Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 41, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 January 1909 — THE CANDLESTICKS. [ARTICLE]

THE CANDLESTICKS.

The candlesticks —there were two of them, and they were really fine specimens of old Sheffield plate—stood on a mahogany sideboard that was certainly out of proportion in size to the cottage parlor it half filled. But as a monument to the industry of Mrs. Barber,, and the women of hep house for several past generations, its high state of polish served an admirable purpose, and as a support to the candlesticks it could not have been improved upon. Together they shared the envious respect of the village, but to Mrs. Barber herself the candlesticks were always “the thing.’’ “Mahogany furniture’s well enough,” she would say, feigning a carelessness in appreciation she hardly felt “but it takes a sight of elbow grease to make it look anything particular and as for dusting, sometimes I feel like clearing the whole lot of old sticks out for what they’d fetch to save the dusting, for Dad and me don’t sit in this room once in a blue moon—Dad, he can’t a-bear it. What is it now? YOu gets up extry early and gives the place a sweep out and a rub round, and you dusts the bits of chlney and things and opens the door to let in enough of God’s fresh air to liven it up and make it smell sweet and wholesome, and come a dusty day and the bicycles a-passing and a wagon or two, and by night the dust is a-lying on everything fit to make you cry. •

“But the candlesticks, they shine so easy it’s a real pleasure to clean ’em. Made of something they puts more value to than silver, they are, so they tells me now. My old mother died thinking ’em silver and in my young days there was nothing at all set above silver excepting gold. But things are different since I was a gal, and perhaps I’ve done my share or changing, too, for I don’t so much care what they’re called, though it’s enough to make my old mother turn in her grave after all these years. But it seems they’re worth a fine lot of money, whatever they be. They’re for my boy. When I’m gone and his father’s gone, the candlesticks will be his and he can do as be likes with ’em then. I can’t say about that; but I shan’t be here to have a hand in it, and, as for me selling of ’em, I’m trinklng my old mother’d get up from churchyard to haunt me if I were to sell the candlesticks as she set such store by. Nor I wouldn’t rob my son, as the only one left of eight to follow me. Born he was when all the rest was a-lying in their graves and long after I’d give away their bits of clothes and, if I’m anyhow silly like over him, you must excuse me, but part with the candlesticks I couldn’t. And for the money”—the old face would sadden an<J she would pause in her long tale to slowly, monotonously shake her gray head—“we all knows as money is mighty little good tc some. They can’t help it—likely they’re made so —but money melts when they touch it like butter melts in the sun, and precious little good done to anyone. But the candlesticks —well, well, I means to keep ’em, let folks worrit eved so. My Jim can do as he likes when I’ve give ’ em a last cleaning—l’m thinking he won’t want what they’ll fetch less when he’s old than when he’s young, and when he’s old I shan’t be here to screw him out a few shillings now and again when things are tightish. Not that I have n’t felt tempted to sell ’em and done with it,’’ she would add, in self-de-fense.

Yet, one day the sideboard stood bare, robbed of its ornaments; but not after all, because some treasureseeker had gained his desire and carried them off, and not because of the present necessities of Jim. “I was fair sick of being worrited, and I couldn’t stand It a day longer,” Mrs. Barber said in explanation; “so I’ve just put ’em away, and there they’ll be now till I be took off, and then frightened at the temptation to part with them pressing more closely on her with the growth of Jim’s needs or whether her simple statement covered the whole situation, it is hard to say, but at any rate, the candlestick lay in banishment in a box under her bed. All the old flannel petticoats she could spare helped to wedge them in and keep them from “scratching,” and any further "worriting” on the part of straying treasure-seekers was successfully put an end to. How she filled up the time she had been accustomed to spend on cleaning them she did not say. For she no longer cleaned them; the fact that the box containing them was carefully nailed down and labeled “For my dere son Jim" prevented that. During that summer Jim paid the old couple a flying visit —seedy, out-at-elbows Jim, lacking even a touch of his mother’s cherry, long-spoken good nature or bls father’s independence of spirit Mrs. Barber told half the village that his first words had been "Why, hallo, mother, where are your precious candlesticks?” and seemed to find Inexhaustible humor and cleverness in the remark. “My old mother, she’d have been fair pleased,” she added, "for she set no end of store by the candlesticks.” Mr. Barjber, who looked as if he might well live another 20 years, making light of the accomplishment, died quite unexpectedly during the extreme

cold of the following winter, and then the old woman lived on in the Cottage alone, growing a little more bent and worn with every mbntli, a changed rthd drooping figure pitiful to see. But people said it was not her husband’s unlooked for death that had wrought the sudden alteration in her; that it had begun before that happened. There were some who professed to set apart a day in fheir memories I when Mrs. Barber withered without warning, yet with no signs of definite disease. Frail and broken as she was, she lived for several years and every year Jim paid her the accustomed flying visit. “Youiß like the candlesticks when I’m gone, Jimmy,’’ she would say, her faded eyes shifting uneasily about the room, out of the window, anywhere but on her son, and her thin voice breaking a little. “You’ll be able to sell ’em if you’re a-wanting to, and I shan’t be minding either.’’ Jim would doggedly try to turn the current of her thoughts but it was never any good for more than a minute at a time. And then, one day, Jim Barber, a careless but not. un-loving son, knelt at his mother’s bedside and she dying. “Get out the box, Jimmy,” she whispered; “let me just look on the box once again, my dear.” He had to set the box on a chair and even then she could not see it, but she could still lift a wasted hand to feel its rough deal lid and fumble for the label nailed there. ”1 put ’em away, Jimmy, to save me from being everlastingly a-worrited, five years ago come harvesting. I wrapped ’em up and I nailed ’em down, and I put your name on top, so as there shouldn’t be no chance of. anyon’s mistaking who they belonged to in case* of me being took sudden. Five years ago I done it, Jimmy—and it ain’t been undone since.” “Mother—mother, I —God forgive me for a cowardly—” “Jimmy, dear heart, hush. Your old mother, she spoilt you, silly like, but she done it for love only. Eight little graves in the churchyard, ana you, as healthy a babe as ever I see, sent to me when I’d give away all their little clotheses and dried my eyes and settled down to live long of Dad for the rest of my days without any little ones to light the way for us and keep our hearts from cooling, and then you come—And your way is harder now, Jimmy, because I spoilt you. They always said I did —Dad, he said so, too, and it was none of liis work —but I did it for love. All the love left over from the others and all your own I give you—it’s yours now, Jimmy—and, lad, let it help you when I’m gone. Be a good lad, it can’t never be too late, my dear—and don’t punish your old mother forever and ever for what she’s done. 1 won’t ask you to promise, Jimmy—promises are mighty easy brokeh — but try, dear lad;, just keep on trying.” She paused, and moved her hand from her son’s grasp to top ch the box once more. “The candlesticks have always been the same as your own, Jimmy, and the box hasn’t been opened once these five years.’’ She did not die just then, but those were the last words she was given breath to speak. And those wdrds were a lie —God help her. For the box had been opened twice, as Jim Barber knew. Once when, alone he opened it to steal the candlesticks; and once when, alone also, his mother opened it to verify her suspicion of the theft. —L. Parry Truscott.