THE HESPERIAN
f
hi
A precious child was sleeping soundly in its
bed.
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"Watortown was smoking one evening, all
the way up from the giant red chimneys of
Jean and Farwell's iron works down to Mrs.
Margaret Turner who, in her green and red
parlor sat smoking too.
Something, evidently, was weighing upon
her mind, which, had it not been for the
general atmosphere in which she lived,
would have been a sufficient excuse for her
present indulgence; for we understand that
smoking is a habit to which only worried
women or very old women are addicted; and
Mrs. Turner was still young.
She sat there meditating, and as she be
eame more involved in smoke and thought
she spoke aloud: "Tom, poor Tom. I
wonder whether he's dead surely he ought
to be its six years today since ho set sail
in the "Good Luck," and nover's he sent a
word to his Margaret. I might have died
or starved for all the good he's done me
dear Tom I'm sure he's dead. Now there's
that box, if only why good evening,
Shamus; come in, take a chair.',
Mrs. Margaret Turner laid her pipe aside;
her blue eyes shone more brightly and her
cheeks buVned a vivid red as she looked at
the figure in the doorway Shamus Boland,
a raw and sandy specimen freshly over, but
not so green but that he had an eye for busi
ness. "Shure, and its not me who'd be a re
fusin5 a chair from tho loikes of ye, Mrs.
Margaret. Niver yit hev I seen sich spark
lin' eyes, nor sich red cheeks as yourn bo."
He took the red stuffed chair that she
offered him.
"Hev ye bin thinkin," he continued, "of
thet matter as what we were talkin' of yis-
terday about ye and me? Pwhat do ye
say to it?"
She was silent, for she was comparing
mentally her husband as she had seen him
last, with the young giant beside her, with
his pale eyes, jovial face and gaudy clothes.
The latter picture proved more pleasing.
"Yes Shamus," she said, "I've been
thinking. But, you know, my husband may
not bo dead "
"Ye need'nt worry about thet, Margarit,
slmrcly and he'd niver stay away from ye
thet long and not bo dead, och no, ye need
not worry."
"Tom was always so good and "
"Niver so good as I'd bo to ye."
Mrs. Turner was overcome. She burst
into tears: she never, never could forget
dear kind Tom, she could never find another
man like Mr. Turner had been; ho had not
written to her, it is true, but he had died,
she was certain, when ho first went to sea
and she had not known it and could not get
the poor man a tombstone, and ho was so
deserving too! At this thought her grief
became uncontrollable. It was some time
bofore she could continue, and then she con
fessed, sobbingly, that she knew she was'nt
handsome she truely had been once she
was growing old, but if Shamus really wanted
her she would marry him, yet she never,
never could forget dear Tom as long as she
lived.
Shamus had listened with quiet tolerance
to this unavoidable outburst. "So thin, to
morrow, ye'll be Margaret Boland," said he.
"Yes, I guess so," answered tho blushing
hysterical Margaret. "Johnny will tell the
neighbors," she murmured.
A cozy fire on tho hearth cast a ruddy
light upon tho two as they sat there talking,
and brightened the whole room with a light
so effulgent that the pea-green parrot
' Tom's gift to Margaret many years ago
perched high on the ten-day clock shone
glossy bright even through a thick layer of
long undisturbed dust.
And this was the picture that Thomas
Turner saw, who, on this dark, and clammy
night stood shivering outside, close beside
the window.
This was his home.; yet he stood out in the
cold, sad and troubled.
He pressed closer to the wall and looked
in through the very corner of the lower