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Show Lb “OH, HE'S ALIVE! HE BREATHES!” John Cassidy’s Sacrilice awful purpose, this incomparable hero] heard Lydia burst out with the ery he | that she had talents—of just what ism, was revolving in his brain, pass | had so long been dreading. nature she was hardly yet quite sure ers-by saw only a gray and wearyOh, gran‘dad, oh, gran‘mother.” At the sametime, she loved her grand looking man bent over the reins his she pleaded, “if only 1 could go for parents more deeply even than she 8 head a jittle spell an’ try it! I know I could herself suspected; and now, realizing | eyes so fixed upon his hor that he hardly returned their saluia as she had never done before the pain lo we 1 fi in me,—an’ I'd so tions jove to help you pay off that mortgage which she would cause them by her on Stony-Lenesome that gives you so Still serutinizing the dread burden going, she shrank at the thought of it. in his heart, he went as usual to the h bother every year!” She did think of it, however, nearly post office, and then to the villa all that night; and rising in the morn Seeing their faces of denial, she grocery for a bag of “feed.” He test would not give them time to speak, | ing, dull-eyed, from a sleepless pillow, ed the feed as critically, and ques t went on hastily: “An’ l'@ come she told her grandparents that for a tioned the price as frugally (gaining whole year, at least, she would say ack eve summer, for sure! Oh, a few cents of discount because of.a no more of Boston. Their joy was an it will break my heart to leaye you, musty spot in the bag), as if he were | know but my heart seems just filumination to her. A gladder sunjust going home to fodder the cattle | bursting to go, teo, An’ you both know ‘shine seemed to stream down upon meal of buck Stony-Lonesome, and she heard her -and make a hearty I'd come back when you got eld an’ wheat cakes. As he passed out of needed me; au’ then I'd stay with you grandfather whistling like a boy over the shop, between a pile of codfish on always! his work in the cornfield. For days Lyddy Lyddy,” exclaimed her she herself had a calm, contented one side and a dark-streaked molasses hogshead on the other, one of the grandmother in a quivering voice, spirit, and turned her eyes no more group of men who occupied the coun don’t we need you now, an’ all the to the notch in the hills. ters and biscuit boxes remarked to time? Think what it would be for It could not be expected that this him, “I hear Lyddy’s talkin’ of goin’ to contentment, reached so abruptly, us if you took away the only sunBawston this winter!” shine that’s left for us in Stony-Loneshould prove lasting. In a few weeks some? the young girl felt again the sting of John Cassidy glared blankly at the As fur the mortgage, it ain't nothing!” the old restlessness. But she would speaker, and went on without replyjut John Cassidy turned to the not let it appear. In the autumn, ing. When he was out of earshot a when several girls of her acquaintance | man ‘What do you know,” he went away, full of sanguine enthusiasked harshly, “of the awful dangers, an’ the scarlet iniquities, an’ all the asm, the gnawing fever in her veins | wrongs an’ woes that crushes the grew almost intolerable. She fought it with a resolution which might have soul in a city? How fur have ye ever been from Brine settlement?” reassured John Cassidy as to her moral fiber; but it took its revenge by No furder 'n Halifax, Mr. Cassidy,” stealing from her cheeks the color and uid Job cheerfully, “'cept maybe round young curves The old people ound the world one’t or twic’t when | noted this, and grieved over it, and was a lad an’ followed the sea!” efforts to redoubled1 heir furtive He pa in pardonable triumph; it 1 Cassidy had no answer amuse her. | ydia wept at night over the strugg! but suce -eded, after a m his tongue, he went on: “An’ I've time, in cultivating a cheery lightness i human natur’ pretty much the of manner that deceived and relieved am everywheres I reckon ‘tain't no worse in Bawston than in Brine ttlement, all in all!” You know began Lydia excited ile you an’ gran'dad have Ts er, an » well an’ strong, and her grandparents. Al] through the spring and summer they grew more and more happily reassured; and all the time, under the raint which she had put upon herself, the fire in Lydia's heart gathered heat. and—-young, in fact, now’s-the tim At last, with the next coming of the fo to go (Copyright, by Joseph B. Bowles.) fall, and the going of the birds, and at this point the look in her the aching unrest which troubles the ndfather’s face stopped her right Lydia's eyes strayed over the wide, | The farm had good land attached to it blood when the days grow short and in the adjacent valley; but t he ΩΙ er sentence dangling. weakly wooded valley, over the far-off rim of ehill with the diminishing year, Lydia | round hill licked naked by an ancient the r. Could be be a littlh—just purple hills, and rested wistfully on eould bear it no long She cried out conflagration, was of niggard s oi a lit touched” on the subject of the tremulous blue beyond. She laid to them one day, with as ien storm thick-sown with nite boulde she wondered, At least, she her arms along the top of the worn of tears, that she must ¢ that The house was built so well that time drop t bject for the pres gray bars, and leaned her rosy face they must let her go for a little while, | appeared unwilling to try conclusion and await a more auspicious hou: upon her folded brown hands, and to come back to Stony-Lonesome in | with it, and so warmly that its occu for resuming it As she came to this fetched a long sigh from the very the spring. The poor little house of its bleak conelusion, her grandmother spoke | bottom of her heart, And still she | pants did not suffer from | cards whicl the old people had been situation. Low-walled and wide, rain a kept. her eyes fixed on that patch of building all summer came straightway washed, to a gray which blended with You're so young yet, Lyddy. Sure shimmering sky How well she knew to the ground in piteous ruin the surrounding stones, it seemed an ly you can stay a bit longer in the that spot, set apart from all the rest The John Cassidy said nothing. The fi of the spacious empty heavens by | outgrowth of the hill itself. old nest. Hain't the old folks got look upon his face eut Lydia to the door was dull yellow At one corner two jutting shoulders of the hills! some claim on you yet?” she pleaded. heart, but she hardened herself to arose, like a steeple, {π6 stiff 8) “IT wish, oh, I wish as how I could And Lydia, still glancing furtively meet it. It had been his rule, in form of a Lombardy poplar, the only go! If only gran'mother an’ gran’and uneasily at her grandfather's face, ng the girl up, to cross h P tree on the hill. At the other corner replied: “Yes, dear. We won't talk dad could git along without me for a wishes but rarely, and then with a | where the ell straggled off leanly fro: n any more about it now,—not this sumspell!” finality that left no more to say. Now the main house, stood a huge hogs | mer at all,” she added, with sudden She turned, picked up her two he shrank from entering into a direct head to catch the rain water from the pails, each half-full of water from the resolution, followed by a sigh. spring, and started up the long, stony| roof. A little square of garden, slop | John Cassidy could not trust him- conflict with her will. That his posilane toward the house. | ing from the front door, and fenced | self to speak on the subject, so he tive command would keep her at home, at least for the present, he knew; but with low walls of stones carefully Somewhere far beyond that spot of proceeded to give Job directions about piled, was bright with sweet-william sky, according to her painstaking calthe afternoon's work. Dinner was he feared the ultimate result. With haggard eyes he gazed at Lydia for a culations and much eager study of the and bachelor'’s-button and phlox. This done, and Lydia set herself to clegsfew moments; then got up and went patch of color took on a_ curious ing the table. maps in her school geography, lay the out. His wife set herself despairingcity of Lydia’s dreams. From early | pathos from the wide severity which John Cassidy wandered aimlessly childhood she had heard and read of | it so vainly strove to soften. The about the kitchen, cutting his tobacco ly, with tears, and tender entreaties, and arguments which Lydia had alample barns, which as a rule succeed | and filling his black clay pipe, till Boston, and longed for it. Girls whom ready threshed over and over in her in giving a certain kindly air to the she knew, her schoolmates, shy, Lydia, having mixed a dish of potatoes own mind, to turn the girl from her bleakest scene, were hidden behind shabby, and awkward, had gone and cornmeal, went out to feed a coop purpose. But Lydia was now in the the house at Stony-Lonesome thither, to disappear from her view of chickens back of the barn. Then full torrent of reaction from her long As Lydia gracefully and steadily for a year or two, They had returned he stood still in front of his wife. self-control, and neither argument nor carrying her two pails of water, in glorious apparel, self-confident and “Oh, John, how are we goin’ to keep entreaty could touch her. She fled to reached the top of the hill and turned glib of tongue, to dazzle down all her to home without makin’ her feel her own room, her handkerchief recriticism in their quiet Nova Scotian the corner toward the kitchen door, as how she’s in a prison?” moaned duced to a wet and crumpled ball, her John Cassidy lifted his eyes from his backwoods settlement. Mrs, Cassidy, rocking herself to and eyes red and angry. Throwing herHe | fro Lydia had it in her mind that she corn-hoeing in the lower field | self on her face upon the bed, she would never learn those bold glances | saw Lydia pause at the corner of the | “That's the trouble, Marthy,” said tried hard to fix her mind on such deand that loud chattering in Boston, but | house and cast one lingering back he, slowly. “I can’t bear to make her tails as what clothes she would take her imagination was all on fire with ward look across the valley toward feel that way. An’ she sees other with her and what time she would get dreams and ambitions, which in Bosthat notch in the hills. He had girls goin’! An’ oh, the rovin’ spirit’s away. She thought and thought, but watched her at this before, and had ton only, she thought, could ever find in her blood! We must git her more her grandfather's haggard eyes kept | fulfilment. It was not lack of money come to know what it meant. He books, an’ let her go round more an’ thrusting themselyes between’ her and trembled, and muttered to himself, that kept her, chained and fretting, on have a good time. I hain’t quite unher plans, till she sprang up and set *She’s got it! The p’ison’s workin’ in the old farm of Stony-Lonesome, as derstood her in the past, maybe.” herself feverishly to an examination of John Cassidy's place was called, her blood! That's what’s makin’ her “But she'll want to go next winter, her wardrobe. It was with a very anguish of apfret so, longin’ to be away to that hell | John, An’ we'll have to let her go, prehension that Lydia's grandparents on earth. Lydia, Lydia, I'd ruther see or she'll git to hate Stony-Lonesome Downstairs Mrs. Cassidy sat rock watched her growing restlessness, your dear young eyes shet white an’ | an’ fret herself to death.” ing to and fro, dropping hot tears upon the gray woolen sock which she fast in death than see ye go like your Their fear was no mere selfish pas“Tl see her dead,” said John Cassion. The grandmother, indeed, a poor mother done!” sidy slowly through whitelips, “afore was knitting. In her heart was a dark, gentle, motherly woman, would sit Then, with knit brows and set lips, I'll let her go!” Then the fire half-realized phantom of a fear that rocking in the sunny porch, and thinkher husband, in his anger, might do he went on with his hoeing, till presing, thinking, thinking, of what Stonysomething dreadful to Lydia. She reently Lydia appeared in the kitchen Lonesome would be without “Lyddy.” membered that sudden, awful threat door and blewa long, echoing note on Far worse than this, to John Cassidy, the great shell which served as a dinwhich had been wrung from him; and was a black horror of Boston, which though she had lived with him these ner horn. John Cassidy straightened lay like a nightmare on his soul, He 40 years, she did not even yet know his back, threw down {16 hoe, and loved Lydia with all the pent-up force | started for the house; and the hired the tenderness of his rugged heart of a grim, undemonstrative nature; | man appeared, coming from behind a She trembled, and waited for what yet the thought of his own pain at copse further down the valley. might happen. losing the sunshine of her presence| The hired man sat down at the John Cassidy camein, an hourlater, hardly touched him. His dreams were dinner table along with Mr. and Mrs, and got his coat. He had harnessed racked with visions of Lydia's ruin. Cassidy and Lydia. His name was up his old driving horse, and was going He had never seen a city; and he had Job. A pair of kind but shrewd blue in to the Corners,—‘“to do an arr’nd,” imagination. In his eyes Boston was eyes twinkled under his pale and he said, in answer to his wife’s query. a sort of Babylon, where vice, in grobushy eyebrows, giving an alert look In fact, he felt that he would have to tesquely leering shapes (fashioned to his otherwise heavy face, which get away from Stony-Lonesome in from boyish memories of an illus- | Was round, red and hairless. After order to think clearly. He was bewiltrated copy of the “Pilgrim's Progshoveling a huge quantity of fish and dered by the problem which confrontress’), caught openly in the streets at potatoes into his mouth, using his ed him. But it was an unheard-of the white skirts of innocence | knife for the purpose, he stopped for thing for him to go in to the Corners Lydia knew that Wer grandfather | breath, without taking Lydia along. Thegirl hated Boston with a hate that would | “Jim Ed Barnes come by as I was watched him from the windowas the endure no argument; and she knew workin’ in the back lot this forenoon,” wagon went jolting down the lane, and that her grandmother also trembled said he. read his bitterest rebuke in this soliat the name. The reason for this, | “What did Jim Ed have to say for tary departure. It made her feel as if however, was far indeed from her | himself?” asked Lydia she were suddenly thrust out of his remotest guess. The old, old tragedy| “He was tellin’ me,” answered Job, life. A keen foretaste of homesick was at the foundation of it. Lydia's, “howfine his sister Ellen was hittin’ it ness came over her. mother, grown heartsick at 18 with off in Bawston.” As John Cassidy, with bent head Her Work at the House Was Calling the bright desolation of Stony-Lone- | Mr. and Mrs. Cassidy looked at and hands that scarcely felt the reins Her. some, had shakenoff restraint and fled | each other. The old man’s face paled they held, moved along the quiet away to Boston. After two years at | slightly, while his wife made a hasty | smoldered down in his heart, and he country road, his thoughts fell over service there she had come back to | effort to change the subject. went on: “But we'll try to wean her one another in harassing confusion. Stony-Lonesome, broken with pain |! “Did he say how his mother’s leg from it, Marthy; an’ maybe God ‘ll At last, however, a definite purpose and shame, deserted by a false lover. was gittin’?” she inquired, with an help us. He didn't help us much the began to take shape. What if he Her mother, taking her back to her excellent assumption of eagerness on other time, about Maggie, but maybe should—quietly kill himself? If he aching heart, had striven to comfort her large, gentle face. he'll hear us now. There's that organ were to throw himself from the wagon her; but her father, for three long, But Lydia interrupted. ‘What's she the agent over to the Corners was try- over some steep bank, on the way bitter months, had held sternly aloof doing, Job? And howis she gitting in’ to sell me. We'll git it. Lydia’s homethat night, the world, or at least from her contrition. Then, forgiving | along? And how does she like it in been wantin’ one this long time.” Brine settlement, would call it an acher upon her death-bed, in an agony| Bawston?” she queried breathlessly. He stopped abruptly as Lydia came cident. And then Lydia would never of love and grief which she had piti“Why,” said Job, “she’s got to be in with the empty dish. Putting a have the heart to leave her widowed fully tried to soothe, he had taken her forewoman in a big millin’ry store. light to his pipe he went out at once. grandmother alone. John Cassidy child to his heart with a consuming She was always neat-fingered, y’ know, Lydia had caught his last words, and shook at the thought, for he was a redevotion. To him, thenceforth, life an’ took natural to that kinder thing. now she saw her grandmother's eyes ligious man, of the strictest sect of the found expression only in terms of An’ now she’s makin’ money, I reckon! red and swollen. Her heart was torn Baptists. But after all, what, to him, Lydia. This was the name her dying . Why, Jim Ed says as how she sent | with divided emotions. She was angry was his own soul compared with mother had bestowed upon the child. | home two hundred dollars yesterday at the idea of being bribed, like a Lydia's? He would take hell itself As for the name “Stony-Lonesome,” to help pay off the mortgage on their child, to give up what she looked upon gladly, if thereby he might pluck never was appellation more apt. John place.” as her serious ambitions. She told her- Lydia from the brink. By the time he Cassidy's father, an eccentric recluse, The potato which he was eating beself that the young had a right, a approached the Corners he had about bad built bis house upon a hill on the came to John Cassidy as dry as sawsacred right, to carve out their for. made up his mind. He was planning remotest edge of Brine settlement. dust, and stuck in his throat. He tunes; and she was full of the idea the details minutely; and while this By CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS. ] at the lane of Stony-Lonesome. Ju then they caught and held on a pre ecting root, and the horse at once stopped. Half an hour later Job came lown the lane to fetch water from the spring, and found the horse standing there patiently with the empty wagon behind him Job saw at once that something He ran perserious had happened haps a hundred yards along the road; then, realizing that he would belikely to need help, he sped back to the Fearing to alarm house for Lydia. Mrs. Cassidy, he asked the girl to take a step down the lane with him, it being such an “uncommonfine night.” She was on the point of aa abrupt re fusal, when she caught the grave and anxious meaning in his eyes “All right, Jeb,” said she, with a sudden vague apprehension, “Tl git my hat an’ come right along.” She ran after the man, and overtook him half way down the lane. “What's the matter?” she asked, breathlessly. Job pointed to the horse and empty wagon, plainly visible a few rods be low. “Where is he?” she gasped, clutching at Job's arm ‘Back along the road somewheres, likely,” said Job. “I thought as how 1 might need help to lift him.” Lydia tried to question further, but the voice died in her aching throat, and she hurried on beside the man in stunned silence. A succession of dreadful forebodings flashed through 8 e kept repeating to herher mind her grandself that she had killed father Then they came to the wagon. She climbed to Job turned the horse the wagon-seat and sat with her fingers twisti g and untwisting, as Job drove rapidly back along the road to the Corners The moon was higher and whiter now, and every object along the roadside stood out sharply. They came to the little bridge. They stopped, and cried out as with one voice when they saw John Cassidy's whip lying in the road. Then they sprang out of the wagon, and Lydia was down the bank in instant, she knew not how Knee σ in the edge of th tream, The Bush Gave Way and He Dropped. which she noticed not at all, she raised her grandfather's bleeding face buzz of talk arose, and the old unhappy story of Lydia's mother was repeat- | to her bosom “Oh, he’s alive! He breathes!" she ed, with many rustic embellishments. | cried in a high, breaking voice to Job, quesΡ of the question and the who was stooping over her. tioner John Cassidy thought not at all When the old man had been carried Just as he was get ng into the zon home and laid in his own bed he was a new idea flashed upon his mind, still unconscious. Mrs, Cassidy, white and at once his whole plan fell to tearless, took everyIt occurred to him that if he | and stern and 16668 thing out of Lydia’s hands, and astonwere gone Lydia would soon coax her ished the girl by her swift energy and grandmother away to Boston. The cold sweat came out upon his fore- | readiness. After what seemed weeks of waiting the doctor came. Having head, as he saw hownear he had been found a broken shoulder, he set it, and to throwing away his own soul, while, then announced that unless there was in the very act, thrusting Lydia onconcussion of the brain the patient ward to a swifter ruin. would almostcertainly recover, though As he drove slowly along out of the but slowly. Upon this Mrs. Cassidy village and into the wide, twilight went into another room, where she eountry, his head drooped lower over the reins, It was characteristic of could not hear her husband's heavy the measureless unselfishness of the | breathing, and threw her apron over man that now, having, as he truly be- her face. She had sat there for perhaps half lieved, just escaped with his soul, he an hour, when Lydia stole in to try was not glad. His brain lay dumb as a and comfort her; but she turned on log in the black wilderness of dejecthe girl bitterly. She was no longer tion. the doting grandmother, but the griefThe country road was winding and variable, with here a swampy hollow | stricken wife, fierce at the pain which and there a rocky steep. At last the | Lydia had caused her husband. By intuition which may at moon came up, red, full and distort- | that deep knownot how, illumine a ed, and stared John Cassidy in the | times, we Ξ face. The jogging horse, the lean, | woman’s heart, she saw that Lydia had been in some waythe cause of the high wagon, and the bent form on the accident. And Lydia saw it, too, seat cast grotesquely dancing shadows behind them. The naked stumps and | though there appeared to be no reasonable ground for such a conclusion. A rampikes cast other shadows, which few bitter words from the resentful pointed straight at John ( idy in solemn stillness and with strange, | woman and Lydia also knew what had been so tenderly hidden from her—the unanimous meaning. The wa mn story of her mother’s ruin. With reached a spot where the road was bowed head and bleeding heart she narrow, withalittle bridge and a <teep randfather’s bed bank on one side. John Cassidy's iuce crept back to her and crouched down beside it with her lit up. He stopped the horse und looked down at the confusion of stones | face buried in the quilt. For days John Cassidy's life hung some six or eight feet below, with @ upon a thread. He was delirious most rivulet prattling thinly just beyond of the time, and seeing Lydia’s bright them. head so continually hanging over his “If I kind of drop myself over pillow, his wanderings for the most there,” said he, meditatively, “I ain't part concerned themselves with her. goin’ to run no great resk of killin’ From scattered phrases of his delirium myself. No, sir! It'll break an arm and half-formed mutterings and apor a leg, maybe, or put a shoulder out peals which wrung her soul, Lydia o’ j'int—enough to lay me up, that's learned how little of accident there all. With her grandfather a cripple’— had been in the stroke which had nere he winced, and looked around as overthrown her grandfather. if some one else had spoken the This knowledge, uncovering to her hated word in his ear—‘“with me a as it did the deeps of his devotion, cripple, I say,” he repeated, obstinatepierced her with a pang that was not ly, “Lydia couldn’t never think of all pain. The remorseful anguish of goin’ away.” it was lightened by the. thought of He got out of the wagon, told the such love enfolding her. This thought horse to go home, and struck him was like balm to the shame which had lightly with the whip. burned herspirit ever since that cruel “Even if I kin hold her back a year revelation of her grandmother's. or so,” mused John Cassidy, still lookUnder the scorching experiences οἵ ing down at the stones, “it’s worth the those grievous days Lydia’s nature while. She'll have sense, will Lydia, ripened. whenshe gits a little older. I wonder, On an afternoon of Indian summer, now, if Job ‘ll git the potatoes in all one of those days when winter, right ‘thout my help, an’ not mix the though close at hand, seems to have upland crop with them from the wet fallen asleep and forgotten his purmedder field?” pose, Lydia stood again by the bars Nowthat he saw his way clear to with her two pails of spring water. the rescue of Lydia, the farmer's She gazed across the wide country to natural anxieties about the harvest the mysterious notch in the hills. The again seized upon Jokn Cassidy's patch of sky, melting in an indescribamind; but only for an instant; the | ble violet haze, looked nearer than next he let himself topple over the ever before, but it drew her not as bebank, half-turning back as he fell, fore. She locked at it with a sort of and clutching nervously at a wayside | pensive tenderness, the indulgence bush. The bush gave way at once, which one gives to a dream outgrown. and he dropped heavily among the Then she went back to the house, and stones. In an instant he was on his presently up to her grandfather's bedfeet again, staring around in a dazed side. way, and wondering how it was that As she leaned over him, John Cashe could stand up. Jumping to the sidy opened sane eyes and looked at conclusion that the fall had done him no injury, he made a start as if to climb back and try it again. But his knees failed, and he ground his teeth her. The sickness had left his brain. Lydia gave a little sob of joy, fell op her knees, and dropped her face to the pillow beside his. with a sudden pervading anguish, while the red moon seemed to reel and totter amid the tree tops. Then “Grandfather,” she said, “I don’t want any more to go away. I am consciousness faded from his brain. The tone, as contented him. Meanwhile the old horse had jogged faithfully homeward. The reins, slip- ping from the dashboard, trailed along the ground, till the horse turned in going to live here always.” much as the words, With a smile he moved his lips against her face for a moment, and then fell softly into « healing sleep. |
