rare woods, in the south drawing-room), intimated to him, in every way that the shrinking sensitiveness of womanhood would allow, their perfect willingness—nay, anxiety—to assume the role of mistress of the Fishback mansion. But Leon had walked calmly among them, dispensing hospitality, kina words and gracious smiles with the strictest impartiality, distinguishing none by the slightest reference, until a few weeks before this beautiful June day when his young guests merrily called, •• Follow-follow-follow me,” to their highly-polished admirers on the closely-shaven lawn. Then came to visit his sister an old

school friend, Beardsley by name, who had been residing in a fardistant State, but with whom the sister had kept up a warm correspondence ever since they parted at the college door the day on which each was puolicly hailed with loud acclamations as “Mistress of Arts.” Miss Beardsley is a lovely woman of eight-and-twenty summers, looking at least five summers less, with an excep-tionally-sweet voice, an exceptionallybright smile, an exceptionally-grace-ful figure and exceptionally-win-ning ways. And to this bewitching woman has Leon Fishback, the hitherto apparently unimpressible bachelor, devoted himself since the moment he took her slender little hand in his and bade her welcome to his home. And it is by her side he loiters, untempted by the merriment without, in the deep, pleasant, vine-enwreathed bay-window of the library as the fair-haired girl comes flying across the garden, pursued by the tinkling balls. Laura starts, from her seat with a blush, and, leaning from the window, “Coax thfffl a wa y> Bella.

dear. They are dancing on the flower bed.” And as the girl obediently turns and speeds in the opposite direction, she draws back her pretty head, and, looking at her companion, says, •• How much Bella is like her sister Teresa—that is, when Teresa was only sixteen!” Is she?" asks Mr. Fishback. “ Why, don’t yon remember?” says the lady. “I do not,’’ replies Mr. Fishback, with emphasis. Miss Laura makes two Interrogation points of her silken eyebrows, opens her mouth to speak, thinks better of it, closes her red lips firmly, and turns to the window again as the Follow-follow-follow-me-ers stop playing and gather in a group, with their eyes fixed upon a small aerial car, gayly decorated with flags, prhich is gently swaying between Heaven and earth, as it slowly descends toward the lawn. In a few moments it touches the ground, and a handsome young fellow leaps out, and is greeted with many exclamations of pleasure and surprise. “ Your brother Reginald,” says Miss Beardsley. "So soon returned from London? Why, he only started a few days ago.” “Yes; flying ship American Eagle—fastest of the Air Line. I heard of her arrival just after breakfast this morning, when it was shouted by the telephone at the station below.” “Thirty miles away!” “Oh, that’s nothing! We expect to be able to hear news from a hundred miles away before many years are past.” “ May I not be in the immediate vicinity when that news is shouted!” says the lady, with an involuntary movement of her pretty white hands toward her pretty rose-tipped ears, “for I should expect to be deaf for evermore.” “Never fear, my dear—l mean Miss Beardsley. Such a misfortune as that shall never occur, even though you should chance to be at the very side of the shouter. Edison is at this moment perfecting an instrument that begins to deliver its messages in a moderately loud voice, which increases in volume as it is carried forward, until it reaches the most distant point it is intended to reach, thus maintaining an even tone all along the route. How glorious all these Edisonian inventions are!” he continues, with a glow of enthusiaslh, “ and what humdrum times our ancestors must have had without them! Why, they are the very life of the age. There’s the phonograph, for instance—but I beg pardon; you are looking bored. I cannot expect you to take as much interest in these scientific subjects as I do. Is not Reginald coming this way?”

“He is not," answers Miss Laura, demurely; "he is still holding Bella’s hand, and totally ignoring all the other welcoming hands extended to him.” “ ‘Ah! the old, old story that is ever new!’ ” quotes Mr. Fishback, as he peeps over the shoulder of his fair guest at the new arrival; and then, suddenly rising and confronting her, he exclaims: “ You must have heard that story very, very often, Laura—forgive my calling you so, but you used to permit it in the days we went blackberrying together some ten years ago; and forgive me again, but upon my word, I cannot help asking you, impelled as I am by some mysterious power, why have you never married?” A blush rises to her cheek, but she looks up in his face calmly, and replies: “ I don’t remember the blackberry episodes, and I have remained unmarried because I vowed when a young ' girl never to marry unless convinced that I was the first and only love of the man whose wife I became.” “ Laura, I have never loved another.” “ Mr. Fishback, you forgot my old friend Teresa, the sister of the girl to whom your brother Reginald is now making love on the lawn. ■ “Good heavens! Laura, how mistaken you are!” “ ’Twas with her you looked for blackberries. I never knew you to find any —not with me, sir.”

“Laura, how blind you were! I sought her society only to be near you. I declare, upon my word and honor, 1 lingered by her side for hours and hours in the hope that you would join us for a moment or two during the time, and when you did, in that moment or two was concentrated the joy of the whole day. You were so proud, so cold, so reserved, I did not dare to approach you save through your friend; and—” “ And you did not bury yourself in seclusion for two years after she jilted you and married Frank Huntington?” she asks, as he pauses. “ Great heavens! how preposterous! Laura, I swear—" But. as he is about to swear, enter a procession of small nephews and nieces and attendant friends, the leader of which carries an odd-looking box. “See, uncle!" the bright-eyed little fellow calls out as he approaches. “I found this old phonograph on the top shelf of your closet, where I was looking for your fish line to play horse with, and it talks like everything.” With this ho begins to turn the metal crank, and a voice—a somewhat shrill young voice, the voice of Teresa, sister of Bella—whilom friend of Laura Beardsley—begins to speak:; “Yes, Leon, my own, I will grant your impassioned praver, and breathe the words you long to hear into this magical casket, ana then, when yon are lonely or inclined to doubt me, jealous tone, you can call them forth to bring back the smiles to your dear face, ana loy to your dear heart. Ido return the ove you so ardently avow, and I will marry you when mamma gives hereon-, sent. Until then no lips shall touch the lips made sacred by your kiss, no hand shall clasp the hand that wears your lovely diamond ring. But, oh, Leon dear, try to like Laura a little for my sake. I know she is all that you say she is—affected, cold-hearted, haughty and disagreeable (I am just naughty enough to be pleased when you tell me her beauty, so much admired by others, particularly Frank Huntington, fades into utter insignificance beside that of your own little Teresa)-“but, my Leon, try, oh! try, to tolerate her, for, strange as it may appear to you, disliking her as you do, 1 I am quite fond of her. Good-night, beloved. Dream of your Tessa.” “ That miserable phonograph!” said Mr. Fishback; “ I thought I destroyed it long ago,” as he angrily snatched it from the hands'of the small discoverer.

“ What did our hundrum ancestors do without these glorious inventions?” murmured Miss Laura, as she quietly fainted away for the first and only time in her life. “ If ever you go prowling around my room again," continued Mr. Fishback —addressing his unfortunate nephew, and supporting Miss Beardsley with one hand, while he flung the tell-tale .out of the window 1 , where it broke into a dozen pieces as it touched the ground with a shrill ear-splitting shriek—“l’ll apply th? double back-action

spanking machine until you roar for mercy.” ( The procession, considerably demoralized, started on the double-quick for the door, and Mr. Fishhack, looking upon the inanimate form he held in his arms, cried out, as he struck his forehead With his clinched hand, “ She will never, never look at me again!” But she did, and, what’s more, she married him a month after. And—oh, the marvellous progress toward perfect womanhood in this wonderful twentieth century! —although they have been man and wife for some twenty years, she has never once said to him, " That voice!” —Harper's Weekly.