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 LEE & SHEPARD, Publishers, Boston.
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS 
 
 WZtsttvn 
 
 BOSTON 
 LEE AND SHEPARD PUBLISHERS 
 
 NEW YORK CHARLES T. DILLINGHAM 
 
 1884
 
 Copyright, 
 
 1884, 
 BY LEE AND SHEPAKD. 
 
 All Rights Reserved. 
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 ELECTROTYPE!! BY 
 
 C. J. PETERS AND SON, BOSTON.
 
 STACK 
 ANNEX 
 
 PS 
 
 3539 
 
 JOHN THOM S FOLKS, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Kitzmillers were new-comers in the 
 Wycoff settlement. They had left a 
 pleasant home in a State farther east, and 
 taken up their abode in this comparatively new 
 region, for the simple mathematical reason that 
 the price of a small farm of rather thin land 
 there would purchase a large one of very rich 
 land here. 
 
 The family consisted of the united head, and 
 two children : Leander, aged twenty-one, just 
 the commonplace rural young man, and Olive, 
 not commonplace at all, but a lovely, dark- 
 skijmed child of eighteen, with feelings as 
 ardent as August sunshine, and pure as dew. 
 
 The house before which the canvas-covered 
 flitting-wagons stopped, one day in the early 
 spring, was a long, low frame structure, with 
 
 1
 
 2 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 verandahs running the entire length, both in front 
 and rear. It was one of the ten or dozen frame 
 houses which the township, exclusive of the 
 village of New Madrid, could boast. The 
 house was quite new. There were capacious 
 log stables and out-buildings, and an orchard 
 of thrifty young fruit-trees, not yet come into 
 bearing. The original owner of the place had 
 been constrained to sell it, under pressure of 
 sorrow and discouragement. His wife had died, 
 leaving him with a brood of little ones on his 
 hands. Friends at the east offered help with 
 the children if he would return there, and Mr. 
 Kitzmiller appearing at this juncture and offer 
 ing an honest price, the farm became his. 
 
 It was called an improved farm, though on 
 half the land the heavy timber stood untouched, 
 and the remainder was thickly studded with 
 stumps, too green for lifting. Kitzmiller and 
 his wife were well pleased with the change 
 they had made. It would prove a wise one in 
 the long run, and the "long run" was what 
 these people always considered. They were 
 essentially industrious and patient, and their 
 son, inheriting largely these qualities of his 
 parents, was also well satisfied with the new
 
 JOHN THOKN S FOLKS. 3 
 
 home. To own a goodly number of these inex 
 haustible acres : to build a house and people it 
 with a family of his own ; to raise stock and 
 watch the growth of such lush crops as the 
 inky soil produced, such were the calm and 
 reasonable ambitions of his heart. A school- 
 section cornered upon his father s land, which 
 could be bought cheaply. It was covered with 
 virgin forest, the great tree-boles of walnut and 
 poplar standing so thick that a deer could only 
 traverse it with antlers held oblique. Young 
 Kitzmiller scarcely thought of the millions of 
 axe-strokes it would require to bring that land 
 under cultivation, but he did think of the 
 time, not far distant, when the coming of the 
 portable sawmill and the railroad would turn 
 that forest into a gold-mine. 
 
 It was a land of promise, if not of present 
 beauty. Little Olive cared not for the promise, 
 while the newness and wildness filled her, at 
 first, with a pitiful homesick longing. She 
 had been reared on the spot where she was 
 born, and her life had been very bright and 
 simple. Her feelings after the removal may 
 have been something like those of a household 
 pet suddenly encaged in a bosky wilderness.
 
 4 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 But the setting to rights of the new house 
 afforded her a keen pleasure. 
 
 There was a corner cupboard in the sitting- 
 room, and in this she arranged her mother s 
 set of blue and white Liverpool ware, not a 
 piece of which had been broken in the transit. 
 In another corner of the same large room a 
 white-wood book-case was erected, and on it 
 she placed the miscellaneous assortment of 
 volumes that constituted their small library. 
 There were a good many school-books, and 
 some Patent-Office Reports, all utilized with a 
 view to filling space and magnifying the ap 
 pearance of the collection. Scott s Infantry 
 Tactics found a niche between Don Quixote and 
 an odd volume of Macaulay s Essays ; and 
 Barrington s Sketches shouldered McCosh on 
 the Divine Government. The remainder of 
 that shelf, after McCosh, was filled with books 
 of a similar tone, McCheyne s Sermons, the 
 Pilgrim s Progress, the works of Doddridge, 
 Boston, and Baxter. 
 
 Olive s eyes rested upon this row of serious 
 books with an interest she could not have ex 
 plained. She had never read them ; but were 
 they not the tables of the law ? and would not
 
 JOHN THORNS FOLKS. 5 
 
 the tabernacle that contained them be under 
 sacred protection ? The feeling of security was 
 deepened when, on the Sunday morning after 
 their arrival, she knelt with parents and brother, 
 while the good fanner asked the Divine blessing 
 in the same set phrases she had listened to from 
 infancy. The family altar made the new place 
 home. 
 
 In due time the Kitzmillers made the ac 
 quaintance of their neighbors. The first step 
 in this direction was the formal entertaining of 
 a visiting party. Mr. Henry WycofF, passing 
 the house one day on his way to New Madrid, 
 halted and informed Mrs. Kitzmiller that she 
 might expect company on the next day but 
 one. His mother and his wife and a few other 
 women, supposing them to be about settled, 
 had concluded to make them a call. Mrs. Kitz 
 miller knew very well what a "call," in country 
 parlance, signifies ; she was used to this mode 
 of testing a new neighbor s hospitality, and set 
 about with pleased alacrity to boil her most 
 savory ham, and produce her whitest loaves for 
 the occasion. There was also a browning of 
 richly-flavored coffee, and a stewing of home- 
 dried peaches, till all the region around was 
 saluted by delicious odors.
 
 6 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 They came early, and spent the day, old 
 Mrs. Wycoff, young Mrs. Wycoff, and four 
 other leading ladies of the neighborhood. The, 
 elder Mrs. Wycofi introduced herself and her 
 friends to Mrs. Kitzmiller, who received them 
 with frank friendliness, and helped them off 
 with their things, while Olive stood ready to 
 carry bonnets and shawls and deposit them on 
 her mother s curtained bed. Then there were 
 a couple of babies to be unrolled and generally 
 attended to, and these small objects of univer 
 sal feminine interest drew the hearts of hostess 
 and guests together, and unsealed a tide of 
 genial talk, which diverged into innumerable 
 channels, but knew no slack or ebb till the 
 declining sun warned the good women that 
 milking-time was near, and the newly-weaned 
 calves were bleating at their empty troughs. 
 
 Through this all-day visitation, the new peo 
 ple were made acquainted, not only with the 
 six families represented, but with the neighbor 
 hood in general, and "John Thorn s folks " in 
 particular. 
 
 When the Thorns were mentioned Mrs. Kitz 
 miller and Olive listened with quickened in 
 terest, for the reason that they were their
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 7 
 
 nearest neighbors, and that there seemed to be 
 something eccentric about the people and their 
 way of living. The two houses were in full 
 view of each other, and Olive, in her lootings 
 that way, had observed that the stated perform 
 ances of farm-house life did not go on there in 
 the ordinary manner. For instance, there was 
 no regular Monday s washing, but a few clothes 
 were hung out almost any day of the week, 
 sometimes even on Sunday. There were other 
 signs of mismanagement and desultoriness at 
 the house, all in strong contrast to the well- 
 appointed farm and tannery, for Thorn was a 
 tanner as well as a farmer. 
 
 " I wish you had brought Mrs. Thorn with 
 you to-day," said Mrs. Kitzmiller. " We are 
 such near neighbors, we ought to become ac 
 quainted." 
 
 " Ten to one you won t be for the next two 
 years, unless some favorin accident should 
 happen," said Mrs. Wycoff, senior. "As for 
 askin her to come with us visitin , I d as soon 
 a thought of askin old Bloodroot. She s a 
 medicine squaw 7 , that lives down by Half-Moon 
 Lake. Miss Thorn is odder n odd ! " 
 
 Following this climax came a history of the
 
 8 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 Thorns, given in a somewhat scattering manner 
 by the different members of the company. The 
 reader shall be favored with a more consecutive 
 one.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 O OME years before, an old Scotchman named 
 Ludlow had settled upon a tract of wild 
 land in New Madrid township. His family at 
 first comprised a wife, a son, and a daughter ; 
 but within a year or two after their coming the 
 boy and his mother both died, leaving the old 
 man with his daughter Emily as his sole com 
 panion and housekeeper. Ludlow had been a 
 cloth-draper in Scotland, and had come to 
 America with the intention of investing his 
 savings in western lands. That he had brought 
 with him a hoard of some bulk none of his 
 neighbors at first doubted. Among them its 
 estimate varied from a few hundred dollars to 
 some tens of thousands. After a while, how 
 ever, the belief in his riches gradually faded out 
 of the public mind ; he bought no more land ; 
 he loaned no cash to any one, though frequently 
 applied to. by responsible parties, who offered 
 him fair interest. His energies seemed pros 
 trated by the loss of his wife and son, and a 
 year after the death of the latter he was stricken 
 
 9
 
 10 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 with paralysis and carried into his cabin a help 
 less cripple for life. 
 
 Emily Ludlow was a trifle past fourteen years 
 old when her mother died, leaving her to a 
 most forlorn and miserable existence. Her 
 father was severe to cruelty ; he was also miser 
 ly to the last degree, and forced her to subsist 
 on the coarsest food and wear only such gar 
 ments as she could fashion from the wardrobe 
 of her dead mother. He welcomed no one to 
 his door, and rudely repulsed one kind woman 
 who visited the house with oifers of sympathy 
 and help to the poor child. After he was 
 palsied Emily planted and hoed in the field as 
 usual, running in to wait upon her father when 
 he pounded on the window-sash with his cane. 
 She generally managed to keep out of reach of 
 his ill-aimed blows, and to his curses and com 
 plaints she grew hardened. They were left in 
 time quite to themselves, no one going near 
 them save John Thorn. 
 
 He happened to be passing near Ludlow s 
 cabin on the duy of the latter s paralytic seizure. 
 Emily, running out for help, met him a few 
 rods from the house ; he went with her and 
 carried her father from the clearing, where he
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 11 
 
 had fallen, in to his bed, and called every day 
 for a week till the old man was able to sit up 
 and give his orders in partly intelligible lan 
 guage. He came afterwards from time to time 
 and performed many little commissions for the 
 invalid, such as bringing his tea and tobacco 
 from the village store, and procuring him canes 
 and crutches of various styles, none of which 
 served him for any other use than pounding on 
 the floor and shaking at the head of poor Emily. 
 He was a wrathful, bad old man in those help 
 less days. Possibly his unaccountable rages, 
 followed by long seasons of the deepest gloom, 
 may have been in part due to the fact that he 
 suffered horribly from hepatic engorgement. 
 One can readily understand how it happens that 
 in New England, where people exist in blissful 
 unconsciousness of their livers, they find it 
 difficult to accept original sin, total depravity, 
 and various other depressing doctrines that come 
 quite natural to the inhabitants of malarial 
 regions, particularly when the autumns arc 
 moist and warm. 
 
 John Thorn frequently saw Ludlow in his 
 worst tempers, and the fact that he seemed to 
 derive amusement from his impotent oaths and
 
 12 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 grumblings caused Emily to conceive a strong 
 aversion to him. His acts were always kind, 
 yet she grew to look upon him as one who 
 could laugh at suffering, who knew no pity, 
 who in his cold indifference to her humiliating 
 trials was as much more cruel than her father 
 as he was- younger and stronger. 
 
 K I wish you would never come here again ! " 
 she cried passionately one day, when he had 
 laughed at her confused attempts to follow her 
 father s contradictory directions about prepar 
 ing and serving his dinner ; " I can do for my 
 father alone, and you only come here to jeer at 
 us and tell other people how badly we get on ! " 
 
 To this John laughingly replied by advising 
 her to get a new dog, and a very cross one, as 
 he was not at all afraid of old Tinker. 
 
 Thorn had been a resident of the county a 
 few years longer than the Ludlows. He was a 
 bachelor of thirty, and his domestic affairs were 
 presided over by a deaf old woman whom he 
 called Aunt Thirsa. He once told Jarcd AVy- 
 coff how this queer personage came to be his 
 housekeeper. His mother died when was a 
 child, and Thirsa Winchel, a distant relative 
 and a childless widow, took temporary charge
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 13 
 
 of his father s household. His father married 
 again ; other children came ; John was crowded 
 harder and harder till he left home, partly 
 driven out, partly frozen out. Winchel stayed 
 on, always with a stocking to darn or a child to 
 tend. John s father gave him some money, 
 with which he went to school for a year or two. 
 Then he hired with a tanner, learned the trade 
 rapidly, and soon earned good wages. At the 
 age of twenty-three he had saved enough to 
 buy land in Indiana. He went home one day 
 to say good-bye, and found Aunt Thirsa in 
 great distress. The hard second wife was about 
 sending her to the poor-house. 
 
 "I could earn my living still," moaned the 
 poor creature, "if some one would find me a 
 place to work where I would n t have to learn 
 new things ! " 
 
 John begged another night s lodging for her 
 under the old roof, then took her with him to 
 the West, and installed her as general mis- 
 manager of his new home. No stronger proof 
 could a man give of innate kindliness of dispo 
 sition than Thorn gave by his unfailing patience 
 with old Thirsa ; for he endured much discom 
 fort which might have been bettered had it so
 
 14 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 pleased the dull, slow, obstinate dependent, 
 who would brook neither help nor helpful sug 
 gestion. Yet he was held by people about him 
 to be a strong, shrewd man, capable in many 
 directions, yet less capable of gentleness to his 
 kind than most others. He was respected, but 
 scarcely liked. Country maidens and young 
 widows cast admiring glances at his fine figure 
 and superb horsemanship ; but when they noted 
 that he rode with a bit that drew blood, and 
 heard about his shooting a valuable bull for 
 breaking a fence and leading the herd into a 
 wheatfield, they shook their prudent heads and 
 commiserated the possible wife of such a hus 
 band. Through all his unloved childhood and 
 youth he had hardly thought of pitying himself, 
 and his persistent effort to make light of his 
 own buffet ings had fixed upon him a habit of 
 mind that made it possible for him to shock the 
 feelings of those accustomed to the ordinary 
 and understandable expressions of human sym 
 pathy. Without there was a crust of terse 
 formality, of offensive indifference ; Avithin was 
 a heart of fire, but no one suspected it, not 
 even John Thorn.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 O OME twenty months after the first, Ludlow 
 had another shock of palsy. It was a light 
 one, but left him very much prostrated. The 
 day following, Thorn called at the cabin, re 
 mained awhile within, then went out to where 
 Emily was busily hoeing in the corn-field. 
 
 " Stop your work awhile, Emily," he said, 
 with a new gravity and gentleness in his voice. 
 " I want to talk with you." 
 
 She obeyed, letting the hoe fall at her feet, 
 and folding her arms to rest them while she 
 
 o 
 
 listened. 
 
 " Your father is going to die. The end will 
 come in a week or two at farthest. You will 
 be left quite alone then, and I would like to 
 make you my wife before he goes. He seem-; 
 to wish it, and I have for a long time wished 
 it." 
 
 "Your wife ! " she almost screamed. "I hato 
 you, John Thorn, and you know it ! I would 
 hide myself and die in the woods first ! " 
 
 She was a tall girl of seventeen now, and 
 
 15
 
 16 JOHN THOEN S FOLKS. 
 
 very lovely. She straightened herself proudly, 
 throwing back the rich chestnut hair from a 
 forehead whose whiteness no sun or wind could 
 stain, and looked at him in pale defiance. 
 Thorn smiled slightly as he said, 
 
 "That is about the kind of answer I expected, 
 and some progress has been made. I am com 
 ing back to-morrow, and you will, maybe, talk 
 differently then, or be silent, which will amount 
 to consent ; for, look here, my violent child, I 
 am going to make you such pledges as no other 
 man ever made the girl he liked and wanted for 
 his own. You shall have the most absolute 
 liberty in eve^thing to go where you please, 
 do what you like, my watch over you amount 
 ing onl} T to necessary protection. Until you 
 desire my love it shall never be thrust upon 
 you. No requirements of any sort shall be 
 placed upon you ; you are to be left sole mis 
 tress of your own movements and your own 
 time, and, unless you choose to do so, you need 
 never spend an hour alone with me, making 
 allowance for unavoidable accidents. Think of 
 it till to-morrow," and he was gone. 
 
 The next day he again found Emily hoeing. 
 
 "Why do you work so hard?" he asked;
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 17 
 
 "you know you will leave this place in a few 
 days." 
 
 For a minute she stood silent with her eyes 
 on the ground ; then looked up and said : 
 
 "I never told a lie in my life, not even to 
 save myself a beating. If I thought" she 
 hesitated and looked down. 
 
 " If you thought I would keep my pledges, 
 you mean," said Thorn. "I am not a liar, 
 either, Emily. I always have this handy," 
 showing the hilt of a revolver, " and I would 
 put a ball through my head sooner than have 
 you taunt me with breaking them. You are 
 safe enough." He waited a little for her to 
 speak ; she did not, and he said : 
 
 "You ll go home with me, then, when he 
 doesn t need you any longer?" 
 
 Still she was silent. 
 
 "All right," said Thorn briefly, and turned 
 away. 
 
 She watched him as he strode across the 
 clearing, noting for the first time in her life his 
 
 O * 
 
 erect carriage, the fine poise of his head, and 
 the wonderful energy of all his movements. 
 She recalled a remark made by her father in 
 one of his rare moods of talkativeness, "He ll
 
 18 JOHN THORN S 
 
 be a great man in these parts one day, will Jack 
 Thorn." 
 
 "I wonder why he wants me," she said to 
 herself; she fell to musing and worked no more 
 that day. 
 
 Returning from a walk, one afternoon a few 
 days later, Emily found Thorn in the house, 
 and with him another man. Jared Wycoft* w r as 
 the eldest son of the Jiouse o f Wycoff, which 
 was one of the oldest in the county. When a 
 youth he had been racked with ague and dosed 
 with calomel, till the mercurial poison, in its 
 contest with the malarial poison, had twisted his 
 spine and hips, deforming and laming him for 
 life. He had spent some years in an eastern 
 State, pursuing his studies while being under 
 medical treatment. When he returned to In 
 diana he was installed as winter schoolmaster 
 for life, made a justice of the peace, and en 
 dowed with most of the other small offices in 
 the gift of the good people among whom he 
 lived. 
 
 When Emily entered, Jared sat figuring upon 
 some official blanks, a tin case on his knee serv 
 ing him for a desk. The poor, lame fellow had 
 been making one of his rounds as township
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 19 
 
 assessor ; he was very tired and in a hurry to 
 get home, so Thorn said : 
 
 " Squire Wycoff has called to marry us, 
 Emily. I have the license here ; if you are 
 ready we will not keep him waiting." 
 
 She hesitated a moment, while a soft, pink 
 flush suffused cheek, neck, and brow ; then she 
 reached him the hand that was nearest him, as 
 they stood. It chanced to be the left one ; 
 Thorn took it quickly and held it in both his 
 own, while the Justice in few words made them 
 husband and wife. 
 
 The two men went away together. Late that 
 evening a good-natured, red-headed boy made 
 his appearance at Ludlow s. He said his name 
 was Davy Ransom ; he lived on John Thorn s 
 place, and Thorn had sent him to "stay around" 
 a few days, as Emily might not like to be alone 
 when her father was so bad. 
 
 Thorn himself did not return for two days. 
 On the morning of the third, old Ludlow began 
 to worry over his absence and desired Emily 
 to send for him. This she declined to do, or 
 at least put him off; whereupon he upbraided 
 her for a " stubborn wench," and accused her of 
 affronting a husband who was too good for her.
 
 20 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 In the afternoon he seemed all at once to grow 
 weaker, and as he still continued to wish that 
 "Jack" would come, Emilj* was on the point 
 of sending Davy Ransom for him when Thorn 
 entered the door. Emily blushed again, that 
 delicate, wild-rose blush, and drooped her eye 
 lids beneath the warm, sweet smile with which 
 he greeted her. 
 
 " Send the lad away," said the old man with 
 an air of haste ; "yes, and the gell, too." 
 
 Davy went out and began chopping at the 
 woodpile. Emily sat still, and her father did 
 not seem to mind her. Motioning Thorn to 
 come near the bedside the old Scot said in a 
 low, eager tone : 
 
 " It s i the auld tree, Jack ! Can ye see the 
 little honey-locust at the fut o the clearin ? 
 Gae doon to thot, then tak twa hunnerd gude 
 steps stret east, thro the thick timmer. Ye 11 
 find yersel near a big tulip-tree, wi a hole in 
 its side. Gae on ye knees and peer oop at the 
 dure o the tree. Ye 11 see some at ; bring it 
 me quick." 
 
 John went out, and bidding Davy follow 
 him, steered straight for the big tree. Emily 
 sprang to the window ; she observed that he
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 21 
 
 did not follow directions by o:oin< down to the 
 
 */ O O 
 
 honey-locust and counting his steps from there, 
 but went direct and unhesitating from the cabin 
 door. The fact was, he knew the old tulip 
 tree by sight, as he did many other ancient 
 trees in the region, and did not need landmarks 
 to find it. Stooping at the aperture and look 
 ing up, his eye caught a glint of something 
 bright, about eight feet from the ground. 
 Davy introduced his body into the hollow of 
 the tree without difficulty and elbowed his way 
 a short distance up its sides ; then bracing 
 back and knees, reached down a covered tin- 
 pail of some size. 
 
 After he had emerged, covered with red dust 
 and debris, and John had taken the pail, they 
 both stood and looked curiously at the old tree. 
 A light breeze stirring its top caused it to 
 tremble ominously on its spongy sap-ring. 
 
 " What a shaller dodge that wus ! " said the 
 boy. " A sand-hill crane d know d better n to 
 built her nest in that old shell. Any stiff blow 
 mought a flopped it over n then some gump 
 like me d found the cash ! " 
 
 John did not open the tin treasure casket till 
 he reached the old man s bedside ; then in
 
 22 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 Emily s presence Davy having been dismissed 
 at the wood-pile he counted the contents of 
 the pail, some three thousand dollars, mostly 
 in gold coin, with a few bank-notes, the latter 
 sewed in buckskin and very mouldy. 
 
 " Tak it all, Jack," said Ludlow, " and wi its 
 holp mak o yersel a rich mon. It was meant 
 for my ain laid, as is gone afore me ; now it s 
 yours. Ye ll do fairly by the gell I ken, and a 
 woman s na gude wi money till her hond." 
 
 He lived yet a week longer. Old Mrs. 
 Wycoff and other kind neighbors appeared upon 
 the scene, and assisted Emily in her nursing 
 and watching. John Thorn came and went ; 
 but Emily blushed no more at his coming. She 
 mused about him no more in his absence, nor 
 asked herself again, "Why does he want me?" 
 She thought she knew ; it was for the money. 
 He had known of its existence, and to make 
 himself legally sure of it had first made sure of 
 her. Her mental journey to this conclusion was 
 a very short one. Undoubtedly his designs 
 upon her father s gold were at the bottom of all 
 his neighborly attentions to them as a family, 
 and prompted that last extraordinary step 
 with reference to herself. Believing this, she
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 23 
 
 straightway proceeded to lavish upon him, in 
 her heart, that choice and racy scorn which we 
 all feel to be the rightful due of selfish and 
 mercenary beings who hold us in their power. 
 Nevertheless, she went home with him after her 
 father was buried. 
 
 She was introduced to Aunt Thirsa with 
 much difficulty. John shouted the name Emily 
 very loud in the old woman s best ear ; but he 
 did not call her wife. Her father had died, and 
 she w r as going to live with them now ; this was 
 all the explanation he gave of her coming. Old 
 Thirsa was so nearly stone deaf that no voice 
 but John s could make her hear, and she paid 
 but little heed to the visible language of motion 
 
 O O 
 
 going on about her ; so it may be considered 
 doubtful whether the fact of Emily s existence, 
 to say nothing of her marriage to Thorn, had 
 ever reached her knowledge. She kept on sift 
 ing yellow meal through her fingers into the 
 great kettle of "suppawn" she was stirring over 
 the fire ; but the smile that accompanied her 
 nod of welcome was neither meaningless nor 
 unkind. 
 
 "Try and feel at home, Emily," John said 
 briefly. "Make Aunt Thirsa understand, if
 
 24 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 you can, what you would like for your meals ; 
 possibly you may have to show her how to 
 cook it. I must go now. I started a drove of 
 cattle south a week ago. One of the men came 
 back yesterday, and tells me they are herded in 
 a field near Stone s Crossing, and the river is so 
 high they can t ford. I am going to help drive 
 them east to the old French road. Good-by."
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 T TE was gone a month. During that month 
 Emily found plenty of time to plan the 
 routine of her life. A part of a day sufficed 
 for setting in order the whitewashed chamber 
 assigned her as her own. Then she tried to 
 help the old housekeeper, but all attempts in 
 that direction were firmly put down. Thirsa 
 needed no help, and would have none, and, 
 while life and the power of resistance lasted, 
 would brook no interference and no innovations. 
 There were corn-cakes, ham or bacon, and coffee 
 for breakfast ; boiled meat and vegetables for 
 dinner ; suppawn and sweet milk for supper. A 
 couple of quiet, stolid farm hands sat down 
 regularly to the table. Sometimes Emily took 
 her meals with them, sometimes alone. She 
 was allowed to do her own washing and ironing. 
 The family washing was done at sundry times 
 and in divers manners, as were also the churn 
 ing, bread-making, soap-boiling, &c. 
 
 Having little to do indoors, Emily roamed 
 abroad, making the acquaintance of many a wild 
 
 25
 
 26 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 and lovely nook, with the sure aptitude of one 
 whose love of nature is a birth-gift. She ex 
 plored Thorn s farm with deep interest. There 
 were strong, dark fields, slowly maturing their 
 crops of wheat and corn. There were acres 
 of level meadow, waving with red-top and 
 timothy, that had been reclaimed by drainage 
 from the wildest swamp. And beyond the 
 meadows lay a stretch of heavy timber that 
 on one side thinned away into breezy oak- 
 openings. 
 
 " He was rich enough before," thought Emily ; 
 " yet how much he must have wanted that bit 
 of money ! " 
 
 Then she wandered down to the tannery on 
 the brook. There was a long frame building in 
 which Bay less, the currier, worked. There was 
 also a small cabin a few rods distant, where the 
 currier lived with his Avife and children. Davy 
 Eansom lived with them, having no relatives of 
 his own. The tan-pits were enclosed by a strong 
 fence and a locked gate, and beyond the pit-yard 
 was the bark-shed, containing a vast pile of oak 
 bark cords upon cords of it, stacked up to 
 dry. Beside the shed was the bark-mill, and 
 in it she found Davy Ramson, and was glad
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 27 
 
 to find him ; she wanted to hear some one talk, 
 and Davy was quite willing to accommodate 
 her. 
 
 "He s a first-rate tanner, John Thorn is, but 
 he don t work much in. the curryin shop now ; 
 don t have no time. Don t have no time to farm 
 it much, either. Funny thing when a feller s 
 got so much to do he can t do nothin . John s 
 a mighty good boss, though ; keeps the best of 
 tools, and everything handy. He buys hides 
 and sells leather, and, since Truesdale s been 
 around, he s taken to buy in cattle and drovin 
 em east. He bought his first drove of Trues 
 dale. The woods is all alive with cattle, and 
 Truesdale takes em for swamp land. Some of 
 Truesdale s folks got holt of most a hull town 
 ship of wet land onct. They lived way off in 
 York State and never see the land, ony a shark- 
 in agent put it onto ern. It was willed to 
 Truesdale, and he s been out here, livin 
 down to New Madrid, sellin of it off. The 
 county s ditched, part of it, and he sells 
 sharp, and they say he s goin to get rich 
 out of it yet. He takes lots of cattle for pay. 
 The woods is just alive with cattle round here. 
 They gets mired, and trees fall on em, and the
 
 28 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 rattlers bite em, and then off comes their hides 
 off, n John Thorn buys em, for a chew of plug, 
 so t speak, and chucks em in them ole vats. 
 That s the way he gets his money back. They re 
 a hull team Thorn and Truesdale and a 
 brindle dog under the wagon." 
 
 The bark-mill was under a large circular shed. 
 The axle of the drive-wheel was a vertical shaft 
 reaching from the floor to a cross-beam under 
 the roof. From a joint on this shaft, something 
 higher than a tall man s head, a long arm or 
 sweep extended, dipping slightly downward, 
 till the strap at its end could be attached to the 
 harness of a fat old horse, which plodded around 
 a smooth track, with the contemplative air of a 
 studious person walking for exercise. It was 
 Davy s work to break up the strips of dry bark 
 over the edge of the iron hopper, while old 
 Charley s deliberate promenade ground it to the 
 required fineness. 
 
 "I like that work of yours," said Emily; "I 
 believe I could do it." 
 
 " I 11 bet you could. Want to try ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 Davy stood aside, and Emily took the light 
 wooden mallet and slowly chipped the brittle
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 29 
 
 bark, watching it fall among the rusty cog 
 wheels. Presently she said, 
 
 " Whenever I feel like doing anything, I in 
 tend to come down here and grind bark." 
 
 When Thorn returned, he approached his 
 home by way of the tannery. He rode quite 
 close to the bark-mill and surprised Eniily at 
 her novel employment. 
 
 "Why do you do that? " he demanded. 
 
 " Because I want to," she replied. " I like it. 
 I intend to grind bark a great deal, but Davy 
 must always stay close by, to carry the strips 
 from the shed, and take it off my hands when I 
 get tired." 
 
 " All right," said the master of the place ; 
 "you may grind all the bark in the shed, if it 
 pleases you." And he rode on to the house. 
 
 Thorn had accompanied his drove to the State 
 line mainly for the sake of giving Emily a little 
 time in which to become used to her new sur 
 roundings, unembarrassed by his presence. lie 
 wanted time to think things over, too, and he 
 could always think best on horseback. 
 
 He had loved the beautiful Scotch girl for a 
 long time ; he could not distinctly recall the 
 first beginning. When he became aware that all
 
 30 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 the zest of action, all the sweetness of living 
 had its spring in the thought of her, he remem 
 bered, also, that he had unfortunately secured 
 her bitter aversion. He took no steps to over 
 come this, because he did not know what steps 
 to take. When he saw that her father s end 
 was near, he followed an impulse and secured 
 her to himself, with the hope that in the sun of 
 his unfailing kindness, the snows of her dislike 
 would one day melt, carrying away, as with a 
 spring flood, the strange barriers between them. 
 On that long, solitary homeward ride, John 
 asked himself why it was that this hope was 
 so near dead, that it lay on his soul w r ith a 
 bitter weight. Emily had given him no volun 
 tary sign that she was ever any nearer to him 
 than now ; yet he felt sure that once, for a 
 few days, she had been nearer. He could 
 recall nothing but that faint color-change, 
 which had twice marked his approach. Yes, 
 and that day when she gave him her hand be 
 fore the justice, it had lain with a soft willing 
 ness in his, which it thrilled him to remember. 
 Then came the counting of that money at her 
 father s bedside. "When he next scanned her 
 face it had hardened into the look of -quiet scorn
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 31 
 
 which it had worn ever since. He readily 
 divined th^ process of her thought, and he 
 chafed bitterly over the disadvantage at which 
 she held him. For the present there was noth 
 ing to be done, he thought, only to give his 
 captive the length of a long tether. 
 
 " If I could see her have some joyous, care 
 free, girlish years, I would be content." 
 
 So spoke the good angel in him. 
 
 "At all events I shall not be slain by ever 
 seeing her the wife of another." 
 
 Thus spoke the man. And . 
 
 "I will keep and hold her fast, till death parts 
 us, though we are never aught but a blight and 
 a curse to each other ! " 
 
 Thus the demon. The three contended for 
 the mastery within him over all those miles of 
 forest and open country, till he reached his 
 home, worn out in body and spirit. 
 
 A day or two after his return, Thorn met 
 Emily coming out of the gate with a bundle in 
 her arms. 
 
 " Where may you be going, and what have 
 you there?" he smilingly asked. 
 
 She opened one end of her package and 
 showed him the contents, a set of fine, small-
 
 32 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 figured chintz bed-curtains, that had been her 
 mother s. 
 
 "I am going to Squire Wycoff s. His wife 
 is going to help me make a dress out of this 
 stuff. She was here the other day." 
 
 " You can have new stuff for dresses, Emily, 
 as many as you wish," said John. 
 
 "But I like this ; it will be pretty." 
 
 She was about passing him, but he stopped 
 her in the gateway and said gently, 
 
 "I wish, Emily, you would let me buy you 
 something handsome to wear ; a new gown 
 anything you might like." 
 
 "Thank you, sir; but I can get my own 
 things," she answered, with a flash of childish 
 petulance. " I am not quite poverty-stricken. 
 I believe my father left me the land ; it shall be 
 sold, so that I can have money for clothes and 
 books. I intend to read a good deal." 
 
 John still barred the gateway. 
 
 "That money, Emily, out of the old tree 
 I wish the lightning had struck it ! I will pour 
 it in your lap this hour, if you will take it. It 
 is rightfully yours." 
 
 "It is not mine, and I would not touch it." 
 
 "I will sink it in the lake, or bury it in the
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 33 
 
 earth, so deep that no man can ever see it again, 
 if you will only trust me try to like me a 
 little." 
 
 She gave him one quick startled look, then cast 
 a glance around, as if seeking some pathway of 
 escape. lie moved aside from the gate, and she 
 passed out with rapid steps and averted face. 
 
 For some distance she walked rapidly, with 
 her mind in a state of strong agitation ; but this 
 feeling presently passed away. Her inward 
 rage over the mean advantage she supposed 
 Thorn to have taken of her when he hurried 
 her into marriage had subsided during the 
 weeks of his absence ; and her dislike was as 
 quiet, if a little deeper, than formerly. He had 
 certainly improved her situation by bringing her 
 to his house on the hill, from which she could 
 have an airy view of more cleared space than 
 from any other point in many miles. She liked 
 these glimpses of airy distance as well as she 
 liked the depths of forest gloom in which she 
 could lose herself whenever she wished. Simply 
 to go where she pleased, do what she pleased, 
 as John had promised, was all she at present 
 desired. It was glorious liberty after many 
 months of bondage. She did not fear that he
 
 34 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 would lay constraint upon her or violate his 
 word. He was no promise-breaker ; she some 
 how felt secure in that. And her life had been 
 too solitary ; she was altogether too untaught to 
 understand the unnaturalness of her position in 
 Thorn s house. 
 
 She spent several days at Mr. Wycoff s house. 
 The schoolmaster was at home and talked with 
 her a good deal. He seemed to be studying 
 her. To his wife, Emily was a puzzle. One 
 day the affectionate Katy went up to her as she 
 sat sewing, and kissed her cheek. 
 
 "Why did you do that?" asked the girl 
 blankly. 
 
 "Because I felt like it," responded Mrs. 
 Wycoff. " Is it possible you were never kissed 
 in your life before ! " 
 
 Emily thought a moment, and said calmly, 
 
 "I believe I never was ; not that I remember." 
 
 From Jared, Katy received instructions not 
 to talk much about Mr. Thorn, and not to mani 
 fest the slightest feminine curiosity about this 
 strange young bride s emotions. 
 
 " She is nothing but a beautiful grown-up 
 child," he said.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 OHE never works, as anybody knows of," 
 said old Mrs. Wycoff on the occasion of 
 that first visit at Mrs. Kitzmiller s ; " only to 
 fool round the bark-mill once in a while, pre- 
 tendin to help grind bark. Yes, and she sews 
 a little, but Jared s wife makes all her dresses." 
 
 " Land knows they re plain enough ; she might 
 make em herself," said Mrs. Henry WycoiF. 
 "But they re just a little bit alike, Mis Thorn 
 and Katy, and I guess they like to be together. 
 You see my sister-in-law ain t a bit sociable, 
 like I be. When Jared s gone she stays right 
 to home, to keep things straight, she says ; and 
 when he s there, no mortal could coax her to go 
 visitin , not if twas to Queen Victory s. She 
 sets such store by that poor feller ! " 
 
 " Katy s a good wife and Jared predates 
 her," said Mother Wycoff warmly. "In that 
 respect you 11 not find much resemblance atween 
 her and Emily Thorn. And that makes me 
 think of another queer trick of Mis Thorn s. 
 She s gone to school every blessed winter since 
 
 35
 
 36 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 she s married two winters now just like the 
 young ones ! Jared says she could read and 
 write pretty well when she first come ; but now 
 she s fur ahead of any other scholar in the dis 
 trict. She s studyin some high-school books 
 now, like Jared studied at that big cademy in 
 York State." 
 
 "John Thorn s got a decent common edica- 
 tion hisself," said Mrs. Spiller, "an I guess he 
 didn t want his wife to be too ign ant. Now, 
 my man says it s enough for a woman if she 
 can sign a deed or morgitch without havin to 
 make her mark." 
 
 " I reckon John don t hev much to say about 
 Emily s goin to school or lettin it alone," said 
 Mrs. Aaron Waldo. " I ve an idee his wantin 
 her to do a thing would be a pretty strong 
 reason with her for not doin it. They must be 
 hangin on from sheer contrairiness. Every 
 body s been expectin em to part for a year 
 past. It s not cordin to the kestom of the 
 kentry for folks to live as they do." 
 
 "Speakin about Mis Thorn s plain dresses," 
 said Mrs. Henry Wycoft , "I asked her one day 
 at Katy s why she most always wore gray flan 
 nel. She said because it did n t drabble at the
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 37 
 
 bottom like cotton did. You see she always 
 brings up the cows for the milkin , and then 
 she takes everlastin long walks besides ; goes 
 away down to the long crossway, n that s 
 more n a mile. I asked her why she didn t 
 hev her things trimmed up a little, with flounces 
 or a kitterin piece round the bottom ; n she 
 said she d taken a hint from a remark Mr. 
 Truesdale made wunst. He had lived a good 
 deal in cities, and he said there w r as no use o 
 country folks try in to foller the fashions, fur 
 they couldn t ony come near enough to be 
 redic lous. If they ony knew it, they would 
 appear much better, to dopt some very simple 
 dress and stick to it. So she always has her 
 dresses made with a plain skirt that just shows 
 her feet, and a long, ruther tight-fittin sack with 
 plain coat-sleeves. She has a lot of old-fash 
 ioned English dimity that was her mother s, and 
 out o that she hems ruffles for her neck. She 
 give Katy a lot o them ruffles and some fine 
 linen han kerchers with colored borders that 11 
 wash forever." 
 
 "Doesn t it beat everythin ," said Mrs. Frost, 
 "to think of her speakin in that open way of 
 Truesdale ! You know " this in a lower tone
 
 38 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 to Mrs. Kitzmillcr " they Ve been seen walkin 
 along the road, visitin away as though they 
 enjoyed it. And Truesdule goes to Thorn s 
 oftener than there s any need of to see about a 
 few head of critters he s got pasturin on John s 
 fields. John s most always away, now days ; 
 to be sure the old woman s around, but she s 
 deafer n two posts." 
 
 "Most likely," said Mrs. Kitzmiller, with an 
 honest impulse to defend the absent, " she 
 spoke openly of this Mr. Truesdale, who, I 
 believe, is a sort of partner of her husband s, 
 because she had nothing to conceal. It would 
 look that way to me." 
 
 After this neighborly visitation Olive felt an 
 unaccountable desire to see and know Mrs. 
 Thorn. She was so young and had suffered so 
 much. Her husband took her for the sake of a 
 little money, and there was nothing but hatred 
 between them. Her neighbors distrusted her, 
 very probably without reason. And then she 
 was so beautiful ; they all agreed about that 
 no one was ever prettier ! They had spoken of 
 her taking long walks, and that awoke a fellow 
 feeling in Olive ; for it was her chief delight, 
 when her household tasks were finished, to roam
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 39 
 
 far and free, looking for some pretty place or 
 thing, or, as the mood urged her, for the rough 
 est, wildest nook in all the region. What if 
 she should some day meet Mrs. Thorn ! For 
 once a wish came true. 
 
 It was on a sultry afternoon in May. There 
 had been showers the night before, and Olive 
 went out to look for mushrooms, where the 
 branches of the beech trees grew broad and 
 low. She found none, and returned to the 
 road just as Emily Thorn emerged from the 
 woods on the opposite side. Their eyes met, 
 and Olive s fell with the embarrassment which 
 is natural upon meeting suddenly one about 
 whom we have been thinking much. 
 
 " You are the daughter of our new neighbor, 
 I believe," said the tall woman in the gray 
 dress. Olive nodded bashfully, and the other 
 continued, 
 
 "I would offer to shake hands, but I have 
 been grubbing for these roots for Aunt Thirsa ;" 
 and she showed her hand, much soiled with 
 black earth, and holding a bunch of Indian tur 
 nips by the tops. 
 
 " I was looking for mushrooms," said Olive, 
 but I did not find any."
 
 40 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 "Ah, I thought they were truffles. I like 
 them, too, but Aunt Thirsa, who keeps house 
 for us, will not allow them to be cooked." 
 
 "Why have you never called to see us?" 
 asked Olive impulsively. 
 
 "I might have called," said Emily, "but I 
 do not make calls or visits. We have a queer 
 sort of home Aunt Thirsa being so very 
 deaf and people do not seem to care about 
 coming to us. I only go to Squire Wycoff s ; 
 they are all the friends I have." 
 
 She said this with the manner of one who 
 must go to the extreme of allowable frank 
 ness, inasmuch as there was still a world of 
 reserve in her life, which must not be broken 
 in upon. 
 
 "I wish I might be your friend," said Olive. 
 Emily turned upon her a look of grave wonder, 
 which softened into tenderness. 
 
 "You may, dear child," she said; "there is 
 no reason why you should not be. I will call 
 upon your mother and 3*011 to-morrow." 
 
 Olive had not thought to look for the beauty 
 of which she had heard so much, but now Emily 
 stopped in her walk and took off her rye-straw 
 hat to fan herseif. The slanting sun-rays came
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 41 
 
 through the trees and touched her light-brown 
 hair, turning it to rippled gold. Olive noted the 
 rich effect. She noted also the pure, rose- white 
 complexion, the glowing lips, and the dark 
 hazel eyes beneath brows and lashes almost 
 black. Her face was bright and animated, but 
 as yet she had not smiled. Olive wondered how 
 sweet a thing her smile might be ! 
 
 The call was made ; a very short one, for 
 Emily brought no knitting or patch-work, and 
 Mrs. Kitzmiller failed to interest her in the 
 sowing of late peas and the difficulty of rearing 
 young turkeys when the season was inclined to 
 wetness. Emily seemed very much in earnest 
 when she begged that Olive might come to see 
 her soon. 
 
 "To-morrow or the next day, please," she 
 urged, with the wonderful smile for which Olive 
 had been watching. 
 
 " She is as good as the best of us," declared 
 Mrs. Kitzmiller to her husband that evening. 
 "I ll venture she s had a good mother, what 
 ever the old man might a been. I found out 
 she was baptized in infancy, and when I offered 
 her a catechism, one of the small ones in purple 
 covers, she said she d like it as a present from
 
 42 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 me, but she knew that book by heart before she 
 was twelve years old. Just think of that ! And 
 her face is as innocent as a baby s. She seems 
 lonesome, poor thing, and has taken wonder 
 fully to our Ollie." 
 
 This was the beginning of long weeks of 
 almost constant companionship between Olive 
 and Emily. From the first they treated each 
 other with the affectionate freedom of enthusi 
 astic girl friends. Olive never manifested the 
 slightest interest about the strange married life 
 of the other. Between them Mr. Thorn was 
 tacitly ignored. When they chanced to be 
 thrown in his company which was not often, 
 for he seldom entered his own house, except for 
 meals both labored under the same constraint, 
 and were equally glad to get free from him and 
 it. His manner toward them was superior and 
 rather ironical. He sometimes addressed Olive 
 as Miss Kitz, or made some playful remark to 
 Emily, of which she took slight notice. It was 
 not uncommon, however, for him to openly 
 avoid meeting them ; or to look at and past 
 them, out of cold, dark eyes that had in them 
 no sign of kindly recognition. Emily had no 
 ticed that strange look only since his illness.
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 43 
 
 In the spring, shortly before the Kitzmillers 
 came, Thorn hud had a sharp attack of pneu 
 monia. He had gone to Fort Wayne to make 
 sale of a quantity of leather, and returned home 
 very ill. He went up to his room, bed-chamber 
 and office combined, on the second floor of the 
 currier s shop, and sent Davy Ransom for a 
 doctor. He lay there for three weeks, suffer 
 ing much, and attended upon at odd intervals by 
 Mrs. Bay less and Aunt Thirsa. From the first 
 he had felt a yearning desire to have Emily 
 come and wait upon him with a wife s thought 
 ful care. In his utter prostration of strength 
 and will he thought he could gladly die if she 
 would first come close to his side, smile upon 
 him, and touch him with her hands. Through 
 long, feverish days he lay with eyes fixed upon 
 the door, expecting her to enter. Surely some 
 humane, womanly impulse would lead her to 
 visit him, he thought; and when night came, 
 bringing only disappointment, the groans that 
 rent the lonely darkness came more surely from 
 the wounded heart of the man than from the 
 agonized chest in which it labored. Perhaps it 
 was unreasonable that he should expect her, not 
 having given her in any way to understand that
 
 44 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 her presence was desired, but sickness and love 
 are both proverbially unreasonable. As it was, 
 she never went near him ; and he arose from 
 his illness and resumed the usual ways of life 
 with a germ of bitterness in his heart against 
 her.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 "TOURING the early summer Emily and Olive 
 -^^were almost constantly out of doors. One 
 of their favorite haunts was the long causeway 
 that ran through the jack-oak swamp. It was a 
 corduroy or pole bridge, upon which earth had 
 been thrown till it formed a high, hard road. A 
 narrow ditch ran along either side, in which the 
 water rippled pleasantly, till it emptied into the 
 big ditch, which cut the swamp at right angles 
 with the bridge, about midway of the latter. It 
 was indeed a mighty ditch, such as have been 
 made at public expense in many parts of this 
 marshy country. Its black sides, eight feet 
 apart at the top, sloped down, a distance of five 
 feet, to within fifty inches of each other at the 
 bottom ; and the current of water that coursed 
 through it would have turned a mill had there 
 been sufficient fall. Here, where the ditch made 
 its wide sluice under the causeway, was a favor 
 ite resting-place for Olive and her new friend. 
 An old jack-oak grew there, with one horizontal 
 branch for a seat, and another in perfect position 
 
 45
 
 46 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 for a back to that seat. The two lithe girls 
 would cross the little ditch with a bound, and 
 swing themselves up to this rustic perch, out of 
 reach of snakes, and within reach of the wild 
 birds songs, and every richly scented breeze 
 that blew, and chat and sing for hours. Mrs. 
 Kitzmiller was alwa} r s promising Olive the ague, 
 but she would reply that some people did not 
 take the ague, and she was sure she would not. 
 Strange to say she did not. 
 
 One afternoon they had taken a long walk, 
 and were sauntering slowly down the causeway 
 in the homeward direction. There had been 
 heavy rains, and a torrent was pouring through 
 the great ditch, leaving flecks of white foam on 
 its inky sides. 
 
 " How low and level all this region seems," 
 said Emily, "yet w r e are at the very summit 
 of the country ; right among the water-sources. 
 I could sail a ship in this ditch, on a voyage 
 to the Atlantic ; for, you know, this water 
 has its outlet through the Elkhart and St. 
 Joseph rivers, into Lake Michigan. And I 
 could sail another on Half Moon Lake, only 
 a mile south, which would find its way 
 through small streams into the Wabash, and
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 47 
 
 on through the Ohio and Mississippi, to the 
 great Gulf." 
 
 "Who told you that? "asked Olive. "Did 
 Mr. Wycoff ? " 
 
 "No," said Emily; "why might I not have 
 learned it in my geography?" 
 
 "Because the big ditch isn t down on the 
 map," said Olive, laughing. 
 
 " Neither it is, and somebody did tell me, one 
 beautiful day, just about a year ago. He has 
 told me many other things, for he is much wiser 
 than even Jared AVycoff . Poor .Tared knows 
 only what he has learned in books, but Mr. 
 Truesdale seems to have been everywhere, and 
 to have seen everything; If we wait here, we 
 will see him, for there is his horse s track. He 
 has gone north since the shower this morning, 
 and will be returning presently." 
 
 "Let us go home at once," said Olive ; " I do 
 not want to see anyone." 
 
 "T\ r e will stop and let him pass us," said 
 Emily, " for he is coming now." 
 
 Looking northward, through the vista of 
 black-oaks, pussy-willows, and wild-rose bushes, 
 they saw a man approaching on a large red 
 horse. He was with them almost immediately.
 
 48 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 Olive glanced up and received a smiling saluta 
 tion, as Emily introduced them, in a quaint 
 little fashion of her own. 
 
 " And this is Sandy," said Emily, caressing the 
 great horse s Roman nose. "Isn t he a beauty? 
 Mr. Truesdale let me name him, so I called him 
 Sandy, because it s Scotch, and just suits his 
 color." 
 
 Olive let her glance ascend from the high- 
 topped riding-boot, almost on a range with her 
 head, over a slight, strong frame, to a brown, 
 clear-cut, handsome face, whose dark eyes rested 
 on Emily with a look of such intense and tender 
 admiration that even simple little Olive could 
 not misunderstand it. He lingered a few 
 moments, while Emily fastened a handful of 
 plumy ferns in Sandy s headstall with nice care ; 
 then he bowed to both and rode on. 
 
 Truesdale s acquaintance with Emily began 
 soon after her marriage. He met her first at 
 Squire Wycoff s, where she stayed a good deal 
 that first year. Wycoff framed deeds and other 
 papers in connection with Truesdale s land sales, 
 and his cabin was his only office. Truesdale had 
 frequent business with John Thorn, and between 
 the two places he met Emily frequently. She
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 49 
 
 was very silent with him at first ; this piqued 
 his interest. He exerted himself to entertain 
 her, to impress on her the fact of his personality. 
 By slow steps he drew her on to speak of her 
 self; of her home in Scotland; of the school 
 she had attended there in childhood ; of the 
 kirk where her mother took the children every 
 Sunday, and the kirk-yard with its mossy stone 
 wall, inside which two baby sisters slept. She 
 told him all she could remember of the sea 
 voyage, and of the few weeks she had spent in 
 Brooklyn with some Scottish acquaintance of 
 her parents ; but when it came to their settle 
 ment in the wild woods, and the dreadful years 
 that followed, she was silent. 
 
 In return for her small disclosures, he spoke 
 of his own past history ; and the glimpses thus 
 revealed made her know that there was another 
 and broader world than she had ever looked 
 into. Her acquaintance with this man was part 
 of the education that had made of her, in the 
 space of two years, a vastly different person 
 from the phenomenally unsophisticated girl that 
 married John Thorn. Truesdale s conversation, 
 even more than Jared Wycoff s books, had 
 changed her.
 
 50 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 Davy Ransom had given Emily, that day in 
 the bark-mill, the correct explanation of Horace 
 Truesdale s presence in New Madrid. He had 
 come to Indiana to sell off his land ; that busi 
 ness had progressed beyond his first expectation. 
 He had traded and sold, until but little of the 
 swampy tracts of his original ownership re 
 mained on his hands. In his extensive rides 
 over the country he had spied out other and 
 more desirable lots, and purchased them on 
 speculation. During his residence in the west 
 he had sloughed off whatever of conventionality 
 he had brought with him. He wore colored 
 flannel shirts and a slouch hat ; and his boots, if 
 of a trifle better leather, were thick-soled and 
 high-topped as those of the veriest Hoosier of 
 them all. He was an epitome of contradictions, 
 physical and moral. He had a slight frame, 
 surmounted by a large head, and a face indica 
 tive of nervous force, but not of physical en 
 durance. Yet his small, brown hand had a grip 
 of steel, and he could stand his share of ex 
 posure and hardship with the toughest of the 
 drovers and trappers with whom he came in con 
 tact. He was at home with rough men in rough 
 places ; yet nothing like coarseness, or even
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 51 
 
 commonness, ever tarnished his speech or man 
 ners. His high breeding was as much a part of 
 him as the distinct, mellow tones of his voice, 
 or the keen, half humorous, yet sympathetic 
 glance of his eye. 
 
 He had no need to acquire a liking for wild 
 woods and wild w r ays. In youth he had been 
 "a roving lad, who thought his home a cage." 
 He had been properly restrained, sent through 
 college and graduated in medicine ; but he had 
 never practised his profession a day, and did not 
 intend to. He loved books, good poetry es 
 pecially ; but he loved a gun as well. He loved 
 also, of course, horses and dogs and tamed ani 
 mals. He loved women in a broadly compre 
 hensive manner. At the age of twenty-one he 
 engaged himself to a girl whom he had known 
 from childhood. Anna Grant seemed to him as 
 perfect a specimen of the bewitching sex to 
 which she belonged as he would ever be likely 
 to find. He was in no haste to marry ; but he 
 was careful of his proprieties and gave his fiancee 
 no grave cause of complaint as months and years 
 slipped past. He was therefore blankly sur 
 prised and deeply sorry when Miss Grant broke 
 the engagement, saying she felt sure he had
 
 52 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 never really loved her, and she doubted gravely 
 whether it was in his nature to love any woman 
 with sufficient exclusiveness to make him a con 
 tented husband. He was disappointed; for 
 some day he had intended to many, and Anna 
 suited him. Now he was all unsettled again, 
 and it was a question whether he would ever 
 marry at all. There was a good deal in life 
 without that money-making, hunting, seeing 
 life, studying individuals, human and other.
 
 CHAPTEE VII. 
 
 A FTER he came to New Madrid, his studies 
 in the line of the "other" afforded him 
 endless amusement, and the other inmates of 
 the Hotel Eounce infinite annoyance. Nothing 
 but Truesdale s gift of popularity that name 
 less something which made people always in 
 vest him with a Joseph s robe of favoritism 
 saved him from being ejected bodily along with 
 his happy family. His hounds were always 
 sprawling in the passages, or upsetting swill- 
 pails in the kitchen. Penelope, the tallest one, 
 thought nothing of walking through the dining- 
 room when the table was set, and lifting from 
 the plate a biscuit or slice of bread. He had a 
 tame owl and a crow that were very friendly at 
 times, and again would quarrel frightfully, utter 
 ing shrill cries of rage, and making the feathers 
 fly like two furies. 
 
 But the most incorrigible pest of all was a pet 
 raccoon. Sam Slick was his master s favorite, 
 but a favorite with no one else. He was a large 
 animal of his kind, fully two feet in length, ex- 
 
 53
 
 54 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 elusive of his bushy ringed tail. He was imita 
 tive and playful as a monkey, and seemed to be, 
 in the language of the street, always laying for 
 somebody. If a traveller stopped off at Bounce s 
 for a day s shooting, he had to watch well his 
 game bag ; for it was Sam s especial delight to 
 insert himself into such a receptacle and muti 
 late the contents. He was very fond of lying 
 in baskets, and always watched his sly chance, 
 when the clothes were brought in from the 
 drying-lines, to deposit his dusty bulk upon the 
 top of the snowy sheets and tablecloths. 
 
 On one occasion a colored boy and another 
 "help" spent a long hot forenoon picking a 
 mess of delicate greens for the hotel table. 
 Truesdale and others of the boarders saw the 
 boys when they returned with a large basket 
 ful, and were greatly rejoiced thereat. At 
 dinner, however, no greens appeared, and, 
 when inquiry was made, Prince, the colored 
 boy, explained : 
 
 " Dat tarnal coon done spiled em. We sot 
 de basket in de londry, till we d rested and 
 cooled off a spell, and when we went to look 
 em over, dere lay dat bloody critter on top o 
 dcm cowslops we d been all de mornin pickiu !
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 55 
 
 I shied de clothes-pounder at him, and he 
 jumped about fo rod." 
 
 A murmur of wrath against Sam Slick went 
 around the table, and again he was threatened 
 with death in many forms. 
 
 At length Landlord Rounce ventured to say to 
 Truesdale that if he did not remove his pets 
 out of the hotel he would not be answerable for 
 their or his own safety. This led to the hiring 
 of a house for the dogs and the menagerie. It 
 was a little frame box near the hotel, owned by 
 a tailor named Hodges. He had originally in 
 tended using it for a shop, but had never gone 
 further at fitting it up than to place a long table 
 under its best window, and decorate its walls 
 with some obsolete fashion-plates and cutters 
 charts. Hodges liked his wife, and liked her 
 help in his tailoring ; she preferred sitting at 
 home with her sewing, so Hodges usually sat 
 there with her. 
 
 Truesdale found the " shop " a great conveni 
 ence in the way of unloading his crowded bed 
 room of old clothes, guns, fishing-tackle, and 
 the like. He sometimes used the tailor s bench 
 as a writing-table. There was plenty of room 
 on it for his books and papers, as well as for
 
 56 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 the gilt wire cage of his little dormouse, and 
 the larger wooden one of his tame red squirrels. 
 When he was absent from the village, his pets 
 were looked after by Susie Hodges, the tailor s 
 hoyden daughter. In return for this, Truesdale 
 began to leave his game at Hodges , instead of 
 taking it to the hotel ; and in return for this 
 again he was frequently invited to take supper 
 in the tailor s kitchen. There was the usual 
 amount of winking and coarse joking among the 
 village neighbors when this groAving friendliness 
 was observed ; and before long the assertion 
 was current that Sue Hodges was "gone" after 
 Truesdale, but that was all the good it would do 
 her. He would go back "in yonder" when he 
 wanted to take a wife. Sue heard of it, no 
 doubt, but she cared for the pets none the less 
 faithfully. 
 
 If she was seen coming home from the Avoods 
 where she had been digging ginseng or picking 
 berries, with Mr. Truesdale walking beside her, 
 carrying her basket, she was gossipped about, 
 but not scandalized. In this primitive com 
 munity, like most other American ones, the 
 European idea was reversed ; and while a mar 
 ried woman must "walk neat" or bear blame, a
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 57 
 
 girl under the ostensible oversight of her parents, 
 might do strange things almost anything, and 
 no damaging word be said. Until wrong-doing 
 became an assured fact, she had the full benefit 
 of charitable doubt. 
 
 People grew used to seeing them much to 
 gether. It was a common thing for Truesdale 
 to ride up to Hodges door in the early morning 
 with his rifle across his saddle-bow and his dogs 
 behind him; Susie, watching for him, would 
 come out with a basin of parched corn, fill the 
 pocket of his blouse on one side, then go around 
 and fill the other, while he merrily told her 
 where he expected to ride, and what game she 
 might expect him to bring back in the evening. 
 
 " Good-bye, black-eyed Susan," he would say, 
 waving his whip-hand as he rode oft*. And 
 "Good-bye" she would answer back, sometimes 
 saucily, and again with a dreamy cadence, fol 
 lowing him with a look of passionate devotion 
 in her dark face. 
 
 If Emily changed in the two years imme 
 diately succeeding her father s death, John 
 Thorn did also ; and he. was not improved. No 
 man ever accused him of injustice or meanness, 
 but many accused him of arrogance and harsh-
 
 58 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 ness. About his home he was taciturn to 
 moroseness, and in the world abroad he pursued 
 his personal ends in business and politics in a 
 straightforward manner, but often with culpable 
 indifference to the convenience and interests of 
 others. 
 
 The winter preceding the coming of the Kitz- 
 millers into the neighborhood, Thorn spent in 
 Indianapolis as a member of the State Senate. 
 He owed his nomination in no small degree to 
 Truesdale s efforts in the convention. Even 
 his best friends declared that a man who cared 
 so little to conciliate public favor would fail at 
 the election ; but he did not ; for in the can 
 vass he manifested marvellous ability in handling 
 his resources, and he carried the senatorial dis 
 trict handsomely in the end. 
 
 When he returned from the Capitol in the 
 spring, Emily met him with more kindness than 
 she had shown since entering his house. He 
 noticed it with a rush of keen emotions ; but he 
 had schooled himself well, and considered it ex 
 pedient not to recognize at once these relenting 
 symptoms, if such they deserved to be called. 
 One day, soon after his return, she asked a favor 
 of him, and his pleasure in granting it was great ;
 
 JOHK THORN S FOLKS. 59 
 
 but in his effort not to let it appear, he chilled 
 her back into her old, torpid, calm aversion. 
 She had long wanted a saddle-horse of her own, 
 and one of his selection, for that would insure 
 its excellence. When she spoke to him about 
 it, he made her scarcely three words of reply ; 
 nevertheless, within a week, he called her out 
 to admire a beautiful animal, equipped with 
 costly and elegant trappings. He assisted her 
 to the saddle and let her ride away, never 
 offering to accompany her. The horse s gait 
 was perfect, and he was gentleness itself; so, 
 in a short time, Emily, though unused to the 
 exercise, rode with ease and pleasure. For a 
 while she used her new horse a good deal ; 
 but after she became acquainted with Olive 
 Kitzmiller she seemed to care no more for him, 
 nor, indeed, for anything but her new friend. 
 She still went occasionally to Squire Wycoff s, 
 but the coming of a baby into their small house 
 seemed to leave less room for her there than 
 formerly. 
 
 In September a startling incident occurred.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 /~\NE afternoon, the first time in weeks, Emily 
 ordered Davy to saddle her horse. She 
 mounted him and took a long ride. She was 
 returning leisurely in the evening, and when 
 within a mile of home some one a woman s 
 form sprang up suddenly at the roadside 
 and darted across, waving a paw-paw or other 
 large-leaved bush over her head. The horse 
 reared and shied, throwing Emily violently, 
 then galloped home. Thorn was the first to 
 see him, standing riderless at the gate. With 
 a wild horror at his heart he leaped into the 
 saddle and retraced his tracks. He found Emily 
 sitting by the tree against which she had been 
 thrown, bruised, suffering, and bewildered. 
 He knelt beside her, and, for the first time, took 
 her in his arms. 
 
 "Poor girl poor Emily ! " he almost sobbed. 
 " Your arm is broken ! How will I get you 
 home?" 
 
 But Davy Ransom had followed on foot and 
 soon came up panting. By John s orders he 
 60
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 61 
 
 rode the horse back to the farm, and soon re 
 turned with a light spring wagon. Emily was 
 lifted in, half fainting, on a bed of robes and 
 pilloAvs, and carefully driven home. When 
 they came to the turning of the road, Emily 
 roused herself and said, 
 
 "Take me to Mrs. Kitzmiller s." 
 
 " Please let me take you home ! " John pleaded. 
 " Why won t you go home with me ? " 
 
 "I shall die there, alone with Thirsa." 
 
 " You shall not be left alone with her ; you 
 shall have a nurse." 
 
 " But I want Olive and her mother. I want 
 nobody else." 
 
 "Olive will come and stay with you," Thorn 
 urged gently ; " O yes, you will surely let us 
 take you home ! " 
 
 She closed her eyes weakly and resisted no 
 more. The stuffy little spare room of Thorn s 
 house was thrown open to the fresh air, and a 
 bed made there for Emily. Davy was well on 
 his way for a doctor, and Thorn went for Mrs. 
 Kitzmillcr and Olive. After the broken arm 
 was set, the doctor left quieting powders to be 
 given her, under the influence of which she 
 slept much for several days.
 
 62 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 Olive remained with her continually until 
 she was able to sit up in the arm-chair. Thorn 
 looked in often, but did not remain long. Again 
 the hope of winning Emily into a true, wifely 
 relationship was rousing his pulse-beats to a 
 jubilant measure ; but he had resolved upon a 
 course of action from which he was determined 
 no outward pressure, no inward impulse, should 
 make him swerve. He would extend to her 
 just so much of kindly attention as she seemed 
 to welcome, and wait for some definite intima 
 tion it need be very slight ! when he might 
 begin to woo her in lover s fashion. He would 
 never startle her again ; never let her suppose 
 for a moment that he had forgotten the pledge 
 under which he had induced her to take his 
 name. He often smiled bitterly to himself over 
 that precious piece of folly. If she had taken 
 shelter with the Wycoff s, or lived alone in her 
 hut in the forest, he might have won her as 
 other men win wives. He believed he could 
 have done it ; now there was a wall between 
 them of his own rearing, which he must not be 
 the first to pull down. 
 
 Entering the room suddenly one morning, 
 Olive saw John standing by the bedside looking
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 63 
 
 at Emily asleep. He turned quickly and went 
 out, but she had caught the expression of his 
 face. Once before she had seen that look upon 
 it. On a certain warm Sunday in July she had 
 arisen from a long nap with a great desire in 
 her heart for Emily, whom she had not seen for 
 two days. She did not go directly to the house, 
 but followed the course of the brook till she 
 came to the tannery buildings. There were no 
 men about there on Sunday, and Olive lingered, 
 eying everything with a sort of aimless curios 
 ity. Passing around the end of the bark-shed, 
 she suddenly came upon her friend, who, en 
 gaged with a book, did not perceive her ap 
 proach. The bark-shed cast a large cool shadow 
 eastward over a bed of dry tan, on which Emily 
 reclined in the attitude of Correggio s Magdalene 
 intently reading. Olive made ready to surprise 
 her, when she was arrested by seeing Mr. Thorn 
 approach from the opposite direction. The tan- 
 cushioned earth gave forth no sound, and Emily 
 read on, unconscious of his nearness. Olive was 
 partly concealed by a projection of the piled-up 
 bark, and not wishing to attract notice remained 
 perfectly still. When John saw his wife he 
 stopped suddenly and drew back a pace, as if
 
 64 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 he felt himself an intruder. Then he stood still 
 and looked at her. Olive will never forget that 
 look. If Truesdale s eyes had expressed pas 
 sionate admiration, Thorn s spoke a longing 
 agony of grief and tenderness that no language 
 could equal. His firm mouth softened and 
 trembled, and, raising his hand to his brow as 
 if blinded by some mighty weight of feeling, 
 he moved noiselessly away. 
 
 Dainty, loving little Olive laid these things 
 up in her heart. Some day she would see her 
 way clear to use the knowledge she had gained 
 with her friend, so charmingly free with her, yet 
 so icily reserved upon this one phase of her 
 life. 
 
 A week passed after Emily s injury and she 
 was able to walk about the room and carry her 
 bandaged arm in a supporter without hurting 
 it. Olive went home one afternoon for an hour 
 or two, and in her absence a strange visitor 
 came to Thorn s house. It was the half-breed 
 medicine woman, known throughout the coun 
 try as Old Bloodroot. She brought a present 
 of wild artichokes to Aunt Thirsa, and through 
 them effected an entrance to the kitchen ; then 
 pressed on unbidden to the room where Emily
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 65 
 
 sat alone. She was a horrible looking creature, 
 bareheaded, ragged, and filthy. An enormous 
 goitre twisted her head awry, and her black 
 hair hung in elf-locks about her swarthy face. 
 She stood before Emily and fixed upon her a 
 piercing and sinister look. The poor, fright 
 ened girl could hardly find her voice to say, 
 
 " Who are you, and why do you come here?" 
 
 The hag replied in a dialect simply impos 
 sible to reproduce with letters, but her speech 
 translated into plain English was something 
 like this : 
 
 " You know me well enough, and I come here 
 to tell you that John Thorn is a liar. He has 
 been saying that I frightened your horse. It is 
 a lie ! I was sick in my hut that day. Most 
 likely it was one of his girls who hates you ; he 
 has plenty of girls. He hates you, too ; every 
 body knows that. He would be glad to have 
 you killed. He asked me for my black drops 
 one day they leave no sign but he loves his 
 money like a fool, and would not pay enough. 
 He is a beast, a fiend, a son of the " 
 
 Emily sprang to her feet with a wild cry and 
 turned to flee the room, but her strength failed 
 and she sank back fainting into her chair.
 
 66 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 When she gradually recovered consciousness 
 she was alone. 
 
 From the window of his room in the tan- 
 house Thorn saw the squaw striding across his 
 fields and guessed she had been to his house 
 for some evil purpose. Years before when he 
 bought his land, he had found her squatted upon 
 a corner of it. He let her remain unmolested 
 till she had been caught stealing from his 
 smoke-house and hen-roost, and milking his 
 cows in the woods ; then she was summarily 
 driven off the place. Ever after he was the 
 object of her vindictive hatred. It would have 
 been well if, when he hurried into the house, he 
 had related to Emily this bit of Bloodroot s per 
 sonal history, but he did not. He merely swore 
 roundly at the old witch for daring to intrude 
 her filthy presence, and at Thirsa for letting her 
 inside the house. 
 
 "What did she say she came for?" he asked, 
 turning to Emily. In his anger he seemed to 
 demand an answer. 
 
 "I don t know," Emily replied, still pale and 
 trembling. " She made rne ill. I tried not to 
 listen to her." 
 
 All that night Emily lay nervously awake.
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 67 
 
 The words of the half-breed repeated themselves 
 over and over in her mind, notwithstanding she 
 did not believe them in all their horrible signifi 
 cance. She knew Bloodroot was a bad creature, 
 but people said she was a sort of obi-woman 
 and knew strange secrets. What if John did 
 hate her like that ! All the latent superstition 
 of her nature was aroused, and in her weak 
 state, with her imagination unsettled by the 
 free use of opium, the impression made upon 
 her by her weird visitor s words was fearfully 
 strong. 
 
 The next morning she anticipated Olive s 
 coming by walking down to Mr. Kitzmiller s. 
 The distance was small, but she reached the 
 house exhausted, and went to bed with a ner 
 vous chill. If John was hurt or offended by 
 this rash movement he did not say so of course. 
 He waited two days, then went to see her. His 
 call was a very short one ; when he went away 
 Olive followed him to the gate and said, 
 
 "I did not persuade her to come here, Mr. 
 Thorn. We love to have her with us, but we 
 did not know she was coming till she came. 
 That Indian woman frightened her so ! Please 
 do not blame me, Mr. Thorn."
 
 68 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 His sombre eyes softened into a sad smile as 
 he replied, 
 
 " Why should I blame you for being kind to 
 that strange, lonely girl ! I can do nothing for 
 her. She is suspicious, vindictive I some 
 times think utterly heartless. She had better 
 remain here till she gets strong. I shall be 
 away when she goes home."
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 day in the late autumn, Davy Ransom 
 was hauling bark from a place in the 
 woods some four miles distant from the tan 
 nery. He came home earlier than he was ex 
 pected, with his team reeking, and himself in a 
 state of strong excitement. 
 
 He found Mrs. Bayless in her back yard 
 lifting her stocking-yarn out of the blue-dye 
 pot, and hanging it to air over the horizontal 
 pole that usually supported the soap-kettle. 
 The skeins were tied tightly at short intervals, 
 like chains of Bologna sausage. When, after 
 long soaking and repeated airings, the coloring 
 was finished, the "links" would be a very dark 
 blue, while the tied places would remain almost 
 white ; thus producing a clouded or spotted 
 appearance in the knitting. Mrs. Bayless ex 
 celled in the production of these choice effects 
 in color. At the moment when Davy came 
 around the corner of the cabin, she was ex 
 amining a bunch of cross-banded lambs -wool 
 yarn that Mrs. Henry Wycoff had begged
 
 70 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 her to put in with hers, the indigo being 
 found. 
 
 "Where s Zekel?" asked Davy, in a low 
 tone, pregnant with meaning. 
 
 "In the shop, I s pose," was the brief an 
 swer. She did not look up, so the boy s air of 
 mysterious importance was lost upon her. He 
 waited a little, then said, 
 
 " I got something to tell him." 
 
 " You generally got something to tell most 
 anybody that 11 listen to your clack," said his 
 foster-mother. 
 
 Davy started for the shop. Mrs. Bay less 
 straightened herself and looked after him, a 
 sudden curiosity dawning in her eyes. He 
 found Bay less in the shop, " slicking " a tunned 
 hide, and opened out at once. 
 
 "Say, Zeke, I got something to tell ye." 
 
 "Tell ahead," said the tanner. 
 
 "There s goin to be a war." 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 "Right here ; and now to-morrer. I see 
 the forerunners of him to-day." 
 
 "The forerunners of who? " 
 
 " Why, the enemy ! They ve pitched ther 
 tents in the five-mile woods."
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 71 
 
 "Now, look here, Dave ; if you don t tell, 
 right oft quick, just what you did see, I 11 take 
 you over this curry in -board, and make sole- 
 leather out o ye ! " 
 
 Davy, not out of terror of Bayless threat, 
 hut because he was quite ready to continue of 
 his own accord, went on to say, 
 
 "I didn t see nothin , on y a lot of soljir fel 
 lers, with ile-cloth caps on. They come with 
 bosses and big kivered wagons. I hadn t my 
 load quite all on, but when I see em comin , I 
 just climbed up, took the home track, and laid 
 the gad onto Jinny. I did n t low to be took 
 pris ner that a way. I don t go a durned cent 
 on war, any way." 
 
 " Did you see any guns or artillery weepins 
 of any kind ? " 
 
 "Now, I tell you what, Zeke, I wasn t 
 skeered so all-fired bad but what I wanted to 
 see more n I hed. So when I got most out to 
 the main road, I stopped and hitched Bill to a 
 saplin ; I took Jinny offen the wagon, looped 
 up her tugs, jumped onto her, and rode back 
 to where I could see em plain. There they 
 wus, singin and laughin , hangin camp-kittles, 
 and puttin up tents. But I swow the on y
 
 72 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 thing I saw that looked like shootin was a goll- 
 blasted machine that stood on three legs, as 
 high as a man, and hed a little concern on top, 
 not bigger n a hoss-pistol, that a feller was 
 takin sight with." 
 
 Bayless threw up his head and uttered a great 
 laugh. 
 
 "Why, Davy, you poor little mashed gos- 
 lin ! Ther ain t goin to be no war at all ! 
 Them s the surveyors, what s strikin the line 
 for the new railroad ! " 
 
 A day or two after Davy Ransom had re 
 treated in good order at the approach of the 
 "enemy," a young man dressed in a suit of 
 light gray, much stained with black mud, and 
 wearing an oil-cloth cap, approached Mr. Kitz- 
 miller s house. He was riding a black horse, 
 and leading another ; both animals were blank 
 eted, for it was snowing rapidly. 
 
 It was about four o clock in the afternoon, 
 and Mrs. Kitzmiller had just emerged from her 
 kitchen door, and started for the barn to do the 
 feeding, all her men-folks being absent from 
 home. She had on a man s hat, and a pair of 
 boots, and a blue swallow-tailed coat with 
 brass buttons over her brown flannel dress.
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 73 
 
 The stranger stopped and dismounted at the 
 large gate of the barn-yard. As the farmer s 
 wife approached, carrying a basket of shelled 
 corn for geese and chickens, he showed no in 
 clination to smile at her grotesque appearance, 
 whatever he may have felt, but lifting his cap, 
 briefly told his business. He wanted stabling 
 for his horses during the storm, and was willing 
 to pay well for it. Mrs. Kitzmiller told him 
 there were two empty stalls, and he might put 
 his animals in, at least for the night. 
 
 "There may be right smart of snow," she 
 said, eyeing a bank of purple clouds in the 
 northwest; "but it won t lay; this is only 
 squaw winter ; we 11 have Indian summer 
 yet." 
 
 "I hope so," said the young man. "I belong 
 to the surveying company encamped now on 
 Slater s Run. This weather is hard on our 
 horses, and we find it difficult to get stabling 
 among the farmers, their barns are all so 
 small." 
 
 "Yes," said Mrs. Kitzmiller, "I believe ours 
 is the largest around here except John Thorn s, 
 and his is always full with his own beasts and 
 Truesdale s. Here s the fork, sir, and the hay
 
 74 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 is in the mow. Take all you want for your 
 horses, and while you are about it just throw 
 down enough for my cows and sheep. I 11 tell 
 you when to quit. I just came out to do the 
 chores, for my husband and son are both away, 
 and I don t like to climb a ladder if I can 
 help it." 
 
 The young engineer scaled the ladder and 
 threw down the hay ; then descended and dis 
 tributed it in long, low racks for the sheep, and 
 in small piles on the lee side of a huge straw- 
 stack for the cows. He insisted upon finishing 
 up the feeding ; so, under Mrs. Kitzmiller s 
 direction, he tumbled a bundle of stalks over 
 the fence to a small drove of yearlings in the 
 road, and carried a great basketful of corn to 
 the fattening pigs. Then she urged him to 
 come into the house and get warm. He com 
 plied, though he was not cold, and he needed 
 the remaining daylight for his walk back to 
 camp. 
 
 They entered by the kitchen door ; she dis 
 appeared into a back room for a few moments, 
 then returned divested of her masculine gar 
 ments, as straight and well-favored a matron 
 
 * o 
 
 of fifty as one would wish to see. A model
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 75 
 
 farmer s wife Frank Rossington thought her, in 
 her brown flannel dress, gingham apron, and 
 white bobinet cap. She had a large, bright 
 coffee-pot in her hand, and as she raked out a 
 shovelful of coals and settled it upon them, 
 she remarked, 
 
 " Considerin how you Ve helped me I 11 just 
 make you a good cup of coffee while you dry 
 your boots. Ollie and I took our dinner about 
 the middle of the afternoon. You see we hap 
 pen to be quite alone ; Leander, my son, went 
 to mill this morning, and the goin s so bad 
 it ll be away on in the night fore he gets home. 
 Mr. Kitzmiller s been gone a week, attendin 
 Presbytery at Croftonsville." 
 
 "Is your husband a minister?" queried the 
 young stranger. 
 
 "No, sir, but he was a rulin elder in yonder 
 where we came from, and he is very anxious 
 to get a supply. There s no church of our per 
 suasion in this vicinity, and he went to Crof 
 tonsville, intendin to labor with the Presbytery 
 and prevail with em, if possible, to send us an 
 occasional supply. We miss the privileges 
 we Ve been used to." 
 
 " Is there no religious worship at all within
 
 76 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 reach of you? " asked Rossington. " I am from 
 the east, and feel a warm interest in these west 
 ern settlers and everything that concerns their 
 welfare." 
 
 " Well, yes," assented the farmer s wife ; 
 " the Methodists are pretty strong around here . 
 The Wycoffs are all Methodists, and they are 
 forehanded folks and a strong support to that 
 church. They have preaching and class meet 
 ing at New Madrid every Sunday, and at our 
 school-house once in two weeks." 
 
 "It seems to me," said the engineer, "that in 
 a community like this one ministry is about all 
 that could be well sustained. I mean, if you 
 could all join one church and work together in 
 that, it might be better at present than to 
 attempt to plant new ones." 
 
 " No, my dear sir," said Mrs. Kitzmiller, ear 
 nestly. " It is our duty always to contend for 
 the truth ; and I know, if you do not, that there 
 is a wide difference between Arminianism and 
 correct Bible doctrine. Not but what I con 
 sider the Methodists Christians and their wor 
 ship better than no means of grace at all. We 
 go to meeting right along, but it don t seem 
 like home to us when we Ve been used to an
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 77 
 
 educated ministry. I do hope father will get 
 the promise of a supply. 
 
 Just then the door opened and Olive rushed 
 in, cloaked and hooded in brown and scarlet, 
 shaking the snow from her like a bright beauti 
 ful bird. 
 
 " I was afraid you would do the work at the 
 barn, mother, so I brought Davy along." 
 
 What a ringing, musical voice ! And how 
 lovely she was her brown curls all damp and 
 rough and her cheeks and lips glowing ! 
 
 " The chores are all done, Ollie ; this gentle 
 man " 
 
 "Rossington is my name," he said promptly. 
 
 "And Kitzmiller is ours." Thus a sort of 
 introduction was completed. 
 
 For a moment or two the young man and 
 girl looked into each other s faces. Uncon 
 sciously to himself the sudden, deep delight 
 which he felt in this vision of youth and inno 
 cence and girlish charm shone in his warm, blue 
 eyes. Olive felt it to the quick of her being. 
 She was dazzled, but not ashamed. When her 
 own lids drooped it was to hide her timid joy 
 at being so tenderly admired. 
 
 As Rossington was finishing his cup of excel-
 
 78 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 lent coffee there was a rap at the door, and 
 Olive opened it to admit Truesdale. He had 
 ridden past the mill that day while Leander was 
 waiting for his grist, and the latter had asked 
 him to stop on his way home and tell his mother 
 that it would be too late when his grinding was 
 done to start for home, and that she need not 
 look for him till the next forenoon. 
 
 " Much obliged to you, Mr. Truesdale," said 
 Mrs. Kitzmiller. " Sit down and drink a cup 
 of hot coffee. It s better coffee, I 11 be bound, 
 than you get at Bounce s tavern." 
 
 Truesdale had visited the surveyor s camp 
 and knew Rossington as one of the company. 
 He wanted to talk with him about the rail 
 road, about anything, for the sake of talking 
 with one belonging originally to the same world 
 as himself. How well and easily their conver 
 sation ran on ! Olive listened, wondering and 
 pleased. 
 
 Suddenly there was a tremendous stamping 
 on the porch and Olive rushed to the door, 
 crying 
 
 " That s father I know that s father ! " 
 
 The farmer entered, followed by a middle- 
 aged man in black clothes whom he introduced
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 79 
 
 as the Rev. Mr. Lewis. Rossington supposed 
 at once he was the "supply." Mr. Kitzmiller 
 presently went on to state that the minister 
 had been sent by the Presbytery to look the 
 field over and report. He was pastor of a 
 church at L., fifty miles south, and was on his 
 way home from the Presbytery, making the jour 
 ney, of course, on horseback. Thus it came 
 about that there met that evening, under farmer 
 Kitzmiller s roof, three men of eastern birth and 
 college training, but of spirits differing as essen 
 tially as the lines of their forms and faces.
 
 fTTHE 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 building of the first railroad marks an 
 epoch in any country. It effects a change 
 as potent in its way as the cutting down of the 
 forests, and the letting in of sunlight to the soil 
 of its hills and valleys. During the winter fol 
 lowing the survey the business and social life of 
 New Madrid and vicinity received a telling im 
 petus. Hundreds of men found employment in 
 cutting timber and clearing out the swamps along 
 the line, so that everything might be in readi 
 ness for the construction of the road-bed early 
 in the spring. Property took a sudden rise. 
 The last of Truesdale s swamp lots went off 
 rapidly ; and Leander Kitzmiller paid for the 
 school-section he had purchased on a year s time 
 with the money he received from the sale of 
 half of it. Portable mills and shingle-cutters 
 planted themselves along the streams and water 
 courses, and the hum of the circular saw was 
 heard in the land. The village, which was the 
 county seat, promised itself a new court-house 
 the coming summer. Several new dry-goods 
 80
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 81 
 
 and grocery firms sprang up, their proprietors 
 being, for the most part, young and single men. 
 They, with two lawyers and a new physician, 
 all bachelors, paired off conveniently with the 
 same number of attractive village girls, Susie 
 Hodges among the number. There were a 
 great many sleigh-rides and dancing parties 
 that winter. Truesdale never joined in any 
 of them ; though free and friendly with every 
 body, he had never mingled in a general way 
 in the social life of the place. He attended 
 church, however, and one Sunday night stepped 
 in ahead of young Walters, of the grocery 
 firm of Walters and Gay, and escorted Miss 
 Hodges home. 
 
 "I want to talk to you, black-eyed Susan," 
 he said, when they were out alone under the 
 stars ; " I want to talk to you about your dread 
 ful flirting. It s not the way I ve trained you 
 to do. I don t like all these strange fellows 
 dangling after you. I don t like all this sleigh- 
 riding and dancing." 
 
 "Do you really care? " she asked, lifting her 
 face in the moonlight her face which said as 
 plainly as words could say, " If I have made 
 you care, it is all I have aimed to do."
 
 82 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 " You have been as kind as ever to Punch and 
 Judy" (the red squirrels) "and to Tiny Tim, 
 and Penelope ; and Sam Slick tells me you even 
 made a fire in the den that coldest night while 
 I was away, but you are changed to me." 
 
 She lifted her face again, and saw the mock 
 ing light in his eyes. 
 
 "You don t care no more for me than that 
 dead tree over yonder," she said, in a low, quiet 
 tone. " I know who you do care for ; it s Em 
 Ludlow." 
 
 The words were out, and she was frightened 
 at herself for saying them ; but her companion 
 went on smoothly, 
 
 " I care a good deal for Mrs. Thorn, partly 
 because she is such a lady. She never says 
 don t care no more, or have saw, or had 
 went. " 
 
 " I suppose you have taught her better," said 
 Sue bitterly. "I wonder who sent you out 
 here for a missionary to train all the wild girls 
 in Indiana how to dress and talk." 
 
 Truesdale laughed a low, merry laugh of 
 genuine amusement. 
 
 "That was splendid, Susie! Mrs. Thorn 
 never said anything I liked as well. She is not
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 83 
 
 at all given to humor, and she never gets so de 
 lightfully angry as you do." 
 
 They had reached Hodges gate. She snatched 
 her hand from his arm, and exclaimed hotly, 
 
 "I suppose I am not a lady, and never can 
 be ! " Tears of smothered passion and wounded 
 pride stood in her eyes. 
 
 " You are a sweet, bright, warm-hearted girl," 
 said Truesdale, encircling her with his arm and 
 drawing her gently, but firmly, to him. " I am 
 sorry if I ve hurt you. I do not care to have 
 you much different. I like to see you run and 
 leap across little brooks and walk squirrel- 
 bridges. All your movements are so strong 
 and graceful. And I like to hear you sing and 
 laugh, and even whistle ; but those barbarisms 
 in speech ! and you could so easily drop 
 them." 
 
 " I will," she whispered ; "I know better, and 
 I will try. And I won t go with Mr. Walters 
 again if you d rather I would n t." 
 
 " As you please about that," he said with a 
 smile. " I was only teasing you ; " and dropping 
 a kiss as light as a lingering breath on her cheek 
 he left her. 
 
 He knew well she would not please. She in-
 
 84 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 dulged in no more gay parties and rides, but 
 pored secretly over her grammar until she had 
 mastered its intricacies and stumbled no more 
 in her verbs. Love was the despot who forced 
 her fickle, girlish memory to do its work like a 
 drudge. 
 
 During the winter John Thorn was more than 
 usually occupied with business, and was a good 
 deal away from home. When there, he seemed 
 studiously to avoid meeting Emily. The irregu 
 lar ways of the household made this compara 
 tively easy of accomplishment ; frequently there 
 were days together when Emily caught but 
 casual glimpses of him. For a long time she 
 had instinctively shunned his presence, not that 
 she feared him or found him personally disagree 
 able, but from a sense of constraint growing out 
 of their anomalous relationship. Still it hurt 
 her as nothing else had ever done to know that 
 he regularly planned his movements to avoid 
 crossing her path. At times a sense of loneli 
 ness swept over her, deeper and more absolute 
 than anything she had suffered alone in that 
 forest hut with her decrepit father. Of the 
 possibility of a happy understanding with John 
 she never dreamed. He had made no positive
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 85 
 
 move in that direction since that day at the gate, 
 a few weeks after their marriage. She did not 
 desire him to approach her in that way again, 
 and she did not think he ever would. She still 
 believed his chief purpose in marrying her was 
 to secure her father s money ; perhaps there was 
 less of it than he had expected, and he was bit 
 terly disappointed. He had the air of a dis 
 appointed man. 
 
 Emily and Olive saw rather less of each other 
 than when they first became acquainted. This 
 was in part owing to the fact that Olive was 
 attending Jared Wycoff s school, and Emily had 
 concluded not to go. She was steadily acquir 
 ing a deeper quietude of manner. She had 
 been seeing more of people this last year, and 
 they pressed too close. Her life was not just 
 like the lives of others, and she must keep to 
 herself. She did not mean to be reserved with 
 Olive, and Truesdale would not let her be stiff 
 and silent with him. Almost unconsciously to 
 herself she had come to regard him as her chief 
 source of entertainment. He visited her openly, 
 though not with conspicuous frequency, and she 
 scarcely thought of what the outside world 
 would say. She was trying to forget there was 
 an outside world.
 
 86 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 Her Sundays were usually spent at Mr. Kitz- 
 miller s. She would dress early and ride with 
 them to church in the village. Upon their 
 return they would have dinner, and after that 
 an hour s Bible study around the sitting-room 
 fire, with Drs. Scott and Jacobus in helpful 
 readiness near the farmer s elbow. Then the 
 two girls would escape to Olive s room, where 
 strange indulgence for that time and place 
 they were allowed a cosey fire in a little square 
 cast-iron stove about the size of a raisin box. 
 It was on such a Sunday afternoon that Olive 
 showed Emily her valentine. She had carried 
 it in her bosom for two days and slept with it 
 under her pillow. In appearance it was only a 
 letter in a white envelope. It had so happened 
 that she had taken it from the post herself, and 
 the secret was wholly her own. 
 
 OLIVE, I heard your pretty name only once, and I 
 saw your pretty self only once, but I have forgotten 
 neither. I think I can never forget any little thing con 
 nected with that stormy November evening. I was 
 just thinking how cosey the kitchen seemed, and how 
 bright and genial your mother was, when you entered, 
 and I saw nothing, thought of nothing else, while I 
 remained. Forgive me if my eyes spoke too plainly 
 what my heart felt. I thought you turned away quickly, 
 as though offended by my look. I had no time to guard 
 myself. How good you seemed !
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 87 
 
 " I was afraid you would do the work at the barn, so 
 I brought Davy along ! " 
 
 Such a liquid, loving voice! And the sweet, impul 
 sive running to meet father and helping him off with 
 his snowy great-coat. How good, indeed, but more 
 than all, how bewitchingly beautiful ! I fell rapturously 
 in love, and shall remain so till I die. I expect to see 
 you well, before many months have passed, and I 
 shall read in your eyes whether or no you are displeased 
 with your presumptuous VALENTINE. 
 
 "It is a delicious love-letter, Olive," whis 
 pered Emily. 
 
 "That is just what I should call it," said 
 Olive, laughing softly, Avhile her eyes grew 
 bright and the warm color rose to her temples. 
 
 " How strange," she said, " that I should have 
 been thinking of him every day a great many 
 times every day and then, that he should 
 write me this letter. It has made me veiy 
 happy, but now I am going to burn it. I in 
 tended to do so all the time, because I could 
 not show it to mother, and it would be wrong 
 to keep it a great while without. I wanted you 
 to see it, so that afterwards, Avhen it seemed 
 like a dream, I could ask you, did I ever get 
 such a letter, and you could tell me yes. "
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 /~\N a certain soft evening in April, Olive sat 
 by the sitting-room window, busily crimp 
 ing and plaiting her mother s cap-borders. 
 Mrs. Kitzmiller was putting the finishing touches 
 to her evening s work, and the farmer himself sat 
 just outside the window, on the verandah, read 
 ing his w r eekly paper. The air was full of that 
 peculiarly western melody, the low, continuous 
 chirp of frogs, and the tinkle of cow-bells could 
 be heard when one thought to listen. It was so 
 warm that the door stood open, framing a picture 
 of lambs at play in the near field, with a back 
 ground of hazy sky and budding forest. It was 
 suddenly darkened, and Olive, glancing up, saw 
 standing there the civil engineer in apparently 
 the same mud-spotted suit of gray, with his cap 
 in his hand, and his blue eyes pouring their warm 
 light upon her. Dame Kitzmiller had seen him 
 and came forward with extended hand. 
 
 "I ve been wonderin lately, Mr. Rossington, 
 if we shouldn t see you back here this sum 
 mer."
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 89 
 
 "It was a piece of good luck, Mrs. Kitzmil- 
 ler," he said ; " they don t often employ the 
 surveyors to work up the grade, but I very 
 much wanted to come, and managed to get on 
 the force." 
 
 Mr. Kitzmiller came in and welcomed the 
 stranger as if he were a tried friend. It was 
 the way of these simple, kindly people ; they 
 knew no other. Olive scarcely looked up. 
 After the first wild rush of color to her face, 
 the blood receded, leaving her pallid and cold, 
 liossington waited for her to offer her hand, as 
 is the free custom of the West, but she did not 
 do it ; it trembled so. Her face had a white, 
 constrained look which it pained him to see ; he 
 took it for displeasure. Nevertheless, he fol 
 lowed out his original intention in coming that 
 evening. 
 
 After talking awhile with the farmer and his 
 wife about matters connected with the new rail 
 road, he told them he was one of a corps of six 
 engineers who had established their headquar 
 ters at New Madrid. Just then he was engaged 
 in making the estimates for that part of the road 
 which ran near Mr. Kitzmiller s land, and he 
 would like to engage board for a week or two
 
 90 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 at the farm-house. He had not forgotten how 
 generously they had furnished stabling for his 
 horses that stormy time last November. No 
 objection was urged against his staying, and 
 Mrs. Kitzmiller, on learning that he had had no 
 supper, went out to prepare that meal for him. 
 But he followed her into the kitchen, and, seat 
 ing himself at one end of the carefully scoured 
 table, implored her so earnestly for a bowl of 
 bread and milk that she at length set it before 
 him, insisting, however, upon supplementing 
 it with a plate of thick maple-sugar cookies and 
 some delicious crab-apple preserves. 
 
 While Frank Rossington leisurely enjoyed 
 these delicacies, he inquired of Mrs. Kitzmiller 
 concerning church matters, and learned that 
 as yet they had only secured an occasional 
 "supply." A Mr. Sweden came from Romney, 
 distant twenty-five miles, when he was not pre 
 vented by ague or bad roads, and preached in 
 the court-house at New Madrid on Sunday 
 morning, and in the school-house in their 
 neighborhood in the evening. He had good 
 congregations, but as yet no attempt had been 
 made to organize a church. 
 
 "I suppose," said the young man, "that his
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 91 
 
 work here is regarded by the Presbytery as 
 missionary labor." 
 
 "Well, not exactly," replied Mrs. Kitzmiller. 
 "Mr. Sweden is pastor of a pretty strong 
 church at Romney, and he said if he could re 
 ceive one hundred dollars from this place, he 
 would come here once a month, for a year. 
 Dan l guaranteed that sum. He said to me 
 that he guessed we d better make it up our 
 selves the first year, and not appeal to the 
 people ; I said maybe we had, though I couldn t 
 see how we d do it, without selling something 
 we couldn t really spare. But John Thorn 
 questioned Leander about the matter, and one 
 day, not long ago, he stepped in and handed 
 Dan l twenty-five dollars, as his payment 
 towards Mr. Sweden s support. He never 
 goes near preaching himself, but lately she s 
 taken to goin with us quite reg lar." 
 
 "I think, Mrs. Kitzmiller," said Rossington, 
 "that we engineers will be able to help you out 
 in the matter of your minister s salar} r . We 
 shall be around here perhaps a year, and we 
 have all been used to an educated ministry." 
 
 The next morning, Frank went from the 
 breakfast-table, which was always set in the
 
 92 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 ample kitchen, into the sitting-room, and found 
 Olive there alone. Mrs. Kitzmiller detained 
 her worthy husband to say to him that, now 
 that this stranger was with them, he had better 
 not read a whole chapter at morning worship, 
 and, above all things, not to be lengthy in 
 prayer. One ought to guard ngainst making 
 religion tiresome to the young, and she knew 
 Mr. Rossington was in a hurry to get oft . 
 Kitzmiller quoted the adage that "prayer and 
 provender hinder no man s journey ; " but she 
 continued, as though she did not hear him, that 
 often, in the busy season, she had herself 
 thought she could have prayed twice while he 
 was praying once. 
 
 "Indeed, mother," said the farmer, mildly, 
 "I think if you always prayed once, while we 
 are on our knees, the time wouldn t seem so 
 long." 
 
 While this little colloquy was going on in 
 the kitchen, Frank was trying to establish a 
 friendly understanding with Olive. Over night 
 he had arrived at the conclusion that the valen 
 tine was a stupid blunder. She would, of 
 course, consider such a declaration as it con 
 tained, coming from a stranger, as highly pre-
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 93 
 
 sumptuous, unless she had been as deeply 
 smitten as himself, which was not at all likely. 
 As for himself, he was entirely satisfied with 
 his own condition of mind. He had always 
 expected to tumble into love headlong ; he con 
 sidered it the best and surest way. And this 
 darling girl ! He would win her yet ; but first 
 of all he must make his peace with her. This 
 he tried to do, standing near her with his lofty 
 head bent a little, that he might watch the look 
 of her half-averted face. 
 
 "I might better have sent you one of those 
 cut-paper arrangements, with gilt doves, and 
 hearts with arrows through them, ".he said. 
 
 "Yes, they are beautiful," laughed Olive. 
 "I have one or two that I got when I was 
 little." 
 
 "At any rate, I did not mean to vex you," 
 he said. Then she told him she would not be 
 vexed any more, and he thanked her earnestly. 
 
 She could hardly keep the tears back till she 
 was alone. Her letter, that had tinted life with 
 the rosy hues of sunrise, had been only a boy 
 ish prank ; something for which now that 
 they had accidentally met again he ought to 
 apologize. Her tender heart was very sore.
 
 94 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 What a strange misunderstanding ! Her em 
 barrassment had seemed to him displeasure, 
 and his efforts at conciliation had led her to 
 think him a gay trifler. 
 
 If either of these young creatures had surely 
 known, a fortnight before, that they would 
 soon be domiciled under the same roof, what 
 secret raptures each would have indulged in ! 
 But the time thus spent was not at all rap 
 turous. Rossington was away from early morn 
 ing till sundown ; but he spent all his evenings 
 at the farm-house. Sometimes he smoked a 
 friendly pipe with Mr. Kitzmiller on the veran 
 dah, and talked with him and Leander about 
 western politics and the prospects of the 
 country, or explained the mysteries of his 
 profession. Kitzmiller was something of a 
 mathematician, and had a great admiration for 
 what he called "fine head-work." Consequently 
 he was much interested in the methods of cal 
 culating curves and gradients. Olive usually 
 had her place near the open window, for the 
 weather was warm as June. She loved to lis 
 ten to Frank s deep, mellow voice while she 
 watched the lire-flies light their tiny lamps 
 across the misty meadows.
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 95 
 
 Sometimes they had the talk to themselves. 
 She was not shy with him now, hut chatted in a 
 frank, bright way about many things. He be 
 gan to get acquainted, and found it worth while 
 to learn something of her opinions and tastes, 
 for she really had both. At first he had 
 thought only of her fresh beauty, her engaging 
 manners, and of the affections whose existence 
 he thought were revealed in her face.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 talked one evening 1 about the wild, 
 wooded county, which Olive professed 
 to like after a year s residence in it. . Rossing- 
 ton reviled the marshes, and Olive found a good 
 word to say for them. 
 
 "You ought to go through the long marsh 
 just north of Loon Lake, in June," she said. 
 "It is like this," drawing an emphatic little line 
 on the window-sill with her finger ; " there is a 
 bridge running through the marsh, half a mile 
 long, and on each side the bridge a ditch, of 
 course. Along each ditch is a solid border of 
 blue flag, wild iris, you know, which blos 
 soms just when the dog-roses are out, a close 
 hedge of them, four or five feet high, without a 
 break. Growing through and above the rose- 
 brush are all the rich, green things you find in 
 swampy places. Just think of that vista of 
 color ! Bright blue, with dashes of yellow near 
 the ground, and, above, a blended, waving mass 
 of pink and green ! Have I given you a little 
 bit of a glimpse of it?" 
 96
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 97 
 
 "Yes," he responded, "and a scent of it, too. 
 I am going to see Loon Lake marsh in June. 
 Perhaps you will be kind enough to show me 
 the way." 
 
 She made no reply to that, but presently 
 continued, 
 
 "Browning once said to a friend in Belgium, 
 that he liked the quiet Norman country be 
 cause it was not obtrusive, like some more pro 
 nounced landscapes, but left him to make its 
 beauty with his adorning fancy. I think he 
 would have liked northern Indiana." 
 
 "How apt !" said Frank admiringly. "I can 
 never remember anything I read, to use it in 
 that way." 
 
 Olive smelled daintily at a little, clove-apple 
 which she had picked up from among the 
 knickknacks on a table near her. A smile 
 dimpled her cheeks, as she said demurely, 
 
 " I ought, perhaps, to confess that I found 
 that in a newspaper, and committed it carefully 
 to memory, to have it ready for some such 
 occasion." 
 
 How mischievous she looked ! He had never 
 been so deeply in love as to-night,. 
 
 "I fancy you read a good deal," he said.
 
 98 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 "Where do you find books in this wilder 
 ness ? " 
 
 " Squire Wycoff has a good many that I can 
 have the use of; and Mrs. Thorn has purchased 
 quite a library, under his direction." 
 
 He went away the next day, and did not re 
 turn for a week. One Sunday afternoon he 
 rode out from New Madrid. Emily was with 
 Olive ; they were reading in the parlor, which 
 was always open on that day, and did not see 
 Itossington till he came up the verandah steps. 
 He was daintily fresh in his best " go-to-meet 
 ing" clothes, and his hair had been newly 
 clipped, leaving it in close, brown waves. 
 Olive looked at it ; he noticed the look, and 
 laughingly asked her how she liked his summer 
 contour. She did not answer very promptly. 
 
 " I was thinking " She stopped and turned 
 to Emily, who seemed to guess her thought, for 
 she broke into a little laugh, in which Olive 
 joined, with a bright blush. 
 
 " I believe I know what you were not going 
 to say," said Emily. 
 
 "Why not say it?" queried Frank. 
 
 " I will say it now," said Olive ; " it would 
 be ill manners not to, after all this hinting. I
 
 JOHN THOKN S FOLKS. 99 
 
 just happened to think of something we read 
 last week, that a great Frenchwoman I can t 
 pronounce her name once said. It Avas that 
 a woman should count herself fortunate who 
 had seen three handsome men in her life." 
 
 " I am curious to know who the other two 
 might be," said Rossington, with easy self- 
 assurance. 
 
 "Mr. Thorn and Mr. Truesdale," replied 
 Olive promptly. 
 
 "Yes," said the young man, in a reflective 
 tone, " Thorn is a magnificent fellow, with a 
 strong, true face, and carries himself just as a 
 man of his size should. Truesdale is small, but 
 symmetrical, with a Roman profile, and an aris 
 tocratic head and hand. I will leave you to 
 complete a description of number three, while I 
 go and talk with Mr. Kitzmiller ; " and his tall, 
 slight iigure moved gracefully out of the room. 
 
 "I m afraid I seemed very bold," Olive said, 
 a troubled look coming into her face. 
 
 "I think not, dear," replied Emily. "I 
 thought you seemed very winsome." 
 
 "I am not myself at all when he is here. I 
 was silly about that valentine, and I have been 
 so afraid of his guessing it ! "
 
 100 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 "Poor Olive!" said her friend; "do not 
 think of it or him. The world would be a 
 better place if there were no men in it." 
 
 Rossington found the farmer and his wife in 
 the wide, clean kitchen, where they both felt 
 most at home. Mrs. Kitzmiller was dozing 
 over the church-paper, and her husband sat 
 with "Boston s Fourfold State" shut lightly on 
 his brown forefinger, while he smilingly Avatched 
 the gambols of a pair of half-grown kittens. 
 He glanced up with some surprise as Frank 
 stepped into his range of vision. Ordinary 
 Sunday visitors were disapproved of; but there 
 was nothing ordinary about Kossington, and it 
 taxed one hard to disapprove of him in any 
 capacity. 
 
 Mr. Kitzmiller got up to bring in the broad, 
 splint-bottomed chair from the porch, the 
 one he had expressed a liking for. Frank took 
 it, and chatted an hour with the worthy couple. 
 When he rose to go he handed Mr. Kitzmiller a 
 folded paper, saying, 
 
 " I have been able to do something among the 
 engineers in behalf of Mr. Sweden s support 
 in New Madrid." 
 
 It proved to be a subscription, payable on
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 101 
 
 demand, amounting to seventy-five dollars. 
 Kossington s name headed it for a third of 
 the amount. 
 
 He came and went, but seemed to get no 
 nearer Olive. She was not diffident, but she 
 was elusive. His admiration was very open, 
 but very respectful^ and she accepted it without 
 the confusion he would have rejoiced to see. 
 
 One bright forenoon in May he stopped at 
 the farm-house, and found Olive ironing on the 
 back porch. A low, broad-topped walnut threw 
 all the place in cool shadow. He took a seat 
 near her table and watched her work ; she 
 seemed a little pensive, and he scanned her 
 face narrowly. Presently he made her sit 
 down and read a long, loving letter he had just 
 reeived from his widowed mother. Olive s 
 heart glowed with pleasure, and a soft color 
 
 rose to her cheeks as she read that mother s 
 
 "te> 
 expressions of pride and confidence in her 
 
 "brave, good son." Then they stood together 
 at the end of the stoop, and watched a great 
 white hawk circling slowly against the deep 
 blue of the sky. 
 
 " I am going now down to the deep cut," said 
 Frank, suddenly. "I will be back towards 
 evening."
 
 102 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 Towards evening Olive went out to bring in 
 her ironing from the rack. There sat Rossing- 
 ton, in the chair he had occupied in the morn 
 ing, toying with a cigar, and looking as though 
 he might have been there all day. In fact he 
 had come but a few minutes before. Olive 
 gave a surprised exclamation, and the rich 
 blood mounted to her brow. She went directly 
 to the rack, and commenced transferring its 
 snowy burden to her round arm. When she 
 turned to re-enter the kitchen door a passing 
 breeze caught up a fleecy undersleeve, carried 
 it lightly and laid it down at Frank s feet. He 
 captured it quickly and went up to replace it 
 atop of the glossy heap. There was a slight, 
 uncontrollable tremor when he came so near, a 
 little start and flutter ; the white mass toppled, 
 slipped, and, spite of her efforts to save it, 
 tumbled down to the floor. Olive uttered a 
 cry of dismay and a nervous laugh. 
 
 "It was all my fault," said Frank. "I am 
 very sorry ! " and he went down on his knee to 
 assist in gathering up the ruin. The larger 
 articles were easily lifted all together, but many 
 of the lighter ones came unfolded and went 
 fluttering about in the treacherous wind. Frank
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 103 
 
 and Olive invariably reached for the same thing 
 at the same time ; the girl grew dizzy with 
 confusion. 
 
 "Never mind," she said; "I ll just bundle 
 them all in and refold them on mother s bed." 
 
 With reckless haste she crushed together col 
 lars, cuffs, and kerchiefs, and was gliding away, 
 when Frank stopped her. 
 
 "Olive, wait." The trembling hands threat 
 ened a fresh mishap. 
 
 "I ll not let them fall again," he said, and 
 encircled her and all she held in his strong, 
 steady arms. 
 
 "Olive, I want you for my wife, and I want 
 your answer now. I am aware you know but 
 little about me, but I am not afraid to have you 
 learn; and your heart will tell you here so 
 close to mine whether it can ever love me." 
 
 She lifted her maiden face, so pure and ten 
 der ; Rossington kissed it with a murmur of 
 endearment, then let her go. He went straight 
 into the room where the farmer and his wife sat 
 in the gathering twilight, and asked them for 
 their treasure.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 %. . 
 ~T HAVE just three little cares," said Olive, 
 
 in one of her post-betrothal confidences 
 with Emily. " The first is mother. Poor, dear 
 mother ! She grieves so over the thought of 
 losing me ! I blame myself daily that I do not 
 feel more distress about leaving her ; but this 
 new love ah, I cannot speak of it ! It changes 
 everything ! Nothing else could make me will 
 ing to leave my parents." 
 
 " Your mother esteems Mr. Rossington high 
 ly," said Emily. " She told me so. She also 
 trusts him entirely, and rejoices in your happi 
 ness. I think when Leander brings his wife 
 home, as he probably will before many months, 
 she will not be so very lonely. But I shall be 
 desolate ! No one else can take your place 
 with me." 
 
 "Yes, that brings me to my second care. 
 
 You will miss me ; but you have missed so 
 
 much besides. That is the saddest of all. O, 
 
 Emily, I cannot be selfish enough to accept my 
 
 104
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 105 
 
 great happiness without wishing a like joy to 
 my dearest friend ! If you only " 
 
 "Hush," said Emily, in a low tone, turning 
 pale. " Let that alone. Let me alone. What 
 is your third care ? " 
 
 " Frank s mother. He tells me she will be 
 suited with his choice, and says every kind, re 
 assuring thing he can think of; but I have not 
 heard from her yet. She cannot separate us, 
 but I should grieve to be a source of disappoint 
 ment and regret to her." 
 
 They were real cares to the gentle girl, but 
 they only weighted a little, as was necessary, a 
 heart too buoyant with love and bliss. Leander 
 suggested another drawback. The thought of 
 it had flitted across her mind, making the shadow 
 of a moth s wing. 
 
 " I 11 tell you what, Sis, you 11 be a badly 
 scared kitten in a strange garret. I wouldn t 
 be caught that far off my own stamping ground 
 for the price of a load of clover-seed." 
 
 " Neither would I," said his sister ; " but a 
 load of clover-seed don t begin to compare. I 
 shall not be scared. Mrs. Eossington isn t very 
 fashionable, and I can keep still and learn. It 
 will be [i matter of dress and little forms, and 
 Frank will help me."
 
 106 JOHN THORN S POLKS. 
 
 One afternoon Rossington asked Olive, almost 
 as soon as he came, to walk with him down to 
 the old beaver-dam. Back of the house at a 
 field s distance was a little hill ; going down the 
 farther slope one came upon a clear brook, the 
 same that ran past Thorn s tannery, further 
 along. Between the knoll and the stream was 
 what remained of an ancient beaver-dam, and 
 growing upon it were large-trunked yellow and 
 white willows. On the slant hill-side was a 
 scattering grove of young maples, and beneath 
 one of them the lovers seated themselves. The 
 place w r as bright and breezy, but very secluded, 
 and it suited them well. Frank drew forth a 
 letter and laid it in Olive s lap, saying, 
 
 " It is from mother." 
 
 " Oh ! what does she say about me ? " Olive 
 whispered in a little flutter of hope and appre 
 hension. 
 
 "It is for you, love, look at it; open and 
 read it." 
 
 " MY DEAR GIRL, Frank has sent me yonr picture. 
 You have a sweet face; and if you as truly love him as 
 he does you, I kiss and bless you for my daughter. I 
 have known his secret a good while, for I am one of 
 the fortunate, though often perplexed, mothers to whom
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 107 
 
 their children go with unreserved confidence. Do you 
 know I suppose he has told you a score of times 
 that he fell in love with you the first moment he ever saw 
 you? I approve of being in love; even of falling in love. 
 I only urged Frank to go and make your acquaintance 
 in your own home, amid your familiar surroundings ; to 
 make sure of himself, and then make sure of you. This, 
 it seems, he has done, and I congratulate him. I also 
 congratulate you. You have won a noble heart for your 
 own. So kind and devoted a son and brother cannot fail 
 to make a tender and faithful husband. My two married 
 daughters are very curious about you, but, like myself, 
 they strengthen their wondering souls with the reflec 
 tion that Frank s choice must be all right. 
 
 " Please write me a little letter in answer to this, and 
 believe me, 
 
 " Very sincerely and affectionately yours, 
 
 " HENRIETTA ROSSINGTON." 
 
 Olive sent in reply a prettily worded but 
 rather stiff little missive, which, however, 
 seemed to give much pleasure to its recipient, 
 The married sisters wrote, not to Olive, but to 
 Frank ; and one of them suggested that, when 
 he brought his bride east in the fall, Olive should 
 provide herself with nothing but a plain travel 
 ing suit, and have her trousseau bought and 
 made in Albany. Frank laughed merrily at 
 that.
 
 108 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 "You see, dear, they are afraid you will not 
 be properly gotten up. They want to oversee 
 the shopping and dressmaking." 
 
 " There are good grounds for their fears," said 
 Olive; "I believe I will take their advice. It 
 will save mother a lot of worry. " 
 
 "You are an angel ! " Frank cried. " It was 
 a piece of impertinence in Louise, and any 
 other girl would have got angry about it." 
 
 One evening he brought two of -his fellow 
 engineers out to the farm-house and introduced 
 them to Olive. Messrs. Bonn and Sayward 
 had both seen her at church in the village, and 
 thought she seemed rather ordinary ; like many 
 country girls, she did not appear at her best on 
 public occasions. That evening, however, they 
 followed her with eyes only less full of pleased 
 interest than Rossington s. She wore a dress 
 of sheer lawn, with cherry ribbons in her hair, 
 and a babyish coral necklace around her creamy 
 throat. 
 
 An old-fashioned round centre-table stood in 
 the middle of the little parlor. It held a great 
 flower-pot ; not a spray or two in a bouquet- 
 holder, but a mass of June roses, red and white, 
 what you would wish to carry in your arms.
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 109 
 
 There were some other things on the table, 
 a plate of " friendship cards," and some bamboo 
 ornaments from India, brought, of course, by a 
 returned missionary. Olive carried everything 
 away to a stand at the side of the room, except 
 the flower-pot. Then she went out, and pres 
 ently returned with four great saucers of straw 
 berries on a salver. Her mother followed with 
 the sugar-bowl and a pitcher of cream. She 
 acknowledged Rossington s introduction to his 
 friends with a curtsey to each ; then said, turn 
 ing to Frank, 
 
 " If you d only said a word, I might have 
 made some queen s-cake, or some other kind 
 that s good to eat fresh with berries." 
 
 " That s all right, Mrs. Kitzmiller," said the 
 young man ; " but if we just had some maple- 
 sugar cookies now" 
 
 "You know we always have those," said the 
 cheery dame, and bustled out to bring a plate 
 ful, while, at Olive s bidding, the three gentle 
 men drew up to the little feast spread forth on 
 the round table. She poured the rich cream 
 over their fruit, then took her own saucer, and 
 ate her berries daintily. After this the other 
 engineers called with Rossinston at different 
 
 O O
 
 1.10 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 times to see his " wildwood flower," as he loved 
 to call her." 
 
 Ah, that glorious June, rose-crowned and 
 daisy-shod ! Those two ardent young souls 
 held up the goblet of life together, while the 
 radiant goddess poured it brimming full of joy. 
 To them the growing freshness and brightness 
 of the dawn brought the thrilling promise of 
 love s old yet ever new delights. Each morn 
 was filled with the large, glad hope to which all 
 things are possible ; and the purple haze of the 
 slow twilight was no softer than the mellow 
 content of their loving, fearless hearts. But if 
 Holbein or Diirer had pictured them, it would 
 have been with a pitiless Fate following in their 
 shadow, mocking them with satirical laughter, 
 and pointing with skeleton finger to an unseen 
 peril in their path.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 TT was in the last week of July that the 
 shock of an awful calamity fell upon the 
 little company of civil engineers in New Mad 
 rid. A gloom which was the gloom of death 
 extended throughout the village, the Wycoff 
 settlement, and to many other settlements, near 
 and remote. 
 
 One brilliant morning Rossingtori went down 
 the road on a hand-car, over a wooden tramway 
 which had been laid for some miles out from 
 New Madrid, for the convenience of engineers 
 and laborers. Mr. Bonn was with him. When 
 they reached the point where the road touched 
 a corner of the Kitzmiller farm, Rossington 
 stopped the . car. He had an armful of wild 
 marsh blossoms, mallows, golden-rod, mon- 
 arda, and vervain, with spikes of vivid lobelia 
 flowers. 
 
 "Wait here just five minutes," said Frank, 
 leaping down the embankment ; " I want to 
 carry these up to that house." 
 
 One of the navvies who propelled the car 
 
 111
 
 112 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 stepped down and seated himself on its side, 
 and deliberately took out his pipe. 
 
 " Mr. lioshington s sure to make his five 
 minutes twanty, so we might as well enjoy a 
 bit of a shmoke. I ve waited for him here 
 afore." 
 
 His companion followed his example, and 
 young Bonn amused himself by throwing peb 
 bles at a gray squirrel, that scolded him noisily 
 from the top of a tall sapling. Frank cleared 
 the space between the road and the house with 
 long, swift strides ; he approached from the 
 rear, and Olive went out on the back porch to 
 meet him. She took his flowers and laid them 
 on the bench, merely saying, 
 
 " I 11 rave over their beauty when I make up 
 the flower-pot ; now I have n t time." 
 
 All she seemed to have time for was to stand 
 folded in his warm embrace, under the shadow 
 of the low walnut. The men-folks were afield, 
 Mrs. Kitzmiller in the spring-house ; they w r ere 
 quite alone in the balmy summer stillness. 
 Olive stood on the low step of the porch, and 
 her lover on the ground ; so she was just high 
 enough to press her soft cheek to his, again and 
 ajrain a favorite caress with her. What need
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 113 
 
 to repeat their words the unfinished sen 
 tences, the tender nothings that mean so much ? 
 
 "I must go," he said, at length. "I ll have 
 to-morrow afternoon to myself. Get all your 
 work done, dear, and wear the tea-rose lawn 
 and the red beads." 
 
 " Shall I walk with you down to the orchard 
 fence?" asked Olive. 
 
 "No," he replied; "we d be in sight of the 
 road there, and you wouldn t let me kiss you. 
 We 11 say good-by right here." 
 
 She loosed her clinging arms, and said, with 
 her hands resting lightly on his shoulders, and 
 her eyes drinking in the tender light of his, 
 
 "Tell me something, Frank, the sweetest 
 thing you know, to think of till to-mor 
 row." 
 
 " My darling oh, I love you ! " he whis 
 pered, with kisses between the words ; then 
 released her, and went with fleet steps back to 
 the car. 
 
 About noon a low rumble of thunder was 
 heard in the west ; it continued, scarcely in 
 creasing in loudness, till two o clock, when a 
 dense black cloud began to appear above the 
 forest line that belted the horizon.
 
 114 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 "I wish Emily would come over," said Mrs. 
 Kitzmiller ; " she s so afraid when it storms, 
 and she s all alone with Thirsa." 
 
 Olive was standing in the door, looking to 
 wards Thorn s. 
 
 "Would you care, mother, if I went to stay 
 with her?" she said. "She doesn t come here 
 quite as often as she used. Maybe I ve seemed 
 to neglect her, though I haven t meant to. 
 Had n t I better go at once ? " 
 
 "Yes, Ollie, run right along quick, and get 
 in before the rain comes. There comes father 
 and Le to the house ; I m glad they started in 
 time." 
 
 Olive ran off, and in five minutes she was 
 with -Emily, who had gone up to her bedroom 
 in a great horror of loneliness and dread. 
 
 O 
 
 "Come down and watch the storm gather," 
 said Olive. "It is the very best way to get 
 calmness." 
 
 She drew her friend down stairs and out of 
 the house. They stopped within a few seconds 
 run of the door, and together stood and faced 
 the angry west. Wreaths of thin white vapor 
 floated hither and thither over its greenish dark 
 ness, and the forked lightnings shot in every
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 115 
 
 direction. Emily turned und looked at the 
 young girl s radiant and unflinching face. 
 
 " It seems to me like the wrath of God," she 
 said. 
 
 "It is grand and awful," said Olive, "but it 
 does not seem like that to me. I have known 
 only the love and goodness of God all my life. 
 If I were to be stricken to death here and now, 
 it would not it could not be by a wrathful 
 blow. God is my Father, whom I love and 
 trust." 
 
 Just then a flock of crows, which had been 
 routed from their high-built nests in the tamarac 
 swamp three miles away, came flying on the 
 wings of the wind and adding their doleful caw 
 ing to the terrific elementary confusion. The 
 two girls ran in, for the great drops were falling. 
 
 "Frank will get a drenching, I suppose; he 
 is out in that direction somewhere," Olive said. 
 
 Emily at once looked alarmed. 
 
 " The wind," she said, " has been much worse 
 out yonder, and there is timber everywhere." 
 
 "Yes, but there are cleared fields and farm 
 houses within reach ; they would see the storm 
 coming and seek shelter. Mr. Bonn is with 
 Frank, and I fancy he would do some lively
 
 116 JOHN THOEN S FOLKS. 
 
 running to avoid a wetting." She laughed 
 lightly as she thought of the young man s 
 rather foppish care of his person. 
 
 The storm lasted two hours ; the thunder was 
 continuous and loud, but not startlingly near, 
 and the wind was high and steady. It did not 
 come with the hurricane s rush, but its force was 
 very great ; the broad, low house jarred in its 
 clutches, and the crash of falling trees sounded 
 through the dash and pour of the rain like the 
 boom of minute guns. It was over at last, and 
 Olive went home. The world looked as if a 
 miniature deluge had visited it. There were 
 gaps in the forest, far and near, through which 
 the blue sky shone. These openings, making 
 the landscape strange, marked the spots where 
 trees had fallen, generally the largest of their 
 kind, weakened by age and decay. Scores of 
 these century-crowned forest kings had yielded 
 to the blast, among them the hollow tulip tree 
 which old Ludlow had chosen for his treasure 
 chest. 
 
 Olive found her mother with a look of deep 
 anxiety on her face. 
 
 "What time would the hand-cargo back?" 
 she asked.
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 117 
 
 " As soon as possible after the rain stopped, 
 I should think," Olive replied. "It may have 
 passed before now." 
 
 "No," said Mrs. Kitzmiller, "I have been 
 watching the road." Still the happy girl had 
 no fears for her lover. 
 
 Late that evening Mr. Truesdale rode up to 
 the house. Both himself and his horse were 
 covered with mud, and the animal was panting. 
 Something in his appearance alarmed Mr. Kitz 
 miller and his son, and both went out to the 
 road as soon as he halted. There was a low- 
 spoken sentence or two, then Leander said 
 hoarsely, 
 
 " Great Heaven ! Who will tell her? It will 
 be her death-blow ! " 
 
 Rossington and Bonn had taken refuse in a 
 
 o o 
 
 farm-house, as Olive had said, till the violence 
 of the storm was over. Then they started back 
 to the road where their car stood, intending to 
 return at once to New Madrid. They had some 
 rods of thick timber to traverse, and, Avhen mid 
 way, Frank was stricken to the earth by the 
 sudden falling of a great branch which the storm 
 had loosened. Bonn s cries brought to his as 
 sistance some laborers who had sought shelter
 
 118 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 in the side of an embankment. Together they 
 carried Rossington back to the house he had just 
 left, and a messenger was despatched to the 
 village. 
 
 Then in what wild haste they rushed out 
 there to that lonely cabin in the wilderness ! 
 The engineers, the doctors, friends who had 
 learned to love the genial youth, strangers who 
 had only seen his handsome face over the 
 slippery, miry road, under cracking and falling 
 boughs, they galloped with reckless speed ! 
 Truesdale and the surgeon, upon whom John 
 Thorn had pressed the use of his fleet, strong 
 horse, were soonest there ; but the life they had 
 risked their own to stay was ebbing fast. The 
 crashed skull was raised ; everything was done 
 that could be done, but all to no avail. When 
 Truesdale came to Kitzmiller s it was to tell the 
 worst, and to say that they were bringing him 
 there to the house of his friends. 
 
 Two days later there was a brief and touch 
 ing funeral service, in the presence of an 
 assembled multitude, who had left their har 
 vest labors far and near, drawn together in 
 self-forgetful sympathy over this appallingly 
 sudden death. A quartette of the engineers
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 119 
 
 broke the solemn hush with an appealing 
 hyrnn. 
 
 " Peace, be still ! 
 In this night of sorrow bow, 
 O my heart, contend not thou! 
 What befalls thee is God s will 
 Peace, be still ! 
 
 " Lord, my God ! 
 Give me grace that I may be 
 Thy true child, and silently 
 Own Thy sceptre and Thy rod 
 Lord, my God!" 
 
 None who that day heard the music of those 
 rich male voices, surcharged with deepest feel 
 ing as they were, can ever forget its heart 
 breaking sweetness. 
 
 His five associates followed as mourners when 
 the body of poor Frank Rossington was borne 
 to its grave in the shadow of the maples, near 
 the old beaver-dam, with its growth of flutter 
 ing aspens and waving willows. It was sup 
 posed to be only a temporary resting-place ; 
 for when the railroad was finished his mother 
 would doubtless desire his removal to the fam 
 ily plot, near his eastern home.
 
 120 JOHX THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 P:ile, pitiful little Olive was strangely quiet 
 through it all. On the first morning after the 
 death she said to Mrs. Kitzmiller, who was 
 almost distracted with grief and horror, 
 
 "Don t cry so, mother, or you will make me 
 cry. I must keep from that while he is still 
 here with me." 
 
 She did not forget his request, but when the 
 afternoon came she dressed herself in the tea- 
 rose lawn, and put on her pretty necklace. 
 
 " O, how can you dress like that to-day ? " 
 said Emily Thorn. And Olive replied, 
 
 "Frank said, yesterday morning, he would 
 be with me all this afternoon, and told me what 
 to wear." 
 
 Then she went in, and sat for hours, gazing 
 upon the dear, still face, quite natural and un 
 injured, till every line was imprinted upon her 
 deepest memory. 
 
 "You have met with a great sorrow," said 
 Mr. Sweden, when he came. 
 
 "Yes," she responded earnestly, "a sorrow 
 great enough to fill all my life, no matter how 
 long it may be ! " There w r as a pathos in the 
 tone and words that caused the minister s heart 
 to swell till further speaking was impossible.
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 121 
 
 She however continued, in the same strange 
 voice, like that of one who bled inwardly and 
 was calm in the face of death, - 
 
 "But not great enough to cloud my trust in 
 the wisdom and goodness of God." 
 
 "May He bless and comfort you for those 
 words." 
 
 She looked up with her dry, mournful eyes, 
 to see the strong man s face drenched with tears 
 and convulsed. 
 
 With what fearful suddenness that wild storm 
 came and passed ! When all was over and 
 quiet, the great bouquet of marsh flowers still 
 bloomed brightly in the blue jug on the table. 
 The wild bees soared in at the open window, 
 buzzed about it for a moment, then out and 
 away, hovering next over the fresh earth of that 
 new grave on the hillside.
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 TDEOPLE who watched Olive Kitzmiller in 
 the days succeeding Rossi ngton s death 
 wondered immeasurably at her calmness. Some 
 even concluded the blow had not hurt her 
 deeply. Others, who knew better, apprehended 
 a sudden breaking down of health or mind 
 along with that marvellous self-control. They 
 need not have feared. The soul within that 
 dimpled, girlish body was upborne by more 
 than mortal strength. She suffered ! The 
 black wine of bereavement gave out for her all 
 its pungent bitterness. A thousand stings of 
 disappointed longing pierced her tender bosom 
 daily. Yet she was not without consolation. 
 No language could express the sense of rich 
 possession she enjoyed in the memory of that 
 precious love ! It would never weaken or grow 
 less. His last words to her, " Mij darling 
 oh) I love you!" must forever repeat themselves 
 in her thoughts, bringing, in the dim years to 
 come, a thrill of grateful joy more heavenly 
 sweet than the living companionship of husband 
 122
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 123 
 
 and children ! She helped her mother, waited 
 upon her father, and took long walks as usual 
 with Emily Thorn. No one saw her weep. 
 The tears were quick to fill her soft brown eyes, 
 but she never let them fall. At night she re 
 lieved her heart with crying ; she could never 
 have slept else. 
 
 She longed, yet dreaded, to hear from Frank s 
 mother. At length a letter came ; its penetra 
 ting sympathy was hard to bear. The elder 
 woman felt no jealousy in her great sorrow, but 
 recognized the younger woman s right to mourn 
 even for her own idol. 
 
 "O, you poor child!" she wrote. "How 
 will you bear it ? You are so young, and youth 
 is so unreasoning in its grief! For me it is but 
 another tie loosed. I have resigned much ; I 
 can resign him when I have agonized a while. 
 In a very little time these sharp struggles will 
 be over forever with me, and I shall rest with 
 my beloved; till then I must keep my heart in 
 patience. But you have not had the schooling 
 in losses that time brings to all, and this must 
 be very bitter ! I wish I could see you. Some 
 day you must come and stay with me, but just 
 now we might not do each other any good.
 
 124 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 Tend well my dear boy s grave. If he sleeps 
 in a pretty place, and it would pain you to have 
 his body removed, it need not be done." 
 
 Friends and neighbors came to Kitzmiller s, 
 drawn thither by the mingled sentiment of 
 curiosity and real sympathy ; but when they 
 saw Olive they could not speak of her trouble. 
 On one occasion old Mrs. Wycoff was spending 
 an afternoon with her mother. Olive was sit 
 ting alone on the porch with some sewing in her 
 hands, and heard them within talking of Frank 
 in a low tone. She caught the words, 
 
 "If he had only left a clearer evidence ! " 
 
 Something prompted her to rise and go in ; 
 something prompted her to say, 
 
 r You were talking of Frank as though he 
 might be a lost soul. How can you, mother, 
 who knew him, imagine such a thing?" 
 
 "I do not imagine it, my child. I know he 
 is in the hands of a wise and merciful God ; but 
 we dare not mistake amiability for grace." 
 
 " If I were to be killed suddenly, would you 
 fear for my eternity?" asked Olive. 
 
 "No, dear; you are a baptized member of 
 the visible church, and the child of many 
 prayers."
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 125 
 
 " So was Frank, if it will comfort you to 
 know it. He was more ; he was a confirmed 
 member of the Episcopal Church, and had 
 taken the Holy Communion, which I never 
 have." 
 
 " Who taught you to say f the Holy Com 
 munion in that way?" said Mrs. Kitzmiller. 
 " It is a phrase of Popery." 
 
 "See, mother," cried Olive, "this was in his 
 breast-pocket when he died. He always carried 
 it." She drew forth a little book of devotions, 
 and laid it in her mother s lap. Its prayers and 
 lessons of deepest spirituality had been to Olive 
 an unspeakable solace ; but the elder woman 
 tender mother, earnest Christian though she was 
 looked askance at the cross on its cover, and 
 pushed it aside as though it might be a thing of 
 danger. 
 
 The autumn days drew on, and Olive received 
 a letter from Mrs. Rossington, begging an invi 
 tation to come at once to Indiana. She longed 
 to see the people who had last seen and talked 
 with her son. She wanted to see his grave be 
 fore the snow covered it. She would not 
 trouble them long, but would they receive her 
 for a few days? She was not very strong, but
 
 126 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 she was sure she could bear the journey, per 
 haps better than in the spring. 
 
 Olive showed the letter to her mother, who 
 read it and bent her brows in reflection. 
 
 "It is the conceit of a troubled mind," said 
 the farmer. "I wonder if she has thought 
 of the fifty miles of rough staging at this end 
 of the route. If she would wait till spring, the 
 new road would bring her to our door ; but she 
 might not live till spring, and an unsatisfied heart 
 is a sore thing to carry. What are you studyin 
 about, Lucy? You surely can t misdoubt our 
 ability to make the poor lady comfortable for a 
 short spell." 
 
 "Dan l, you vex a body! If I ain t alwa} r s 
 dilatin and explainiii my thoughts, you re 
 afraid they re not of the right sort. I was just 
 debatin whether to let Mrs. Rossington sleep in 
 the parlor bedroom, or give her the spare cham 
 ber that s warmed by the sitting-room stove 
 pipe. It ll be cold before she gets here." 
 
 "I ll get a new stove for the parlor," said 
 Kitzmiller. "Them stairs is steep and narrow." 
 
 One bright October afternoon Olive and Mrs. 
 Thorn were sitting under the trees in Mr. Kitz- 
 miller s yard. They had been talking of Mrs.
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 127 
 
 Kossington s expected arrival, and of many 
 other things, when, looking toward Emily s 
 home, Olive saw Truesdule dismounting at the 
 gate. 
 
 "Do you see Mr. Truesdale very often?" she 
 asked. 
 
 " No, not now," was the answer. " He and 
 Mr. Thorn have always a good deal of business 
 together, but I always go away when I think he 
 may be coming. Do you know, Olive, I heard 
 what those women, Mrs. Frost and the others, 
 said about me at your house that day soon after 
 you came here. Katy WycofF told me not very 
 long ago. Other things have been said at other 
 times and places. I am an unfortunate woman, 
 but I am an honest woman ; it could never be 
 possible for me to be anything else. And 
 Mr. Truesdale is the truest gentleman I ever 
 knew." 
 
 After a little pause she continued, 
 
 " I hardly dare think what would happen if 
 any one would say such things to John Thorn. 
 I do not deserve to have enemies, but I am 
 afraid I have. Who could that strange woman 
 have been that frightened my horse last autumn? 
 I can see her yet, and it w r as not old Bloodroot.
 
 128 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 If they could make him believe there was any 
 thing improper about me, perhaps he would kill 
 me." 
 
 Olive started in horror. 
 
 " O Emily ! HOAV can you think of such a 
 thing ! He could never harm a hair of your 
 pretty head. He loves you! " 
 It was Emily s turn to start. 
 " Olive, hush ! How dare you say that ! " 
 " Because I believe it I know it." 
 "No, "said the other, "it is not true. Be 
 cause you love me so well you think he must ; 
 but you do not know him. You have heard 
 how he married me ; everyone has heard that. 
 I think he grows more tired of my presence 
 every day. I am becoming an insupportable 
 burden to him, and I have a sort of expectation 
 that before long a crisis will come ; he will find 
 some pretext for shaking me off. I will await 
 the issue and do nothing to hasten it. I have 
 been the victim of circumstances all my life, 
 and circumstances may do their worst. A 
 while before you came I would have gone away 
 from here, if I had known where to go. Since 
 then, my Olive, I have been almost happ} T . I 
 am thankful I have been with you so much ; it
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 129 
 
 shows the gossipping world that I am fit to be 
 received by such correct, Christian people as 
 your father and mother, and allowed to be inti 
 mate with their only daughter." 
 
 The next day Mrs. Rossington arrived at the 
 farm-house. Olive had seen her picture ; she 
 had prepared herself to meet a woman tall and 
 fair, because Frank was tall and fair. At first 
 she could hardly adjust her ideas of Frank s 
 mother to the small dark lady, whose penetrat 
 ing ej es searched everything and everyone with 
 such keen yet kindly interest. The tones and 
 accents of her voice in conversation recalled her 
 son to the Kitzmillers ; like him she was given 
 to asking questions about matters that were 
 novel and strange to her. She had lived almost 
 all her life in large cities, but she was country- 
 born, and a thread of childish associations 
 familiarized her at once with the homely routine 
 of farmhouse life. She wore plain but rich 
 clothing, and carried an elegant watch in her 
 belt ; but she frequently busied her slim hands 
 with Mrs. Kitzmiller s coarse knitting-work, 
 and followed the farmer s wife into kitchen and 
 spring-house, honestly delighted with the nice 
 order everywhere observable, and honestly en-
 
 130 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 tertained by the unpretentious yet shrewdly 
 intelligent conversation of her hostess. 
 
 She made her first visit to her son s grave 
 alone ; after that, she and Olive sometimes went 
 together. Sitting there one dreamy afternoon 
 by that newly sodded mound, upon which the 
 maples were sifting a slow shower of gold, she 
 told Olive of a second reason for her visit. She 
 had come to confirm her judgment in the wisdom 
 of a design she had in mind. It was to make 
 over to Olive the share in Frank s estate which 
 in law had reverted to her, his mother, as his 
 nearest heir. 
 
 " I do not need it ; his sisters do not ; neither 
 do you, just now, but I think it would please 
 him. It pleases me to do this for his sake, and 
 because I love you." 
 
 "I thank you," said Olive, "most of all for 
 the love." After a little silence, she said 
 softly, slipping her hand into that of the elder 
 woman, " It may help me to live well the life I 
 have marked out. It will be a lonely life, but 
 it need not be an altogether unfruitful one." 
 
 "Frank used to write me of your sAveet, 
 strong voice, I have never heard you sing, 
 and he intended to have you educated in music
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 131 
 
 after marriage. Do you ever think of that 
 now?" 
 
 "I think of it," Olive replied, "as something 
 to do in the future. But just now, this year, I 
 can do nothing, go nowhere. I must stay right 
 here with my aching sorrow till " The sen 
 tence was finished with falling tears. 
 
 A little later a smile came into her pale face 
 as she said, 
 
 " I shall never forget Frank s amusement 
 when I said to him one day that I knew there 
 was not a piano within a range of four counties, 
 and that Emily Thorn had never seen one in 
 her life." 
 
 "Your friend Mrs. Thorn interests me very 
 much," said Mrs. Rossington. " I should like 
 to see her husband." 
 
 " She interests every one," said Olive, in 
 response to the first remark ; and then she 
 asked, "Has she ever spoken to you of her 
 husband?" 
 
 " Yes, once," said the widow, briefly.
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 the first moment of their first meet 
 ing, which occurred the day following- 
 Mrs. Rossington s arrival at Kitzmiller s, Emily 
 Thorn had felt strongly drawn toward the 
 strange lady. There w r as an air of quiet 
 strength , about her which distinguished her 
 from every one with whom Emily had asso 
 ciated. A succession of varied and deep ex 
 periences had left their impress upon her, 
 disciplining judgment and will, and making her 
 one whose estimate of the conditions and pos 
 sibilities of life must, in the nature of things, 
 have more than common weight. She was a 
 wise woman ; Emily felt this, and when she 
 found she was accessible, she hardly cared 
 whether she was sympathetic. 
 
 They had an hour to themselves one day, and 
 Mrs. Thorn suffered this new friend, from a 
 thousand miles distance, to look into her do 
 mestic life far enough to be able to understand 
 that it was one of strange complications and 
 132
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 133 
 
 precarious continuity. At the close of the in 
 terview Mrs. Rossington said, 
 
 " Where would you go if the day should 
 come Avhen some inexorable cause would con 
 strain you to leave this place ? " 
 
 "I do not know," said Emily. "I am a 
 stranger in the land." 
 
 rf To have no tie of blood in the wide conti 
 nent I can imagine the sense of isolation it 
 must give. But if that day should come, and 
 I am alive, let mine be the friend s house to 
 give you welcome." 
 
 " You are boundlessly good," said Emily, her 
 smile bright with tears. 
 
 That day came, sooner perhaps than either 
 anticipated. Mrs. Rossington had been gone 
 but a short time, when the crisis arrived of 
 which Emily had spoken to Olive shortly before 
 her coming. 
 
 It was the evening of a perfect Indian-sum 
 mer day. Emily had been enjoying it out of 
 doors, and was sitting by the west window of 
 the bare little sitting-room of her house, watch 
 ing the hazy sunset, and resting after her walk. 
 Thorn entered suddenly ; she made a little
 
 134 JOHN THOKN S FOLKS. 
 
 / 
 
 startled movement, but did not rise. After 
 waiting a few moments, that she might not 
 seem abrupt, she rose quietly and was about 
 to leave the room, when he addressed her in 
 a voice of suppressed passion, 
 
 " Mrs. Thorn, I wish you would stop here, 
 and give me your attention for half an hour. 
 I think I never made so large a demand upon 
 you before." 
 
 She turned and looked at him, then resumed 
 her seat by the window, with a face as pallid as 
 the dead. John stood by a table, nearly in 
 front of her ; his breath w r as hurried, as if he 
 had been Aval king rapidly, and he drew forth 
 his handkerchief and wiped the thick drops of 
 perspiration from his brow. He took from a 
 long, leathern pocket-book some papers, and 
 while unfolding and arranging them he said, 
 "I have not the slightest notion, Emily, of 
 what you have been feeling and thinking all 
 these months and years. I only know that to 
 me life has been almost unsupportable. But 
 the grand mistake has be en one of my own 
 making, and I could go on as I have done, if I 
 did not think there might be something better, 
 or at least pleasanter, for you."
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 135 
 
 Then, resting his hand on the table, and as 
 suming unconsciously an attitude of superlative 
 strength and grace, he looked full at her and 
 said, 
 
 "I am going to give you up to Truesdale" 
 
 "John Thorn !" she cried hotly, "do you be 
 lieve me to be a guilty woman?" 
 
 "No," he answered promptly, with a strange 
 smile, half bitter, half tender ; " you do not 
 look like that. You are not that now, and I do 
 not want you to become so." 
 
 He turned to the papers again. 
 
 "Here is your property bank certificates, 
 notes, and securities for the entire amount, ex 
 cept three hundred dollars, which I paid on the 
 Morse land, when I bought it, soon after you 
 came here. That land cost a thousand dollars, 
 and here is the deed ; I had it drawn in your 
 name at the time of the purchase, as Wycoff 
 can tell you. And here is fifty dollars of my 
 money to fee Bolton or Lee, or any other law 
 yer you may choose, who will file your petition 
 and secure you a divorce. Court is in session 
 now, and you may have your freedom inside of 
 ten days if you move in the matter promptly. 
 You can proceed on the ground of incompati-
 
 136 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 bility, if you will ; or if you feel at any loss 
 for a cause of action, the court will furnish you 
 one ; they keep a list on hand. The precious 
 divorce laws of this God-forgotten State were 
 made for just such cases as ours." 
 
 He folded the papers, put the money with 
 them, and returned all to the pocket-book, 
 which, after carefully securing the strap, he 
 handed to Emily. She took it mechanically, 
 and rose to her feet. 
 
 "You may go now," he said. 
 
 "But where shall I go?" she asked, her 
 tender voice breaking in. a childlike way. 
 
 "Anywhere, away from here," was the cold 
 reply. " Truesdale will not leave you long in 
 uncertainty. He will see you soon, but he can 
 not talk with you under this roof." 
 
 Still she hesitated and lingered. 
 
 " I saw him not three hours ago. He took 
 great satisfaction in saying how ardently he 
 loved you, and hoAv deeply he pitied you." 
 
 " You saiv him ! " she demanded, flushing red. 
 
 "Yes, I went to his office on business, and 
 while there I accidentally brushed down from a 
 shelf a handful of dried weeds. He picked 
 them up and put them carefully away, saying,
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 137 
 
 as he did so, that the woman he adored had 
 once trimmed his horse s bridle with those ferns. 
 I understood him, as he intended I should; and 
 in about iive minutes he understood me. He 
 stands ready to marry you the moment the bond 
 between us is cancelled. He does not despair 
 of being able to win your love, though there 
 has never been a word or act on your part in 
 consistent with the most disinterested friend 
 ship. You know how the damned jackanapes 
 hunts around for long words." 
 
 She walked to the door in a bewildered way, 
 then turned and looked at him again. She felt 
 a sudden strange impulse to throw herself upon 
 his breast and beg him to keep and care for her. 
 But she remembered that he had talked with 
 Tntesdale, and her cheeks burned again. She 
 took her hat from a bench on the porch and 
 went away in the deepening twilight. 
 
 A while later she tapped at Kitzmiller s kitchen 
 door. The farmer himself opened it and ex 
 claimed upon seeing her, 
 
 " Why, it s Mrs. Thorn ! Come in, come in ! 
 How queer you look with that big, black 
 pocket-book ! Have you been robbing some 
 body?"
 
 138 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 "No, I have done nothing," was the reply ; 
 "no harm to anybody in the world; but John 
 Thorn has turned me out of doors." 
 
 Olive s arms were about her in an instant, and 
 she sank down slowly upon the calico lounge 
 near the door. Then a look of surprise came 
 into her eyes, and a smile, w r an enough, but 
 with pleasure in it, flitted over her face. 
 
 "I believe I am going to die ! " she said, and, 
 with a long sigh, fainted quite away. 
 
 Late that night she was able to tell Mrs. 
 Kitzmiller and Olive what John had said before 
 sending her aw r ay. When she had finished Mrs. 
 Kitzmiller asked, 
 
 "Are you glad or sorry that this has hap 
 pened ? " 
 
 " It had to come," was the reply, " and I 
 would not undo what is done ; but I am glad 
 for nothing. I feel injured and humiliated and 
 utterly sad. I am more forlorn than Hagar, for 
 she had her little boy. What a contempt I 
 have always felt for Abraham ! Mrs. Kitz 
 miller, my greatest anxiety now is, that you 
 and Olive may not think ill of me for the 
 strange position in which I am placed." 
 
 "Don t trouble yourself on that head," was
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 139 
 
 the good woman s instant reply. She was stand 
 ing before Olive s bed on which Emily lay, 
 touching, from time to time, the rich-colored 
 hair and white forehead with the corner of a 
 fine towel wrung out of camphor-water. 
 
 " I can see how it came about. It has all 
 grown out of your singular way of living with 
 your husband. It has been a good deal talked 
 about, and Truesdale came to think he had a 
 right to like you. I don t believe you ever 
 knowin ly gave him that right, but now I sup 
 pose you will see him and listen to him." 
 
 "I will see him once after what has passed," 
 said Emily, " but I will see him only in your 
 presence, and listen to nothing that you may 
 not hear." 
 
 " But you will get your bill and marry Mr. 
 Truesdale, as Thorn expected?" 
 
 "I shall sue for a bill as he told me to do ; he 
 wants his liberty and he shall have it. Perhaps 
 he wants to marry again I almost think he 
 does but I do not. He may cast me off, but 
 he cannot dispose of me. How careful he was 
 to give me back the money ! " 
 
 " He never cared for that money," said Olive, 
 kneeling by her friend s side. "It is perhaps
 
 140 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 too late now, but I ought, weeks and months 
 ago, to have made you know how earnestly I 
 believe that he married you for love and love 
 alone. He did it in a stupid, blundering sort 
 of way ; yet I am sure he loved you." 
 
 " Olive, you do not know what you are say 
 ing," Emily responded. " It is impossible for 
 one like you to comprehend a nature as cold 
 and hard as his. Perhaps he came to wish me 
 to be more to him than I was, but I held 
 him to the letter of the bond ; and he grew 
 weary and chafed under it. I was handed over 
 to him by my father as an incumbrance with 
 that bit of money ; now he is glad to thrust it 
 and me away from him." 
 
 To this aspect of the case, that she was, 
 through no fault of her own, a homeless outcast, 
 she recurred again and again, till towards morn 
 ing, when she fell into a feverish sleep.
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 were common in northern In 
 diana, and they were not uncommon in the 
 TVycoff settlement. Jared Wycoff s youngest 
 sister had been twice married and twice di 
 vorced, and was awaiting, in her father s house, 
 a third opportunity. The grounds upon which 
 divorces were obtained were as often ludicrous 
 as serious. They ranged all the way from cold 
 feet, and flies in the pudding, to drunken cru 
 elty and the graver cause recognized by Scrip 
 ture. This door stood plainly open before 
 Emily, but she had never contemplated seeking 
 her liberty through it. She scarcely needed 
 more personal liberty than she enjoyed. She 
 had often longed for escape from a false posi 
 tion, but that she should ever take any steps to 
 wards achieving it seemed impossible. Thorn s 
 desire to do so had once or twice made itself 
 apparent to her ; but she had always done him 
 gross injustice. Hers was a nature in which 
 impressions took root and grew, false ones 
 as readily as right ones. She believed him 
 
 141
 
 142 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 to have been actuated in the first place by avarice 
 alone ; any personal sentiment he might have for 
 her must be basely secondary. That he had for 
 years cherished for her a passion as pure and 
 chivalrous as that of any red-cross knight never 
 entered her imagination. 
 
 Twice she had been strongly inclined to leave 
 him ; once soon after his illness, of which we 
 have spoken, and again after her recovery from 
 the injury she received when her horse threw 
 her. Each time, the reaction he experienced 
 from hope to despair told on Thorn s face and 
 manner ; and she attributed his avoidance of 
 his home and of her to dislike and weariness. 
 Her absolute loneliness stood in the way of her 
 taking any decisive step. Even then she never 
 seriously thought of joining the endless pro 
 cession which filed through the divorce courts. 
 The traditions of an orderly, Bible-reading 
 
 i O 
 
 ancestry tinctured all her blood. She came of 
 conservative and essentially respectable people. 
 Her poor, half-crazed old father was perhaps 
 the chief sinner of them all ; and he sinned 
 strictly within safe domestic limits. In the 
 home of the Kitzmillers, with their Puritan 
 beliefs and ways, she found a congenial atmos-
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 143 
 
 phere. Mrs. Kitzmiller herself could hardly 
 have recoiled more surely from the suggestion 
 of divorce for the sake of other marriage than 
 did Emily, when it was put barely and boldly 
 before her by Thorn. Truesdale had never 
 appeared to her in the light of a lover. His 
 open admiration, his delicate yet persistent 
 attentions, had glanced harmlessly from the 
 armor of innocent ignorance, of modest self- 
 esteem, that encased her. That evening s 
 work, however, changed everything. Creation 
 had lapsed into chaos, and the shocked atoms 
 must be reconstructed into new forms. 
 
 Out of the confused whirl of impressions 
 which thronged her mind upon awaking from a 
 few hours slumber, one or two ideas were dis 
 tinctly formulated. Her moorings were loosed, 
 and she was adrift on the current of circum 
 stance. A near and certain contingency was a 
 meeting with Horace Truesdale, and all that it 
 implied. He had loved her while she belonged 
 to Thorn allowed himself to love her, know 
 ing his love meant dishonor to her and treason 
 to the friend he had more than once been 
 pleased to describe as "the finest fellow upon 
 earth." Yet he had loved and pitied her; a
 
 144 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 thrill of gratitude pierced her heart. His was 
 a nature whose generous warmth would sun a 
 woman s life into bloom and beauty ! Her 
 thoughts flew frightened away from the subject, 
 but ever came back like drunken insects to 
 poisoned honey. 
 
 As Thorn had said, Truesdale did not long 
 leave Emily in uncertainty. He called early in 
 the forenoon at the farm-house and inquired for 
 Mrs. Thorn. His manner toward Mrs. Kitz- 
 miller was that of grave deference, while he 
 noticed Olive but slightly. His face was pale 
 and somewhat anxious, and he looked as though 
 he had not slept. 
 
 Mrs. Kitzmiller persistently refused to be 
 present at the interview, which was not a long 
 one. The good woman was much tumbled up 
 and down in her mind, and went about her 
 morning s work in an excited manner. In such 
 moods she talked rapidly, and dropped her final 
 g s with reckless indifference as to effect. 
 
 "The idea of such a state of things bein 
 possible ! " she said to her husband, who sat 
 near the kitchen door, scraping a neAv axe-helve 
 with a piece of broken glass. " To think of a 
 strange man talkin love to a married woman,
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 145 
 
 right here in my own house, and we :i lettin 
 him ! But what can a body do ? I can t in my 
 heart blame that poor girl for any part of this 
 miserable business, unless it s for not tryin to 
 like her man after she was tied up to him. 
 She s just had the queerest luck that ever a 
 mortal was born to, and I pity her from my 
 very soul. And Truesdale, seein how the 
 plaguey laws were here, just laid out to get her. 
 And it seems John Thorn was only too glad to 
 let him have her." 
 
 "I don t believe Mr. Thorn is glad at all," 
 said Olive. "He was jealous, and angry, and 
 cruel, but he is not glad to lie free of her ; he 
 is perfectly wretched to-day. Emily thinks he 
 wants to marry some one else, but I feel sure it 
 is not so." 
 
 "Anyhow, he has no business to want to," 
 resumed her mother ; " nor she either, for the 
 matter of that. It s a miserable mess, and the 
 disgraceful divorce law r s are to blame for it. If 
 people didn t know they could get free just for 
 the askin , the Old Harry wouldn t put mis 
 chief into their heads half as often as he does. 
 Not that I think he s ever put any into Emily s ; 
 she s as good as the best."
 
 146 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 So she fumed and worked, stiffening up her 
 bread-sponge, and clear-starching a few fine 
 things of Olive s, which had been put by from 
 the plain ironing. Presently they heard the 
 front door open and close, and a little later 
 they saw Truesdale ride away from the house. 
 
 In that interview of an hour Emily s attract 
 iveness with Truesdale w r as immeasurably en 
 hanced. He found her pallid and listless, 
 anxious only that their conference should close 
 speedily. When he spoke of his desire to 
 make her his wife in the event of her becoming 
 legally free, she blushed, and her heavy eyelids 
 drooped. After this momentary confusion she 
 told him in a steady, voice what she had said in 
 substance to Mrs. Kitzmiller the night before. 
 She intended procuring a divorce, more on 
 Thorn s account than her own ; but she did not 
 intend to marry. She was grateful for his 
 pity, his interest, his condescension in offering 
 his name and protection to one so homeless 
 and almost friendless. Then his studied self- 
 restraint gave way, and she was forced to listen 
 to the most ardent protestations and pleadings. 
 He censured himself for precipitancy, and be 
 wailed the fact of his having plunged her into a
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 147 
 
 vortex of annoyance and trouble, urging as his 
 only excuse his earnest desire to make her ulti 
 mately happy, and his confident belief in his 
 power to do so. She interrupted him with a 
 sudden gesture of appeal, and begged him 
 again to leave her. 
 
 He remembered, as he rode away, that the 
 weary indifference of her manner had dissolved 
 and given place to a tinge of warmer life ; that 
 when he rose to depart she had lifted to his 
 face tearful eyes full of confidence, and had 
 suffered him to take her hand and kiss it. He 
 remembered also that she had forbidden him to 
 attempt seeing her again while she retained the 
 name of wife.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 A T the end of a month the decree of divorce 
 had been granted, and Emily Thorn had 
 gone from the Wycoff settlement. Her desti 
 nation was known to the Kitzmillers and to one 
 other person, and it was their secret. Immedi 
 ately after the separation she wrote to Mrs. 
 Rossington and received a prompt reply, re 
 newing the offer made in the conversation 
 recorded a few pages back. 
 
 rf Come," she wrote, "and share my quiet 
 home, for a time, at least, till some door opens 
 in the blank wall of the future." 
 
 After the reception of this letter Emily 
 brightened a good deal. Olive felt hurt at the 
 eager longing she manifested to be gone. 
 
 " I am not glad to leave you and 3^0111- dear 
 mother," Emily said, in reply to a gentle re 
 proach ; "I grieve to give you up, but you are 
 all I have to leave, and I can bear it for the 
 sake of putting behind me all the rest. I am 
 not one with this community, and never have 
 been. I have been regarded with suspicion 
 148
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 149 
 
 and dislike always ; as something foreign and 
 strange, though I have interfered with no one. 
 If I had been ugly I might have been accused 
 of witchcraft, so eccentric have I seemed. Ah, 
 yes, I shall be quite warm and cheery when I 
 am far away ! My life has been so bare and 
 cold ; only for you, Olive, I should have frozen 
 quite ! " 
 
 Truesdale begged earnestly for the privilege 
 of accompanying her at least over the earlier 
 and rougher stages of her journey eastward, 
 but she refused. 
 
 " If I may not accompany you, I will surely 
 follow you," he said. 
 
 " I dare not allow it," Emily answered. 
 " Mrs. Rossington has never taken you into ac 
 count when extending to me her incomparable 
 friendship." 
 
 " I will never compromise you with Mrs. 
 Rossington," said he, " but I am quite determined 
 to be taken into account, first or last." 
 
 A little smile, which was half a grimace, 
 flitted over her delicate face as she said, 
 
 "I had fully determined to run away from 
 you with all the other annoyances." 
 
 " Do I annoy you? " he asked earnestly. " I
 
 150 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 am very sorry. How can it be when I love you ! 
 And I believe you love me, or will." 
 
 rf You feel for me the deepest, kindest sym 
 pathy, and always have ; and my heart goes out 
 to you in gratitude. O Horace there, I have 
 called you that to show how I trust and like 
 you put yourself out of the question for a 
 while ! Let me depart alone and in peace ! 
 Time will tell whether we need each other as 
 you think. I am tired and do not want to be 
 agitated with any strong emotion for a great 
 while for ages and ages ! I shall have rest 
 where I am going, and the companionship of a 
 wise and good woman ; it will be enough." 
 
 "It will not be enough," he said, "or I am 
 deceived in you as I have never been in woman 
 before. But you shall have your way and your 
 time. Some day, however, you will see me in 
 Albany. I am going to leave NCAV Madrid for 
 good and all, some time this winter; and what 
 would be more natural than that I should return 
 to my boyhood s home on the Hudson, a few 
 miles from that city? Mrs. Rossington is no 
 stranger to my name and my family, nor, indeed, 
 to me. I wrote her, jointly with Sayward, the 
 letter that gave a detailed account of her sou s
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 151 
 
 last movements, and of his death. Then, too, 
 I chanced to be at Fort Wayne when she reached 
 that point on her journey here this fall, and we 
 made the stage-ride in company." 
 
 " So Olive has told me ; and that you kindly 
 made business for yourself at Fort Wayne about 
 the time of her return, and accompanied her so 
 far on her homeward journey ; but what of all 
 that?" 
 
 " Simply this, that I have had my introduc 
 tion. Since your latest plans have been made, I 
 have taken the liberty to write to Mrs. Rossing- 
 ton, telling her plainly of my desire to marry 
 you, and begging her good offices toward that 
 consummation. I think I have made it clearly 
 apparent to her, that any ordinary objection to 
 divorce and subsequent marriage must be 
 markedly wide of application in this particular 
 case. I do not expect an answer, but I am not 
 afraid of my reception by her, when I call upon 
 you at her house, some weeks or years shall 
 I say? hence." 
 
 Emily s preparations for departure were soon 
 made. Olive was helping one day with some 
 sewing. They had worked in silence for an 
 hour, when Emily said,
 
 152 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 " How strange that / should be going to spend 
 the winter in Albany instead of you ! " 
 
 " You have spoken my very thought," said 
 Olive, with the piteous little smile that always 
 accompanied her strong efforts at self-control. 
 This time her efforts failed. Her regret at part 
 ing from Emily, added to her other deeper sor 
 row, was too much. Her breast heaved with a 
 great sob, and she put by her work to save it 
 from a shower of tears. Emily held her in her 
 arms and smoothed the wavy brown hair, while 
 the poor, loving child wept on her shoulder, till 
 she could weep no more. 
 
 " Poor Frank ! " were her first words. " I 
 wish I could get over this unutterable pity for 
 him ! He was so young, and loved life so well ! 
 His happiness is greater in heaven, I suppose, 
 I believe; but he was happy enough here, 
 and he would have chosen to stay with me." 
 
 She lifted her head quickly, threw aside her 
 tear-wet handkerchief and pressed Emily s fresh 
 one to her hot eyes ; then she took up the sew 
 ing again. 
 
 "Don t work," said Emily, "if you do not 
 feel like it." 
 
 " But I do feel like it," she responded ; " it is
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 153 
 
 a pleasure to do things for people, and this 
 needs to be done to-day." 
 
 The day before Emily took her departure 
 Squire Wycoff called to conclude a business 
 settlement, he having acted for her as a sort of 
 trustee since her father s death. They were 
 quite alone during this interview. When all was 
 finished Emily expressed her thanks warmly 
 for the thoughtful interest he had always mani 
 fested for her welfare. A sudden wave of deep 
 feeling swept into his pale, sensitive face, as he 
 arose and took up his hat and cane. 
 
 "It is none of my concern, perhaps," he 
 said, "but I have had a heartache over this 
 break-up." 
 
 "You are too kind," said Emily; "pray do 
 not feel for me so deeply. I shall soon be far 
 away where gossip cannot reach me, then it 
 will be easier to forget. The worst is over 
 now." 
 
 "Pardon me, my dear friend," said Jared, 
 but it is not for you I feel the most. You will 
 be consoled, but John Thorn never will." 
 
 " He thinks he has done right, and will not 
 suffer self-reproach as you suppose." 
 
 "You misunderstand me again. He has,
 
 154 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 perhaps, less cause for self-reproach than for 
 self-pity. But I reproach myself. I helped to 
 set his heart on fire with expectation. When 
 he spoke to me of his long-cherished love for 
 you, and his plan for obtaining you, in a sense 
 against your will, I told him to go on. I told 
 him an honest, manly, self-conquering passion, 
 such as hi&, must, in time, win in return. He 
 never broached the subject to me after your 
 marriage day ; I knew he was living the life of 
 a starving man in sight of food, but I never 
 lost faith in my own prophecy till I heard of 
 your sudden separation. Yes, I feel for him; I 
 almost fear for him. Though he is a grand 
 specimen of physical perfection, and I am what 
 I am, I would not change places with him this 
 hour if I could." 
 
 He shook the fair, soft hand that had sud 
 denly grown icy cold ; repeated his wife s mes 
 sages of remembrance and farewell, then said 
 gently, reluctantly, 
 
 " Well good-by , good-by ." 
 
 She stood where he had left her for a minute, 
 passing one cold hand over the other. From 
 the kitchen came the cheerful sounds of table- 
 setting, the burr of the coffee-mill, and Mrs.
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 155 
 
 Kitzmiller s voice talking with some one who 
 had just come in. She turned and left the still 
 room with its deepening shadows. It was Davy 
 Ransom who had come in ; he was sitting by the 
 stove and looked up with his usual good-natured 
 grin when Emily appeared. 
 
 "Good-evening, Davy," she said; "so you 
 have come to bid me good-by. I am glad you 
 thought of it," 
 
 He made no reply to this, but drew the back 
 of one rnittened hand across his eyes. Pres 
 ently he got up and started off ; at the door he 
 paused, and beckoned Emil} r to come out. She 
 picked up a little shawl from the lounge, threw 
 it over her head and followed him outside. 
 
 " I got something to tell ye, an something to 
 gin ye/ he said, backing up against a post of 
 the verandah. 
 
 " What have you to tell me? " 
 
 " That cute little smooth-handled mallet I 
 made ye to chip bark with, ye mind. I m 
 goin to keep that s long s I live to member 
 ye by." 
 
 "You may keep it, Davy; I like to be re 
 membered." 
 
 " And ye mind that fall ye husked corn with
 
 156 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 me in the field beyant the sap-bush? Ye said 
 one day ye wisht ye had a cute little peg that 
 ud just fit yer hand. Well, I made ye one, 
 but ye did n t come to the field no more, and I 
 never gin it to ye. I brought it long to-night. 
 Maybe ye won t need it where yer goin ; but I 
 made it for ye anyhow." 
 
 She took the husking-peg of polished hickory, 
 with its finger-strap of soft buckskin, and looked 
 at it carefully in the dim light. 
 
 "It is a very good peg, Davy, and you were 
 very kind to make it for me. I will keep it 
 alwa} r s to remember you by. 
 
 Still he lingered. 
 
 "I reckon you re awful mad at yon feller?" 
 motioning towards the tan-house, at an upper 
 window of which a light burned. She said 
 nothing, and he went on, 
 
 "I lowed to tell ye, ye couldn t be wuss out 
 with him than he s out with himself. He just 
 walks ! I wunst saw a caged critter to a show ; 
 he walks like that nights, I mean." 
 
 " How do you know what he does of nights ? 
 You know you are the hardest sleeper ! Noth 
 ing; can wake vou." 
 
 O ** 
 
 " I kin wake myself when I m a mind to, and
 
 JOHN THOEN S FOLKS. 157 
 
 I hev for three nights now, and crep into the 
 shop at midnight. He was walkin up there 
 boots on hadn t had em off." 
 
 He was silent for a few moments, then broke 
 forth with a great, gasping sob. 
 
 " O, Lord ! I can t stand it to see him ack 
 so and not do nothin ! He s done for me ever 
 since my dad and mother both gin out with the 
 fever the same year. I was n t eight year old." 
 He was crying. 
 
 " Good-by, Davy," Emily said ; " I must not 
 stay here any longer, it is very cold. Go home, 
 now. Good-by." 
 
 He dashed his mitten across his eyes again, 
 and said, half defiantly, as he shuffled off in the 
 darkness, 
 
 "A dog may love a man, an I m no wuss n 
 a dor."
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 ri THE change from New Madrid to old Albany 
 was a very great one ; but Emily was less 
 bewildered by it than she had anticipated. Her 
 constant and varied reading had familiarized her 
 thoughts with methods of living other than those 
 she was personally accustomed to. She met 
 with few things that were totally strange to her 
 knowledge. Her new home was one of elegance 
 and refinement, but she was not utterly lost in 
 it. She had seen such homes in books, and 
 visited them in her dreams. 
 
 Mrs. Rossington lived in close retirement, 
 her daughters and a few chosen friends forming 
 the very small circle in which she moved. Her 
 duties to the church and the poor claimed a part 
 of her time. Then she was very fond of music, 
 and kept up her own piano practice in a way 
 not common with ladies of her age. Her chil 
 dren and friends accepted her new protegee uh- 
 questioningly. They learned from her scant 
 revelations that the protegee was their peer in 
 every womanly excellence ; that she was with- 
 158
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 159 
 
 out kindred this side the ocean, and that she 
 was in need of just such a friend as Mrs. Ros- 
 sington had chosen to become. That sufficed 
 them. 
 
 " Miss Ludlow has the style of beauty that, 
 whether in man or woman, always enslaved my 
 mother." So said Mrs. Wheeler, the eldest 
 daughter. 
 
 " My father had it, and Frank inherited it from 
 him. It was the violet eyes, white skin, and 
 gold-brown hair that made the telling appeal." 
 
 At first Mrs. Rossington gave her guest her 
 exclusive attention. The change of location 
 necessitated for Emily a new and suitable ward 
 robe, and her hostess interested herself in its 
 preparation with true feminine zest. Emily s 
 wonderful grace was a source of genuine pleas- 
 sure to her new-found friend, who delighted to 
 note the effect upon her of tasteful and modish 
 attire. As days passed they became deeply and 
 well acquainted ; the elder woman acting always 
 the part of enlightener as well as sympathizer. 
 Notwithstanding all this kindness, and the con 
 geniality of her new surroundings, Emily felt 
 the old unrest coming back upon her strongly, 
 with something added a tinge of self-blame
 
 160 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 for what she hardly knew ; possibly for certain 
 stubborn crudities of disposition and consequent 
 past action, for which, after all, she was not to 
 blame. 
 
 Mrs. Kitzmiller had said to her, 
 
 " Begin your new life as cheerfully and hope 
 fully as possible. There is a place for you in 
 the world the right place. Keep your head 
 level and } our conscience clear, and your road 
 to that place will be made plain." 
 
 She tried to remember the good woman s 
 words and draw comfort from them ; but, in 
 spite of everything, a sense of want and isola 
 tion at times weighed her down. She belonged 
 to no one ; no one belonged to her. What if 
 peril, sickness, or death should come? It would 
 be hard to go down with no loving arms stretched 
 wildly forth to hold her back ! She thought of 
 Truesdale ; he had offered her much too 
 much to accept, unless she could show some 
 thing more than this pale flame of gratitude in 
 return. 
 
 At length he came, and she was glad. Still 
 she would not grant the promise for which he 
 begged ; would scarcely grant enough of love s 
 privilege to keep hope alive.
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 161 
 
 " What have you been doing all these endless 
 days," he asked, " while I have been despatch 
 ing matters with reckless haste to be with 
 you ? " 
 
 " Thinking," she replied ; " thinking over all 
 my past." 
 
 "Do not think of that, but of the future." 
 
 " No, I seem to think mainly of the past. I 
 have been trying to make myself out ; to make 
 out some sort of estimate of that strange I 
 mean "- 
 
 She could not name Thorn, but Truesdale 
 understood her, and said, with a smile, 
 
 " If seeing him almost daily for several years 
 could not help you to that estimate, thinking 
 about him now can hardly do so." 
 
 As days went by he grew puzzled over her 
 complex uncertainty. She was not capricious ; 
 she was far too earnest for that. While she 
 would give him no positive encouragement that 
 she would ever become his wife, she always 
 received him with a warm, quiet gladness that 
 made him long for their hour of meeting. To 
 himself he called her a beautiful mystery. 
 
 The Avinter weeks passed on, and Truesdale 
 came and went. At length one day he returned
 
 162 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 to her after a two weeks absence in New York, 
 feeling a premonition that he would hear his 
 final answer. He found Emily watching for 
 him at the window, and it gave him a throb of 
 buoyant confidence. She met him at the door, 
 and, taking his oifered hand, led him to the 
 sofa. She even held his hand a little after they 
 were seated. 
 
 "You have made an escape, my friend," were 
 her first words. 
 
 " An escape ! " he queried, in those mellow, 
 deferential tones that went straight to the heart 
 of every woman who heard them. 
 
 "Yes, I am going away, and I am glad to go. 
 I have just received a letter from my mother s 
 brother, urging me to come to Scotland. I 
 found his address in looking through some old 
 papers of my parents that Mr. Wycoff gave me 
 just before I came here. I wrote, and this is 
 the answer." 
 
 "You look elated," he said. 
 
 "Yes, I feel a great relief. I am calm, and 
 sure of everything now." 
 
 " You are sure 3 r ou do not love me, and never 
 could?" 
 
 " My willingness to leave you forever puts it
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 163 
 
 beyond doubt. And so I say you have made 
 an escape ; for I might have been persuaded ; 
 and marriage without love, or love only on one 
 side death, you know, is to be preferred." 
 
 Truesdale rose suddenly and crossed the 
 room. He was strongly moved, and until he 
 had gained self-mastery he did not let her see 
 his face. He had not schooled himself for ulti 
 mate failure, and it was very bitter. To miss 
 what his whole heart longed for to find him 
 self utterly baffled where he had dreamed con 
 fidently of success ! He was perhaps not vainer 
 than other men of great personal advantages, 
 but he had always enjoyed a happy sense of his 
 own power. And this woman, so lonely and 
 so sympathetic, had kindly and firmly put aside 
 his earnestly proffered love. With a free heart 
 she could not do it ! So, in the sudden reaction 
 of his self-esteem, he declared. Yet what was 
 the secret of her preoccupation, if preoccupied 
 she was ? 
 
 "When do you go?" he asked, returning to 
 her side. 
 
 " Perhaps in a month or two ; Mrs. Rossing- 
 ton says not until June. But you must go at 
 once. It would have been better if you had
 
 164 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 not come. You have stayed too long; but I 
 have been so weak ! I was flattered and 
 soothed, and did not think I might be wrong 
 ing you. My history has been one of mistakes 
 my own and others , and I am infinitely 
 sorry." 
 
 A little later he said all there was left to be 
 said "Farewell ! " and " God bless you ! " 
 
 \ 
 
 When Truesdale disappeared from New Mad 
 rid, the surmise was commonly expressed that 
 he had "followed John Thorn s wife." The 
 Kitzmillers felt sure of it. For a time Emily 
 wrote weekly letters from Albany ; then there 
 fell a long silence, over which Olive grieved and 
 wondered. 
 
 " She is goin to be married," said Mrs. Kitz- 
 miller, "and she don t rightly know how to 
 talk about it on paper." 
 
 That evening, about the time of winding 
 the kitchen clock, she remarked to her quiet 
 partner, 
 
 "Well, it s just as I expected, and as every 
 body else expected ; but it don t seem right to 
 me, and it don t to her, or she wouldn t have 
 stopped writin ."
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 165 
 
 Her usually docile listener for once felt dis 
 posed to make reply. 
 
 "That s so, Lucy," he said ; " there is a sort 
 of wrong-seemin about it. But it s something 
 that s done all around us every day in the year. 
 People get divorced, and marry somebody else, 
 and settle down and get along right comfort 
 able. In a good many cases they r ally seem 
 to have bettered their circumstances." The 
 answer to this came sharp and sudden. 
 
 " Dan l Kitzmiller, if there s the least mite of 
 good reasonin in that, I d like to be made to 
 see it ! You know s well s I do that the whole 
 State of Indiana s doin of it would n t make it 
 right, if it wasn t right afore!" Daniel, not 
 being of an argumentative turn, made no re 
 sponse to this, and his better half talked on. 
 
 " It would be next to impossible to make me 
 believe Emily was n t all rigid ; but I m not 
 quite so sure about Truesdale. And if he isn t 
 as honest a man as she is a woman, she 11 be a 
 sight more unhappy with him than she ever was 
 with Thorn. If she could a been rid out of the 
 idea that John knew about the old man s money 
 afore he married her, she could n t V helped 
 respectin him ; everybody else does. He s
 
 166 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 maybe a harsh, overbearin sort of a man; but 
 I believe his character s built on a solid founda 
 tion of good principle. I m not so sure about 
 Truesdale." 
 
 To Olive she said, 
 
 " Be patient awhile, dearie ; one of these 
 days you ll get a paper with her weddin notice 
 in it. Then you may write to her again, but I 
 wouldn t now." 
 
 No such paper ever came to Olive, but at last 
 a letter came, an earnest, loving letter, assuring 
 her that she had not been forgotten for a single 
 day or hour. In it Emily said, 
 
 " I am not married. I do not expect to be. 
 I have opened my heart upon this subject to 
 Mrs. Rossington as freely as I could. Some 
 day she will tell you all. In June I expect to 
 go to my relations in Scotland. I shall take 
 with me your sweet picture, and the thought of 
 your love and your dear mother s wonderful 
 kindness as a priceless possession. I suppose 
 you sometimes see Mr. Thorn. I hope the look 
 of anxiety and discontent has gone out of his 
 face. Surely life must seem brighter to him 
 now that he is quite free ; and when I have left 
 this pitiless continent forever it will seem
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 167 
 
 brighter yet. After I have sailed, you may 
 tell him." 
 
 But Olive did not wait for Emily to sail. 
 That evening she waylaid Thorn between his 
 house and the tannery, and gave him the letter. 
 He glanced at the envelope and grew pale. 
 
 "Is this for my eyes, Olive? Does she want 
 me to read it ? " 
 
 "/ want you to read it, Mr. Thorn. She 
 does not know what she wants, and never did ! " 
 She Started to leave him ; then the impulsive 
 child turned, and taking the hand that held the 
 letter in both her own, she said, 
 
 "Oh, be good to her, Mr. Thorn, and bring 
 her back ! I cannot have her go so far away ! 
 You must not let her go ! Please be good to 
 her and bring her home!" Then, loosing his 
 hand, she flitted away in the closing night. 
 
 Thorn read the letter by his counting-room 
 lamp. The thin little sheets still fluttered in 
 his trembling hand, when Davy Ransom gave 
 the door a thump, and thrust in an arm, with 
 the word " Mail." John took the letters. The 
 first one his eyes fell upon was posted at Buffalo, 
 and addressed in a handwriting as familiar to 
 him as his own. He threw it down with a
 
 168 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 muttered curse ; then tore it open and took in 
 the contents with one savage glance : 
 
 "DEAR THORN, Once you were audaciously honest 
 with me, under very peculiar circumstances; now it is 
 my turn. I have played high, and lost. Fate and a 
 woman s incomprehensible will were against me. I 
 have reason to believe that my defeat means your vic 
 tory. H. T."
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 "YTTHEN Horace Truesdale found himself 
 again en route for the West, he had no 
 intention of taking New Madrid in his course. 
 His two months sojourn in his native State had 
 shown him that the East could never again be 
 home to him. He had learned to love Indiana, 
 with its life-teeming forests, lakes, and marshes. 
 His whole being had become saturated with 
 their subtle aroma ; his ear had grown quick 
 for their peculiar sounds, the call of the wild 
 turkey, the whistle of the snipe, the drumming 
 of the fan-tailed grouse. But Indiana was not 
 the goal of his present journey. He had said 
 to himself at starting, 
 
 " Omaha certainly ; Virginia City probably." 
 He reached Fort Wayne in the night. There 
 would be a delay of some hours before he could 
 go on to Chicago. He went to a hotel where 
 he had often put up before, took a room, and 
 retired to bed. He was within a long day s 
 ride of his late home ; he might never be so 
 near again. He lay with closed eyes, thinking of 
 
 169
 
 170 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 many things. The future was not without color 
 and attractiveness, notwithstanding he was a 
 recently disappointed man. He was full of 
 healthy enterprise ; his zest for nature, and his 
 interest in the vast, wild region toward which 
 his steps were tending, were very great, though 
 a sincere and poignant regret rankled in his 
 heart. He thought of his schemes for the fu 
 ture ; but his thoughts ever and again recurred 
 to New Madrid, his old den, and the good rifle 
 that lay in its hooks above the low door. He 
 recalled his pets, one by one. He had, before 
 he left, bestowed them upon various friends 
 and acquaintances. If it had been spring he 
 might have given them the freedom of the for 
 est, but at that season it would have been cru 
 elty to do so. Susie Hodges had adopted Sam 
 Slick at his particular request. He would like 
 to see Sam again. He greatly wanted that 
 gun ; perhaps he would send for it some time. 
 
 He fell asleep and dreamed he saw Susie 
 walking with Charlie Walters, swinging his 
 hand in a childish way, their fingers locked 
 together. He thought, in his dream, he ought 
 to be in Charlie s place, for he had often walked 
 that way with her. Their backs were toward
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 171 
 
 him ; but he called her name, and she turned 
 quickly, revealing, not the face of his Black- 
 eyed Susan, .but that of an aged and withered 
 woman, with gray hair and sunken eyes. The 
 change gave him a shock, but the instant her 
 glance rested upon him the rich blood mounted 
 to her cheeks and brow, a soft fire kindled in 
 her dark eyes, and, loosing her hand from that 
 of her companion, she clasped it with its fellow 
 upon her breast, and stood before him a radiant, 
 smiling image of youth and beauty. 
 
 It was snowing furiously when he went down 
 to breakfast in the dimly-lighted dining-room. 
 That meal being finished, he walked through 
 the office to the street door and viewed the 
 situation. An omnibus, with a lantern at its 
 front, stood waiting to carry passengers to the 
 westward-bound train. And there stood the 
 heavy, lumbering old hack, with its black, flap 
 ping oil-cloths, that would reach New Madrid 
 some hours after dark. He lighted a cigar and 
 climbed into it, the only passenger for that 
 dismal day s ride. He wanted his rifle. 
 
 He dined at the Windfall, a half-way house 
 kept by a man named Stots, who expressed 
 much surprise at seeing him, and joked him
 
 172 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 about "running away with the grass-widder." 
 He reached Bounce s about eight that evening, 
 exchanged brief greetings with its astonished 
 proprietor, and sat down to warm his chilled 
 feet, without removing his overcoat. 
 
 rc Yes, I 11 have supper presently, but I 11 
 step out first. I left a good rifle in my den 
 over yonder ; am curious to see if it s there yet 
 all right," 
 
 " The place 11 be dark as a blackleg s heart," 
 said Rounce. 
 
 "I ve got matches," said the other, starting 
 out, " and there s a candle on the shelf." 
 
 As he approached the little square box that 
 had somehow been in his mind s eye all day, he 
 thought he saw a glimmer of light through a 
 crack in the closed board shutters. He turned 
 the knob of the door, found it unlocked, and 
 entered. A lantern, with a dimly burning 
 candle in it, stood in the middle of the bare 
 room, and at its farther side sat a woman or 
 girl, leaning forward, with her face resting upon 
 the table at which he used to write. She lifted 
 her head as he approached ; it was Susie, or the 
 pale ghost of Susie ! A murmur of compassion 
 escaped Truesdale s lips, and he involuntarily
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 173 
 
 opened his arms to the forlorn girl, who clung 
 to his breast sobbing, but with tearless eyes. 
 She trembled violently, and he knew that he 
 was supporting almost her entire weight upon 
 his arm. He sought her pulse and realized that 
 she was in danger of fainting. Replacing her 
 in the chair from which she had risen, he drew 
 forth a traveller s flask of brandy, and made 
 her taste it. As he held and chafed her hands, 
 he could feel all their little bones with startling 
 plainness. He passed his hand up over her arm 
 and shoulder, whence the pretty, girlish round 
 ness had go.ne ; over her face, with its sharp 
 outlines and sunken eyes. 
 
 "Great Heaven! Susie, can it be that you 
 have suffered like this for me ! What brings 
 you here to-night so late ? " 
 
 She could not find her voice, but answered in 
 a soft whisper, 
 
 " I went to the store for some lining for father, 
 and just stopped in a moment as I was passing." 
 
 He glanced at the table and saw upon what 
 she had been pillowing her sad face a pair of 
 his own leathern gauntlets, which he had care 
 lessly left there. Drawing her head against 
 him, he said in tones of tenderest pity,
 
 174 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 " Poor little girl ! I did not know ; I never 
 dreamed it was so deep a thing ! " 
 
 "I never meant you should know," she sighed ; 
 " but now I do not care. I kept up well till 
 after you were gone." 
 
 "Yes," he repeated, "you kept up well. 
 You even encouraged Charlie Walters. He 
 was with you a good deal just before I 
 left." 
 
 He removed her shawl and replaced it with 
 his own great-coat, warm from his person, 
 using the shawl to wrap well her feet and an 
 kles. Then he drew up another chair and 
 seated himself beside her. 
 
 "I want to talk with you a little while, Susie, 
 and this place is like Spitzbergen. Are you 
 comfortable so ? " 
 
 She answered with a long sigh, nestling 
 closer in his arms. 
 
 "Do you know where I have been, Susie?" 
 
 She raised her head slowly, and looked at 
 him earnestly for a moment. 
 
 "I had almost forgotten," she said. "You 
 followed Emily Thorn. Are you married?" 
 
 "No," he replied, "and never will be to her. 
 I wanted her, but she would n t have me. I
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 175 
 
 received her final answer only a week ago. She 
 rejected me firmly, though I begged hard." 
 
 "Poor Horace ! if you have felt as I have," 
 murmured the fond girl. 
 
 " I have not felt as you have, dear," he said, 
 with a slight smile of self-disdain. " I m afraid 
 I could never feel like that. But I loved her, 
 and wanted her. Now I am going to ask you 
 to take what she refused. Did you ever hear 
 of Omaha, Susie? I am going on there to 
 morrow. Will you be married to me in the 
 morning, and go, too?" 
 
 "If I live till morning. If this happiness 
 does not kill me. But wait," she said, looking 
 up, with her deep, pathetic eyes. "I must tell 
 you something first. You remember when 
 Emily was thrown from her horse, and her 
 arm broken. She said some girl threw herself 
 before the horse and frightened him purposely. 
 It was true, and it was I. I saw her coming 
 as I sat by the roadside, and something made 
 me do it. I think I wanted her to be killed : 
 but I was miserably sorry afterwards. I did 
 not mean it, but I could not help it. Some 
 thing made me do it something that quite 
 mastered me for the moment. Can you forgive
 
 176 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 me? I think she would forgive me if she could 
 understand." 
 
 " Poor Susie ! " he said, stroking her rich, 
 dark hair with great gentleness. "You were 
 very wicked, but very wretched. I think she 
 would forgive you if she could understand. I 
 will take you home now. The clerk s office is 
 still open, and I will procure the license to- 
 night ; to-morrow morning, before the stage 
 goes out, you will be my wife. But think 
 well, my child ; you are giving up a good deal. 
 Those bad little brothers of yours are very fond 
 of you, and your parents will grieve to lose 
 you." 
 
 "They were losing me anyhow," she said ; "I 
 could not have lived till the woods were green." 
 
 Again his boundless compassion, which was 
 perhaps his predominant trait, prompted him to 
 fold her in a closer embrace, as he said, "I 
 have n t much to offer in return for your fresh, 
 girlish tenderness, but I will be kind to you, 
 and faithful." 
 
 The words were spoken not merely as a prom 
 ise, but as a vow ; and he kept it.
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 nHHERE are crises in every life of strong and 
 varied experience, which leave the indi 
 vidual in an attitude of vague expectancy. 
 These pauses, when the soul looks Fate in the 
 face with a question, are usually speedily re 
 warded. After Truesdale s departure Emily 
 found herself in just this waiting, questioning 
 mood. To Mrs. Rossington she one day 
 said, 
 
 "If I do not take passage for Scotland at 
 once, I believe I will never go at all." 
 
 " And what if you do not ? " said her friend. 
 " I would be glad if you would willingly aban 
 don the project, and begin to shape your life to 
 the conditions around you now, as though this 
 city were to be your future home." 
 
 " I feel sure it will not be," said Emily, though 
 why she said it she could not tell. A moment 
 later a wave of self-reproach swept over her, 
 and she added quickly, 
 
 "You have been a friend and mother to me, 
 dear Mrs. Rossington, and everything is most 
 
 177
 
 178 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 pleasant for me here, yet I feel sure this place 
 will not be my future home. I do not say this 
 from any conscious choice, but from an unde 
 fined yet strong impression." 
 
 There was a long silence between them, which 
 the elder lady broke by saying, 
 
 " There is no day of my life that I do not 
 take blame to myself for not having supple 
 mented the knowledge you voluntarily gave me 
 of your unhappy relations with Mr. Thorn, by 
 some further acquaintance with you both before 
 I left Indiana." 
 
 Emily put by, with a strong hand, the em 
 barrassment which the mention of Thorn s name 
 always brought with it, and asked, 
 
 " What would you. have done if you had 
 known us better ? " 
 
 " Perhaps I might have helped you to know 
 each other better. At all events I would have 
 tried to convince you of what I now fully be 
 lieve, that your husband was your devoted lover ; 
 however you might have taken it." Emily s 
 voice was very low as she said, 
 
 "I believe that now, at least, and I take it like 
 all the rest, rather painfully." 
 
 One stormy evening, some two weeks later,
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 179 
 
 Mrs. Rossi ngton opened her street door herself 
 to admit a tall stranger, who asked in mellow, 
 western tones for Mrs. Thorn. The widow was 
 a shrewd woman, quick to think and to act. 
 Giving him her hand in token of cordial wel- 
 
 O 
 
 come, she said, 
 
 "You are Mr. John Thorn. Before I take 
 you to Emily I have ten words to say and a 
 question to ask." 
 
 He stood uncovered, holding the hand of the 
 earnest, eloquent little lady in a close clasp, a 
 look of concentrated interest and emotion suf 
 fusing his strong face. The words were said, 
 the question asked and answered ; and, with a, 
 joyous light on her face, Mrs. Rossi ngton con 
 ducted him into the presence of the woman he 
 sought, and closed the door upon them. 
 
 He went straight to her, but stopped within 
 two paces. 
 
 "Emily!" he said; "my poor, pale love! 
 Will you forgive me, and let me hold you to 
 my heart ? " 
 
 She threw up her arms the signal of sur 
 render and let them fall around his neck. 
 
 HOAV the snow fell during the days that fol 
 lowed ! Emily will never forget that week ; the
 
 180 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 steadily, noiselessly descending snow shower; 
 the blank whiteness of the world without ; the 
 muffled sounds and shapeless figures in the 
 street ; the glowing coal-fire in the parlor grate ; 
 the sense of soft seclusion under the sheltering 
 wings of the storm ; the long hours of earnest 
 talk or happy silence with John Thorn. For, 
 though no one else came, the storm did not keep 
 him away. One morning he found Emily writ 
 ing. She rose suddenly and put aAvay her 
 papers. 
 
 " Did I interrupt you ? " he said ; " it is very 
 early, I suppose, and I have come too soon?" 
 
 "No," she answered, "I grew impatient to 
 tell you something that I forgot yesterday ; so 
 I commenced writing it. I thought if some 
 thing should prevent your coming to-day, and 
 we never met again, you could read it." 
 
 "Why, what could prevent my coming," he 
 asked wonderingly. 
 
 "Nothing, of course," she replied ; " but I am 
 always full of strange fancies, whims if you 
 choose. And all this seems so unreal. Each 
 morning when I wake I wonder if it is not all a 
 dream your coming and loving me so, and 
 my happiness."
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 181 
 
 They were standing in the middle of the room. 
 He hud lifted her hands upon his breast, and 
 held them there clasped under his own. Still 
 standing thus he begged her to tell him the dear 
 
 O oO 
 
 thing she had forgotten yesterday. So she took 
 him back to that sad time when Frank Rossing- 
 ton lay a corpse at Kitzuriller s. 
 
 "That was one of the times when, for a little 
 while, I forgot to be suspicious and afraid of 
 you. You were so calm and helpful, yet so 
 truly sympathetic. The tenderness of your 
 nature showed itself in many little ways ! Just 
 then, if you had spoken gently to me, or laid 
 your hand upon me, I could have clung to you 
 and sobbed out all my loneliness and heart 
 break, here on your breast ! " 
 
 He took his breath with a short, strident 
 sigh. 
 
 "And just then I spent long, sleepless nights, 
 almost destroyed with the violence of the 
 struggle between my great longing to offer you 
 my love, and my fear of giving you deadly 
 affront ! Not more than once in centuries could 
 such a history as ours be possible ! " 
 
 Another day she begged leave to make a 
 confession. It was that she had sometimes con-
 
 182 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 trusted him unfavorably in her thoughts with 
 others who were more fluent talkers. And that 
 now his conversation was a constant surprise to 
 her ; his knowledge of and interest in things 
 to which she had always supposed him to be 
 indifferent. 
 
 "In short," said Thorn, "I have seemed to 
 you only a money-maker. That mistake was 
 the rock of our shipwreck. And it was a mis 
 take. One of the few formulated principles of 
 my philosophy is not to regard money as an end, 
 only as a means. I have had my dreams of 
 travel and self-improvement, of a life of restful 
 activities very different from the one which I 
 have lived. But the money had to be made. A 
 man with a good intellect such as, without 
 vanity, I know I have could hardly live n\y 
 life of business and politics and be an ignoramus. 
 He need not be a boor. And though I am not 
 naturally bookish, I have read a good deal these 
 last years. It has been a solacing act of devo 
 tion to you." 
 
 She glanced up with a smile whose confusing 
 sweetness made him find his voice with an 
 effort, when she repeated the whispered ques 
 tion, "How to me, John?"
 
 JOHN THOEN S FOLKS. 183 
 
 " Why, I knew you were always reading, and 
 I managed generally to find out what. It is the 
 only thing, dear, about which I ever spied upon 
 you. I think you will find in my den in the 
 currier s shop almost every volume you have 
 read and thought about for three years." 
 
 " And we misrht have read and thought about 
 
 O O 
 
 them together ! " she murmured. 
 
 At length the snow ceased to fall ; and one 
 afternoon a small bridal party entered the gray 
 old church, the stones of whose walls were dear 
 to Mrs. Rossington s heart. A few family 
 friends of Mrs. Rossington were present. Emily 
 appeared on the arm of a gray-haired brother 
 of the widow, who gave her away in due form. 
 Standing there in that mellow light, with the 
 robed priest reading the quaint, impressive ser 
 vice of the Church, a quick vision crossed Emily s 
 mind of that other bridal scene, so long, so 
 long ago it seemed ! the cabin in the woods ; 
 the palsied old man on the bed ; the lame 
 schoolmaster standing before them, not without 
 a certain dignity of his own, for a brief in 
 stant it was all vividly present. Then the organ 
 sounded a glad, soft peal, and John and Emily 
 Thorn walked forth into a new life together.
 
 184 JOHX THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 Emily remained with Mrs. Rossington until 
 spring. Thorn returned almost immediately to 
 Indiana. He wished to prepare his home for 
 
 her coming. He wished also that their neijrh- 
 
 o o 
 
 bors might be somewhat prepared. 
 
 In one of her long letters to Olive, Emily 
 said, "I think so often of all our neighbors. I 
 mean in future to know them better, and know 
 them for their good and my own. It shall be 
 the aim of my life to walk with them in ways 
 of mutual helpfulness and kind judging. You 
 and I, Olive, will do something for the girls we 
 know. Their environments are so narrow, 
 their aims so petty ! If there are any among 
 them who can be waked up to the fact that life 
 is a lesson-day as well as a work-day and play- 
 day, waked up to habits of thought and ob 
 servation, we will find them out. It will be a 
 sort of mission for us." 
 
 Olive read this to her mother, who remarked 
 dryly, "I don t like that use of the word mis 
 sion. It belongs to religious work. And after 
 all, folks need savin more than civilizin . It 
 is n t every one that can be just so cultivated, 
 but every one may have their sins forgiven." 
 
 Of course, during Emily s absence many
 
 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 185 
 
 things were said that would have been painful 
 for her to hear. That which was uttered with 
 most contempt was, that John Thorn had taken 
 her back after Truesdale had deserted her. To 
 this Mrs. Kitzmiller, who attended qui Rings 
 and other neighborhood gatherings with an assi 
 duity she was never guilty of before nor after 
 wards, would reply, 
 
 "Nobody in their senses, who knows John 
 Thorn, would believe that for a moment." 
 
 Owinsr to this good friend s steadfast cham- 
 
 O O 
 
 pionship, supported by the fact that she knew 
 more of Emily s life after her departure from 
 the Wycoff settlement than any one else, the 
 tongue of curious and damaging gossip was at 
 length silenced ; and when, in the early spring, 
 John brought her home, she was welcomed by 
 all with a cordiality warm and unfeigned. 
 
 As soon as was deemed proper she was waited 
 upon by a large visiting party, under the leader 
 ship of Mrs. Kitzmiller. On this occasion no 
 embarrassing allusions were made, and these 
 somewhat narrow but well-meaning neighbors 
 preserved a degree of prudent reserve as sur 
 prising as it was commendable. 
 
 They found Aunt Thirsa deposed from her
 
 186 JOHN THORN S FOLKS. 
 
 position of domestic autocrat, partly by rheu 
 matism, partly by John s firm yet kind order 
 that Emily should be mistress in everything. 
 
 She sat in her splint-bottomed rocking-chair, 
 clean and cool, and kindly waited upon. 
 Though not able to hear the lively chat about 
 her, she seemed to enjoy it, and would occa 
 sionally break out and talk a little herself. 
 
 "I always expected to have to give up doin 
 things when John got married, and I m proper 
 glad it s Emily I got to give up to. She never 
 had no nack o housework, and the sight of a 
 hired gal always did make me sick ; but land 
 knows I got no cause to complain s long s I m 
 s well off as I am." 
 
 After dinner John showed the visitors the 
 spot which he and Emily had selected for their 
 new house, and together they displayed their 
 drafts and plans for the house itself, receiving 
 pleasantly suggestions so numerous and incon 
 gruous, that, if adopted, the structure must 
 have proved one of the world s wonders. 
 
 The short spring afternoon was wearing awa} 7 . 
 Motherly Mrs. Kitzmiller drew Emily aside for 
 a little whispered congratulation and counsel ; 
 then there was a lively bustle of bonneting and
 
 JOHN THOKN S FOLKS. 187 
 
 shawling and leave-taking. Olive had been 
 helping Emily all day, arranging the table and 
 waiting upon the guests. At the gate her 
 mother missed her. 
 
 "Where s Ollie?" she called. "Come, 
 daughter, we re going now." 
 
 "Let Olive stay all night, please," said 
 Thorn, from the porch ; " my wife wants her." 
 
 "All right, if they ll keep in out of the 
 dew," was the cheery response, as the worthy 
 dame hurried off to join old Mrs. Wycoff and 
 the rest, all of whom were unanimous in de 
 claring that they had spent a delightful day, 
 and that matters with John Thorn s folks were, 
 at last, about as they should be.
 
 THE DOUGLAS NOVELS. 
 
 BY MISS AMANDA M. DOUGLAS. 
 
 Uniform Volume*. Price $1.50 Each. 
 
 FLOYD GRANDON S HONOR. 
 
 "Fascinating throughout, and worthy of the reputation of the author." 
 Philadelphia Methodist. 
 
 WHOM KATHIE MARRIED. 
 
 Kathie was the heroine of the popular series of Kathie Stories for 
 young people, the readers of which were very anxious to know with 
 whom Kathie settled down in life. Hence this story, charmingly written. 
 
 LOST IN A GREAT CITY. 
 
 "There is the power of delineation and robustness of expression that 
 would credit a masculine hand in the present volume, and the reader 
 will at no stage of the reading regret having commenced its perusal. In 
 some parts it is pathetic, even to eloquence." Sun Francisco Poxt. 
 
 THE OLD WOMAN WHO LIVED IN A SHOE. 
 " The romances of Miss Douglas s creation are all thrilliugly interest 
 ing." Cambridge Tribune. 
 
 HOPE MILLS; or, Between Friend and Sweetheart. 
 " Amanda Douglas is one of the favorite authors of American novel- 
 readers." Manchester Mirror. 
 
 FROM HAND TO MOUTH. 
 
 "There is real satisfaction in reading this book, from the fact that we 
 can BO readily take it home to ourselves." Portland Argun. 
 
 NELLY KINNARD S KINGDOM. 
 
 " The Hartford Religious Herald " says, " This story is so fascinating, 
 that one can hardly lay it dowa after taking it up." 
 
 IN TRUST ; or, Dr. Bertrand s Household. 
 
 "She writes in a free, fresh, and natural way; and her character* are 
 never overdrawn." Manchester Mirror. 
 
 CLAUDIA. 
 
 " The plot is very dramatic, and the denofiment startling. Claudia, the 
 heroine, is one of those self-sacrificing characters which it is the glory o^ 
 the female sex to produce." Boston Journal. 
 
 STEPHEN DANE. 
 
 " This is one of this author s happiest and most successful attempts at 
 novel-writing, for which a grateful public will applaud her." Htrald. 
 
 HOME NOOK ; or, the Crown of Duty. 
 
 " An interesting story of home-life, not wanting in incident, and written 
 in forcible and attractive style." New - York Graphic. 
 
 SYDNIE ADRIANCE ; or, Trying the World. 
 
 " The works of Mi.s.s Douglas have stood the test of popular judgment, 
 and become the fashion. They are true, natural in delineation, pure and 
 elevating in their tone." E.rpre ss, Easton, Penn. 
 
 SEVEN DAUGHTERS. 
 
 The charm of the story is the perfectly natural and home-like air which 
 pervades it. __^_ 
 
 Sold by all booksellers, and sent by mail, postpaid, on receipt of pricj. 
 
 LEE & SHEPARD, Publishers, Boston.
 
 J. T. TROWBRI A 000003865 3 
 
 NEW UNIFORM EDITION. 
 
 CUDJO S CAVE. 
 
 Like "Uncle Tom s Cabin," this thrilling etory was a stimulating 
 power in the civil war, and had an immense sale. Secretary Chase, of 
 President Lincoln s cabinet, said of it, "I could not help reading it: it 
 interested and impressed me profoundly." 
 
 THE THREE SCOUTS. 
 
 Another popular book of the same stamp, of which "The Boston Tran 
 script" said, "It promises to have a larger sale than Cudjo s Cave. 
 It is impossible to open the volume at any page without being struck by 
 the quick movement and pervading anecdote of the story." 
 
 THE DRUMMER BOY. 
 A Story of Burnside s Expedition. Illustrated by F. O. C. BARLEY. 
 
 " The most popular book of the season. It will sell without pushing." 
 Zion s Herald. 
 
 MARTIN MERRIVALE: His X Mark. 
 
 " Strong in humor, pathos, and unabated interest. In none of the books 
 issued from the American press can there be found a purer or more deli 
 cate sentiment, a more genuine good taste, or a nicer appreciation and 
 brighter delineation of character." English Journal. 
 
 NEIGHBOR JACKWOOD. 
 
 A story of New-England life in the slave-tracking days. Dramatized 
 for the Boston Museum, it had a long run to crowded houses. The story- 
 is one of Trowbridge s very best. 
 
 COUPON BONDS, and other Stories. 
 
 The leading story is undoubtedly the most popular of Trowbridtre a 
 short stories. The others are varied in character, but are either intensely 
 interesting or " highly amusing." 
 
 NEIGHBORS WIVES. 
 
 An ingenious and well-told story. Two neighbors wives are tempted 
 beyond their strength to resist, and eteal each from the other. One is 
 discovered in the act, under ludicrous and humiliating circumstances, 
 but is generously pardoned, with a promise of secrecy. Of course she 
 betrays her secret, and of course perplexities come. It is a capital story. 
 
 12mo. Cloth. Price per volume, $1.50. 
 
 Sold by all booksellers and newsdealers, and sent by mail, postpaid, 
 on receipt of price. 
 
 LEE & SHEPARD, Publishers, Boston.