Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 22, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 February 1901 — Hetty, or The Old Grudge. [ARTICLE]

Hetty, or The Old Grudge.

By J. H. CONNELLY.

CHAPTER IV. —(Continued.) “‘Why, mother, I haven’t -been gallivanting.” "Don’t tell me! Wasn’t John Cameron waiting for you up there? Didn’t Danny get tired and come away, leaving you two together? Of all the men in the world, it must be John Cameron you CO out in the woods to meet! I should think you might have more pride about you—and you a Mulveil, You know very well there never yet was any love lost between the M til veils and the Camerons, wen among our forbears in the old country. The Camerons, indeed! A stuckap lot, themselves better than anybody else, because they have a clan; while, as is well known among wise men, the first Mulveil was a king—and mn Irish king; and I’d like to have any'body show me a Cameron that eyer was « king. I wonder if you’ve forgot how John Cameron’s father got the best of yours in that lawsuit, when we had to pay one hundred dollars for our bull jabbing his horn into old Cameron’s mare; and it never did seem sense nor reason ■nor justice nor godliness to me that we ■should be hejd responsible for the natural dispositions of the dumb beasts.” '‘Don’t cook fish till you catch them, mother,” answered Hetty, placidly. “You've been swallowing some of Danoiy’s yarns. I should think by this time .you’d know better than to believe any- - thing that boy says, except that he’s .hungry or don’t want to wash himself.” “Wasn’t it true that you and John Cameron had a meetin’ up on the ‘Backbone’ to-day? Wasn’t he waiting there ior you to come along?” “He was waiting, certainly, but hardly a matter of choice, I think, or for me,” replied the girl, with a little laugh. And then she went on to narrate the facts of Jack’s mishaps and her share in >bis rescue, without remembering, however, anything about the shooting, all •.traces of which she. had, on her way borne, taken care to hide from casual observation. While she was telling the .atory, her mother and Mary Elder kept up a running commentary of exclamartions:

‘‘Law’s sates!” ■ “Did you ever!” “If that don’t beat all!” 'Danny, being hungry, had better use •for his mouth than talking with it,"but by file knowing grins and leers with which he favored Hetty, he sorely tempted her to box his ears. The girl’s vivid recital of John Camtsron’s peril quite won her mother’s sympathetic interest, for Mrs. Mnlveil was <at heart a kind, well-meaning woman, >wishing ill to none, even to a Cameron, •o long as the old, faction grudge did not happen to be stirred up. But the story had a keener interest for Mary Elder, •who, being a clear-sighted girl, saw what the widow did not perceive, or even suspect. Soon after supper, Danny —in his customary state of rebellion and angry dis , gust with the familiar assurance that it would be hard enough to get him up in vtfee morning, even if he went now, was ijftriven off to his bed in the loft.

Then the three women abandoned themselves to the ecstatic delight of an amtrammeled conversational revel over the subject of dress. Mary Elder was a ■skillful dressmaker, who made, or, at least, cut and fitted, the best gowns of half the well-to-do women in that part »f the ■‘•country. The whole year round ■ihe was in demand, and sure of enthusiastic welcome at arfy one of fifty farm houses. All the latest fashions known tn Pittsburg she could be depended upon for supplying, and she was a treasurehouse of knowledge concerning all the sew things the most stylish women in the county had or contemplated having. And she was prudent withal. Every wardrobe or individual garment reported by her was presented in its best light. A thing "turned” or "made over” to look like new, from her point of view, was new. She betrayed no secrets. It was not necessary that she should do so to make her news interesting or establish her position as au authority. At length, Mrs. Mulveil, having yawned until her jaws cracked, declartAl she could sit up no longer, and went off to .bed. Hetty “covered” the big fire in the .grate by piling upon it a large quantity of the finely broken coal called "slack,” which melts into a crust during the night, and at the first touch of the matutinal •early poker bursts into a mass of roaring kflaine. Then she and Mary sat down together before the fireplace, in the halflight cast from between the lower bars of the grate, and, with their arms about each other, talked in low tones. “You told me something you did not «ell your mother, dear,” said Mary, drawing her younger friend close to her. ' “Why, no! How so? What?” “That you were in love with John •Cameron.” “Why. Mary! How you do talk!” “Oh, don’t try tp deny it to me, dear. I’m enough older than you to read the -•igns. You can't help telling your love •r letting it tell jtßelf. Your voice would make it known if you* were only talking about the weather; and if you are silent, your happy eyes will laugh it out to the •world; and if you shut them tight, the rfiame in your cheeks will tell the story, ■<ma it does now.” "That is only the red firelight.” “God grant the fire that light cornea .-from may never die down in aßhea.” “Oh, Mary! How you say that?” 1 “I have reason to, for I know better Chan you do yet what love Is; how happy •me how wretched one may be made by it.” Hetty shuddered, and for a few minaates both were silent, looking at the fire, «ne seeing in it the past, the other the ttature. On the surface of the melting mass of ■rich bituminous coal near the front—wrfcere It was thinnest piled and most «««4Uy acted upon by the fierce heat be ■math—glossy, jet-black gas bubbles form.od continuously, slowly swelling larger \ 1

and larger each in its turn suddenly bursting into a bright but generally only momentary blaze. Sometimes the flame would catch the gas rising in slender columns of dark smoke from where the “slack” lay thickest, and for an instant produce an effect like a diminutive display of “heat lightning.” Again it would persist for a ; longer time, as much as a minute or two, in a long, slender, tongue of hissing, golden light. No two bubbles acted exactly alike, either in formation or transformation. And a pretty picture those fitful illuminations made of the homely but cheerful kitchen interior, every detail of which was brought out by them in most vivid relief. The bright utensils of tin and copper shone like burnished silver and gold; the old. dark oak table took oh a mahogany color; the full moon-face on the dial of the oldfashioned tall clock assumed an expression of intelligent consciousness; weird shadows danced among strings of brilliant scarlet peppers pendant from the ceiling; and even the blue mandarin, with Its blue suite, crossing a blue bridge from a blue forest to a blue pagoda, op the great dishes reposed on the shelves, was brought out clearly en evidence and looked pretty rather than preposterous. But these were not the sights that Hetty and Mary saw. The fire elementals’ magic wrought, other pictures for them. At length the seamstress resumed, speaking

in a low, sad voice, hardly louder than a murmur in a minor key: ♦ “You don’t know how much older than you I am, dear, both in years and in sorrow. Maybe I do not look my age. They fcay that those who don’t care do not grow old so fast as those who do, and I guess that must be so. I don’t care. I have‘ nothing left to care for. But I have had my romance, and buried it before you were put into long frocks. It was in Pittsburg, where I went when I was only a slip of a girl to learn dressmaking, and where I lived as you know, a good many years. Well, I was engaged to be married there to a young man named Grant Guthrie. He was a machinist, and I can’t tell you how handsome and good he was and how dear to

me. And he loved me, too. Yes, I am sure he did—in a man’s way, though. He was all I thought of or cared .for, and, having him, I would not have been conscious that I desired anything else. But, besides me, he loved glory and his country, and he had ambition to make a name for himself and fortune; so nothing would do for him but he must enlist In the army and go away to Mexico.” She stopped speaking for a few minutes. When she went on again, her voice trembled, and a sudden flare of firelight showed that tears were standing in her eyes. She continued: “He was going to become a colonel, perhaps a general. Then he would return home a hero, marry me and go to Congress and be a great man. The one thing he never thought of was that he might not live to come back —and he never did! He was shot down by Mexicans in one of the first battles, and only lived long enough to give a comrnde his dying message to me; and he is buried far away in a land 1 shall never see.”

Her voice broke, and she wept without an effort at constraint. Hetty embraced her, kissed her brow, patted her shoulder as one soothes a sorrowing child, and murmured, caressingly: “There, there, dear! Don’t take on so, don’t! Maybe it is all for the best.” “Yes,” sobbed Mary, doubtfully; “that is what the minister says—that ‘all is for the best’—but I can hardly make up my mind that he is right.” “And don’t you believe there will ever come a time when you will be with him again?” “Not in this world, anyway; and this is all we really know anything about.” “But I think I should try to hope so, if i were you.” I do; so I do. But, oh, it is so hard to believe in the light of another world that sends no ray into the gloom of this! There, there! Don’t let us talk any more about my old story. Bury it in your heart, as I do in mine; only, if you ever recall it, let it be to warn you not to hope for too much happiness from love. And now, dear, tell me about yourself. Does Johu love you?” "Oh, he has never said a word of love to me. Indeed, we hardly ever spoke before today. I suppose that miserable old quarrel between the Camerons and the Mulveils kept him from seeing me.” “But not you from seeing him?” “X-no. 1* looked at him sometimes; enough to know him by sight, anyway.” Mary smiled at the naivete of the admission.

"Hut, now that lie has seen you, how does he look at you? As if he loved you?” "I hardly know,” answered Hetty, with a little embarrassed laugh. “You see, I have no experience to judge by; but I I think—yes.” “Then I guess he does. The heart does not need experience to read that look. It is true that some men can lie with their eyes, ns others can with their tongues, but I do not think John Cameron is one of that sort, No, he is of good, honest, manly stock. And I can speak impartially about that, for, you know, my family is mixed up with both the Camerons and the Mulveils.” , “But more to the Camerons. You would take up for them first.” “Why! You savage little partisan! I believe you are disposed to find fault with me for speaking well of a Cameron!” “Oh, no, no, indeed! I am for one Cameron against the world." « X CHAPTER V. The tax for keeping the public roads in repair was, in those days, payable either in money or labor, and the latter method was generally preferred in the agriculfural districts. This fact was, however, by no means attributable' to inability of the farmers to pay cash, or because they had a prejudice agalast

parting with their silver. "Road-tax Days” had come to be popularly regarded as exciting events. They brought neighbors together on week days, when political discussions, exchanges of rumors supposed to be news, good-natured personal banter and occasional horse trades could be indulged in with propriety. The legal hours of labor were “from sun-up to sun-down.”

It was only about a fortnight after John Cameron’s adventure on the “Backbone” that “Road-tax Day” came around in the township of Elder, and called forth, as usual, the entire able-bodied male population. By daybreak, they commenced arriving at the great whiteoak, on the township line, which was the rendezvous appointed by the roadmaster. A sort of tacit understanding, born of habit, prevailed, as to the implements and tools each man should bring to the work, so that all were amply provided with axes, shovels, pick-axes, cant-hooks, handspikes and hoes. Some came with teams and plows or bob sleds, to run drainage furrows at the sides of the road or drag heavy weights. r _ - The first comers assumed the right to banter later arrivals upon their tardiness, and many a sharply rude jest was good-naturedly taken and replied to by a keen rejoinder, until, finally, the last comer, a young fellow who had but recently been married, was made the subject for so lively a general attack as overwhelmed him and made him sullen for a time, his wit being no match for the assembled township. With few exceptions, the people in that part of Washington County then were of Scotch-l’rish extraction, and their humor was of the dry, biting, sly sort peculiar to that breed of jokers; keenly effective as uttered, but almost impossible of even approximately

fair reproduction in cold type. Words of innocently simple purport were converted into barbed and envenomed darts of Cleaning by an arch look, a suggestive intonation or, oftener yet, by their covert allusion to some purely personal matter which had become popular knowledge. Soon all were busy at work. The echoes were stirred by the ringing sounds of ax strokes and the shouts of the drivers to their horses. Young squirrels, high up in the oak and hickory trees, yelped inquiries to their elders as to what they thought of the strange proceedings going on away below; and the wise ones barked back that, strange as it was true, no present harm to the squirrel race was threatened. Inquisitive crows, having thoroughly satisfied themselves, by sharp observation from a safe distance, that there were no guns near at hand, came impudently close, perched over the merrymakers’ ’ heads and cawed down their criticisms upon what was going on. The horde of dogs accompanying their masters, having formally opened the ceremonies, in conformity with ancient cuetom, vith a promiscuous free fight, came to an amicable understanding with one another, and, joining forces in pursuit of minks, rabbits and chipmunks, made the forest ring with their hunting choruses. At noon the men suspended their work, and the dogs temporarily abandoned their bootless hunting. Each man had brought his dinner with him, and in a sunny spot, well sheltered from the wind, they all sat down near together to eat and chat. The entente cordiale among the dogs was violently ruptured in their eager rivalry for the first bones thrown them, but reestablished upon their general recognition that their masters were leaving to theta much more food than they could devour. After quickly finishing their meal, the younger men, to kill time during the remaining portion of the dinner hour, entered into a series of competitive contests of strength and skill, “putting” a heavy stone, “tossing the caber,” jumping and throwing stones at a mark. In each of these exercises the competitors gradually but surely dropped out until but two were left, John Cameron and Itufus Goldie, between whom there was a strong feeling of rivalry that spurred them to efforts far beyond those of their fellows. It was not simply personal but rather the concentration to two focal points of the antagonism long existent between those opposing factions, the Camerons and the Mulveils. By insensible degrees, from the time Rufus came to live in this neighborhood, he and John had grown into prominence as the very nearly matched champions of the young men who, according to traditional duty, were keeping alive the ancient grudge of their ancestors. Yet Rufus was not exactly a Mulveil, but only “related to them.” His connection was admittedly no closer than that his mother’s first husband, who was a Beaseley—she being a Mcßride—had a brother married to a girl who halfbrother took one of the Baker girls to wife, and everybody knew that the Bakers were related to the Mulveils from “away back,” though few could tell exactly how. That was the way in which most of the old women figured out his “distant cousinship,” though there were some who claimed to have found connection in another way, through the Clancys—a claim against which much could have been, and was, said, without reaching any certitude. At all events, he was recognized as a relative and welcomed as an adherent of the Mulveils. But he was a “ne’er-do-well,” working pretty faithfully at Sim Mulveil’s sawmill or on his farm, but never, somehow, accumulating anything for himself, not even acquiring possession of a saddle horse. It was whispered that he gambled. Of course, he was expected to have vices, for it was well known that he worked in Pittsburg several months before coming out to Washington County to live, five years ago, and the contamination of city life wak beyond question. Every one had to admit, however, that he was a good-look-ing young fellow, lacking in the open frankness of countenance that characterized John Cameron, but with a tine athletic figure, regular features and a handsome' 1 head of straight hair, black as coal. Each of Goldie’q feats in the athletic contest was loudly applauded by the Mulveila, and each time he was defeated by Jofon, the Camerons shouted for joy and triumph over their neighbors. From these Indicative manifestations of feeling, progress was easy to the utterance of taunts and insinuated threats.

Several of the older men present, mindful of the promises given two befofe by the recognized heads of the factions, when Squire McCalmont brought about a formal agreement of peace between them, interfered to prevent the fight that seemed imminent—and for which abundant precedent had been established on other “Road-tax Days." Their endeavors, at least, caused the hotheaded youngsters to hesitate, and fortunately an incident occurred which divwt-

ed their attention and averted the threatened danger, by restortag general good humor. Danny Mulveil and the mail rider soddenly came dashing down the road, riding furiously and howling like Comanchea. “The imp,” whose saddle was simply a sheepskin, was mounted upon a bright bay two-year-old with a blazed face, that everybody recognized at a .glance as the property of minister McLeod. The mail rider—a boy only two or three years older than Danny—rode a good horse, with which he had, in a succession of semiweekly races, repeatedly beaten every animal in the Mulveil stables —or, at least, those to which the imp had access. But Danny, who was not the sort of boy who could be ever so effectually downed that he would stay downed, had to-day stolen from the pasture the minister’s blooded colt, the joy of that good man’s heart and the'pride of his life, and was determined to “ride him for all there is in him.” (To be continued.)