anger-for Dr. Lavendar only answered her by a slow, silent shake of the head"Well, I shouldn't think, if I'm so bad I can't have her, that the folks that has her would want a child with such bad blood in her!" She was trembling again, and ready for another wild burst of tears. But as she spoke, Gus knocked again. "Say, Mame, we've got to go; we'll miss the train." "Shut the door," she said. Then looked full into Dr. Lavendar's face. 66 Will you give me my child?" "No," he said, pityingly. She stared at him a moment, her eyes narrowing, hate and fear and misery in her face. "Then-I'll go to hell!" she said; and turned and left him, shutting the door behind her softly. 66 Come on," she told the meek hus scornfully, "isn't anything but a book; band. WHI it's the prayers out of it that makes church, and—" But his voice trailed off into quick subsidence as Dr. Lavendar came in. "Well, children," he said, "you've had to wait. I'm sorry. I think, though, as it's so late, we won't have any lesson-" ("Bully!" said Theophilus, under his breath.) "-but we'll repeat the Collect, all together, and then you may go home." 'Aren't we going to have our apples?" remonstrated Theophilus. "Oh, dear me, yes. Yes, yes. Come, Anna, my child, and kneel down here beside me. Children, let us pray: "O Lord, we beseech Thee mercifully to receive the prayers of Thy people who call upon Thee; and grant that they may both perceive and know what things they ought to do, and also may have grace and power faithfully to fulfil the same; through Jesus Christ our Lord. "Amen!" said Dr. Lavendar. DAYBREAK. BY THOMAS WALSH. HILE low before the Throne of Pearl there bend And whirlwinds of Laudates without end Against the half-veiled lattice of the morn A truant Cherub, peeping through the dark, so I thought that this year I'd be a litYou left a chip there, It in T was universally remarked in Madrid- tle forehanded. Beriah Tate was a loss to the town. Even the time of his departure was inconvenient, being only a week after the March meeting in which, for the tenth year in succession, he had been elected first selectman, road-master, overseer of the poor, and constable. In order to fill these various positions it was necessary to call a special town meeting. The orthodox church, likewise, was forced to choose a deacon in Beriah's stead, and a new representative on the committee of the County Bible Society. Of all the offices in church and state which the departed had filled so acceptably, there was but one that now went begging. It was that of fish-warden. The fish and game laws had never been taken very seriously by the natives of Madrid. Beriah had been induced to accept the post simply because the Tate place lay upon the hill-top above the junction of the East and West Branches, and the fish-commissioner argued that the city fellows who came up on Sundays and out of season to catch four-inch trout would be frightened off if they knew that the deacon was a warden. And so they were, but the warden let his own summer boarders fish as they liked, without asking them any questions for conscience' sake. He nailed a synopsis of the fish and game laws, printed on white cotton cloth, to the horse barn door, next to the advertisement of Bowker's fertilizers; and his personal responsibility for his boarders ended here. It was because of Beriah Tate's long experience with human nature that he was such a loss to the town. A month after his death one of the fish-commissioners drove into the yard of the Tate place. Alonzo Robbins, the hired man, was raking up the chips left from the winter's wood-pile, under the close supervision of Beriah's widow. "Expecting your boarders soon, Mis' Tate?" inquired the commissioner. "Not till July," replied the widow, plaintively. "But he was always slow about having the yard cleaned up, and Beriah's a great loss," volunteered the commissioner. 66 "He was kind of handy to talk to the boarders after supper," assented Mrs. Tate, and to keep 'em feeling good right along. I don't know what we're going to do without him." "Mis' Tate, that cake ought to come out of the oven!" called a clear young voice from the kitchen window. "You'll have to excuse me," exclaimed the widow. "Won't you come in?" The commissioner shook his head, and the kitchen door slammed behind Beriah's sad-voiced but efficient relict. The hired man glanced up at the commissioner. An indolent deviltry lurked in his black eyes, but his olive face was otherwise expressionless and rather stupid. The commissioner coughed queerly, and the two men grinned. "Guess you'll have to take it this summer," commented the commissioner. "When's your year up?" "Next January," said Alonzo. The commissioner scrutinized his broad, easy-hung shoulders, and the slouching, tireless fashion in which he was pushing the rake. "I suppose we've got to have another fish - warden," he said, abruptly, “and it ought to be somebody in this district. Will you try it, 'Lonzo?" The hired man reflected. "He didn't make out much with it," he drawled. "Just was fish-warden. It didn't amount to nothin'." "You can make it amount to something, if you want to.” Alonzo pushed the rake a trifle more deliberately. "I ain't office- seekin', I guess." "How about hog-reeve?" suggested the commissioner. The shot told. "Well," said Alonzo, defiantly, "I s'pose they elected me hogreeve at March meetin' just because they thought it would be smart, along toward the end of the afternoon. They think that the Robbinses ain't clever enough for that, not scarcely. Just let any of Alf Raymond's pigs get through the fence this summer, and I'll show 'em, my gorry!" "That's right!" cried the commissioner. Alonzo kicked vindictively at a deeply buried chip. "There ain't any money in bein' fish-warden, is there?" "You get half the fine if you catch anybody violating the law. Still, if you don't want it—” "What do you do with 'em if you do catch 'em?" "Why, arrest them. Then you drive the fellow over to Warwick to the justice of the peace, and he collects the fine. That part of it is easy enough. I'll give you a little book that explains everything. Still, if you don't want to try it, I don't know but Alf Raymond would take it." It was the commissioner's trump card, but he played it with a fine carelessness. "I might think it over for a few days," drawled the hired man. "I dun'no' but I'll take it, and then again I dun'no' as I will." "Oh, well," said the commissioner, picking up his reins, "I can't come way over here again. I guess that's Alf coming now, ain't it?" He chirruped to the horse. "My gorry! I've got half a mind to try it," asseverated Alonzo. "Very well, then," said the commissioner, promptly thrusting the landing net, as it were, under his captive. "I'll have the papers made out right away. Got a middle name?" "T." "T.?" queried the commissioner. "Alonzo Turnham Robbins," explained the hired man, stiffly, beginning to rake again. The "Oh!" said the commissioner. Turnhams were considered "mean blood" in Madrid; at least half of them were "on the town." He cramped his buggy. "Henrietta going to stay along this summer?" he inquired, casually, nodding toward Mrs. Tate's kitchen. "Yes, I guess she's goin' to stay along," repeated the hired man, indifferently. Makes a nice girl for Mis' Tate," said the commissioner. "Well, Beriah was a great loss. G'long!" II. After supper the hired man seated himself upon the chopping-block, facing the door of the horse-barn, and began to spell "Wall-eyed Pike, or Pike - Perch, White Perch, or Muskallonge' some of these words were hard reading- Between April 15th and June 15th - $5 each. 666 666 Trout, Land-locked Salmon, Salmon-Trout, or Longe-Between Sept. 1st and May 1st-not more than $10 each. Trout, Land-locked Salmon, and Salmon-Trout, when taken less than six inches in length, must be immediately returned, with least possible injury, to waters from which taken—not more than $10 each.'" "That's it!" murmured the hired man, solemnly. "That's the law-my gorry! • When taken less than six inches in length, must be-immediately--returned -with-least-possible-injury-to waters from which taken.' You can't get around that." "Reading the Bible out here, 'Lonzo?". inquired a cool, chaffing voice at his shoulder. "I thought it must be Sunday, from that cigar. Phew!" He turned, shamefacedly, but pulled obstinately at the stogy. "Don't you like it, Henrietta?" he said, with a foolish smile. Henrietta ignored him. She had been bending over the sink, doing up the supper dishes, and now she patted her disarranged curls into place again, with lithe, coquettish movements of her bare, rosy arms, as if the door of the horse-barn were a mirror. He watched her, his black eyes glistening. There was something provoking in the girl's slight, delicious figure, faint color, and the blue eyes that commonly glanced at him with dainty contempt. She was eighteen; "hired help" for the time being, but still the niece of a member of the Legislature and cousin to a home missionary. She looked down upon Alonzo as a dullard, as related to those Turnhams who were al ways coming upon the town. In spite of the intimacy forced upon them as members of the same household, she was secretly afraid of him. She thought his eyes were wicked; she grew restless when he stared at her in stupid admiration; and she would not have let him know it for the world. "Don't you like it, Henrietta?" he repeated, stolidly, balancing the stogy between his fingers. She bent toward him suddenly and snatched it, tossing it over the barn-yard fence before he recovered from his surprise. Then she pretended she had burned her hand. He leaped up to examine it, whereupon she hid her bare arms behind her back with a gesture infinitely challenging. But she knew beforehand that he would not dare. Confused, admiring, helpless, he stared at her. She faced him like a triumphant goddess, serenely taunting. What on earth are you doing?" she demanded. VOL. XCVII.-No. 579-56 "Don't tell Mis' Tate," he entreated. "'Bout my bein' fish-warden." She might not like it, 'long as 'twas one of his offices, you know. And she might think I wa'n't 'tendin' to business. You won't, will you?" "Not if you behave yourself, Alonzo Robbins," she replied, meaningly. He did not answer, and they sauntered tow ard the house, side by side, in the falling dusk. The hired man did not again betray any open interest in the synopsis of the fish and game laws. But when a fresh poster was sent him the following week, together with his papers as fish-warden, he carried the weather-beaten one up to his chamber under the eaves of the kitchen roof, and studied it doggedly, night after night, until he knew its provisions by heart. III. There was high water in all the Madrid brooks that spring, and the fishing was late. The men who had formerly driven into town Sunday mornings, leaving their buggies hitched among the willows at the bridge, appeared but rarely, and never staid long enough to allow Alonzo a look at their baskets. The early boarders at the Tate place were mostly maiden ladies with literary proclivities, and the only fisherman that appeared among them was an expert with the fly, who scorned to bring home anything less than quarter-pounders. June passed and July came, and still the hired man had had no opportunity to prove his efficiency as an officer of the law. Henrietta had kept his secret, though her ambiguous remarks to him in Mrs. Tate's presence had been upon the point of ex posing him a dozen times. Whenever they happened to be alone together, she rallied him upon his lack of official energy, until he was thoroughly piqued. 66 My gorry," he used to say to himself at night, as the tattered poster caught his black Turnham eyes-"my gorry, I'll show her!" And it stuck in his head that it would be a fine revenge upon her to take her down to Warwick to hear a band concert, or perhaps to the cattle show in September-provided she would go with him-upon the money that he proposed to get as his share of the fines. One morning in the second week of July Mrs. Tate received a telegram from Hartford, signed Benj. F. Dupree, requesting her to reserve a room for him, and to send some one to meet him at the Madrid station at four-thirty that afternoon. The telegraph office was three miles away, and the delivery of the message cost Mrs. Tate a dollar and a half, which she thoughtfully added to the price of the room that was set in order for the stranger. It was in the height of the haying season, and Henrietta, the only person who could be spared in mid-afternoon, put the mare into the Concord wagon and drove down to meet Mr. Dupree. Alonzo happened to be in the yard, unloading hay, when she returned, just as, doubtless, Mrs. Tate happened to be looking through her bedroom blinds, and all the boarders happened to be grouped upon the front piazza. As the mare swung around into the shadow of the maples, Alonzo's eye was the first to detect that Henrietta was not driving. She was sitting on the extreme end of the seat, watching, apparently, the trail of the front wheel upon the dusty road. The moment the wagon halted she sprang out without a word, and marched, red-faced and straight-shouldered, toward the kitchen door, leaving the hired man to do the honors of the Tate place for the new arrival. Mr. Benj. F. Dupree tossed the reins to him, and leisurely descended; then scrutinized the mare's fore legs a moment, passed one hand judiciously over the off knee it had been slightly sprained the summer before-and uttered just one word of Green Mountain freemasonry. "Hamletonian?" "Yes, sir," drawled the delighted hired man. Straight as a string. Dr. Johnson out of Lem Payson's Susie.” |