Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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^ " ZSSUES^SEHI'WIEKX^^ ^ ^ ^ i m. qeist ec sons, Publishers. J % |[amitg Uemsgager: |for the promotion of the political, Social, Agricultural and ?ommei[ciat Interests of the JSouth. {Tt^iNoiE cofy.^ite cekt^nce" ESTABLISHED 1855. YORKVILLE, S. O., SATURDAY, MAY 13, 1899. NUMBER 38. 1 "* *X1* * 9 *_ =-t!11 iftR? ffiiiiffl By JOHN 8TRA Copyright, 1898, by the Author. CHAPTER I. THE DINNER OF HERBa "I have great newH for you, Mary. Captain Conway has been here." "Captain Conway 1 Yes! And what did he want, mother? What news did he bring?" Mary Hamilton took off her black straw hat as she spoke and pushed the bair away from her forehead with a weary gesture. Mrs. Hamilton busied herself with the simple tea table, assiduously arranging plates, setting the teaspoons straight in the saucers, laying the butter knife at an exact angle and smoothing away an infinitesimal crease in the white cloth. "He?he?he made a suggestion to me, Mary." she began nervously. "A suggestion!" Mary Hamilton sat down and eyed her mother expectantly. "You don't mean that he proposed to you. mother!" she exclaimed. "Something very like it." replied Mrs. Hamilton, still keeping herself very busy with the table. For a moment there was silence between them. Mary Hamilton sat looking with astonishment at her mother, * and at last she spoke. "I suppose it wouldn't be a bad thing in the mere way of money, mother." she said slowly. "But?but?oh. mother, dear, you could never bring yourself to do it!" For the first tfme Mrs. Hamilton turned and looked etraight at her 3 *- *- ? ? 4 ? <3 nnai * ' C k n OT. QaHglHtT. iu> ucnr v.unu> ouc fcSI "You can't mean that you would {ike me to marni Captain Conway!'claimed, "yon don't understand! There is no question of my marrying Captain Conway. It is?at least he never?besides, my devotion to yonr poor father's memory should have kept you from jumping to any such conclu P/mcnov id o mon CjlUU* Vcl^iaiLi vvuaj *o u ^wi? mmmi and any woman might be honored in marrying him. Bnt my heart is in the grave, and?and. besides, he did not propose?he does not propose that I shonld consider the question of becoming his wife." Mary Hamilton stared open eyed at her mother. "Dear mother/' she said gently. "I am tired tonight. The children were very troublesome today, and the rooms seemed more stuffy than usual. I feel confused. Do tell me just % what Captain Conway did suggest to I yon." Mrs. Hamilton began to pour out the tea with a vehemence which showed how perturbed in mind she was. "Your poor father always said that I was injudicious in telling news." she cried in honest self abasement. "I ought to ? have seen that you were tired. Here is your tea. darling. Drink it at once and have another cup to go on with. The truth is. Mary. Captain Conway has flurried me till I hardly know whether I am standing on my head or my heels, and?and I never gave a thought to your being tired out with that hateful school. Oh. to think that my daughter should ever had been a board school mistress, not one remove from a national school, and your father a clergyman in holy orders!" "My dear mother, do explain yourself." said Mary, a fearful sense of cominer evil trraduallv overspreading her. "Oh. my darling," cried the older woman, "it's all over now?all the drudgery, all the pinching and the nipping! I've 6aid little or nothing because you were slaving your youth away in that horrid, degrading school, but now I may speak, now I may say how bitterly and cruelly 1 have felt it all. the humiliations, the?the"? "Dear, there can be no degradation or humiliation in honest work." said Mary patiently and yet with a dignity which sat becomingly on her tired young face. "And what do you mean by its being over? Not surely that Captain Conway wants to marry me." "Yes. you! And. oh. my darling, it has made me so happy." Mrs. Hamilton cried, "almost delirious with happiness!" "My dear mother." cried Mary, bolting a piece of bread and butter with what was almost a convulsion, "you can't mean that you would like me to marry Captain Conway!" "Why not?" asked the mother blankly "I couldn't do it!" declared the girl stoutly. "Couldn't do it!" Mrs. Hamilton's voice rose almost to a scream. "Couldn't do it! Why, dear heaven, surely you would never dream of flying in the face of Providence by refusing him!" "Certainly I would!" "He is rich!" cried Mrs. Hamilton. "He is old enough to be my father," said Mary. "And I doubt if he is rich." "Captain of one of the largest steamships afloat." protested Mrs. Hamilton. NGE WINTER. "He is exceedingly well off. He can provide for yon adequately. He has an excellent position"? "I don't?couldn't?never could love him!" Mary burst out. "Perhaps not; but you can respect him!" cried the mother. ''T J T ntron iln I " "1 QUIi L KliUVV lliail JL OUUU1U Cfiu v*vr that much," Mary returned. Then she suddenly clasped her hands together and looked appealingly at the excited woman opposite to her. "Oh, mother! Don't you understand why I cannot do this thing? Have you been so unhappy in our little home that yon want to sell me to the first bidder? I've been so contented in working for you. Has it all been for nothing?" "Working for me I" Mrs. Hamilton exclaimed indignantly. "Working for me. indeed! And what have I done all these years? Look at my hands, worked to the bone, cooking, scrubbing, sewing, contriving, making my own bits of clothes and never a place to show them in in this desolate wilderness of bricks and mortar! No one to associate with, living a pensioner on your bounty, without pleaeures, interests or change of any kind! And then to have your work->thrown in my teeth, indeed!" "Oh. mother!" "It's all very well to say, 'Oh, mother!' But I'm speaking the truth. All these years I have struggled and striven for yon. And now, when you have a chance of letting me end my days in peace, yon tnrn np your nose at a man whom any woman might he honored by marrying." "Yon married for love yourself," said Mary in a very low voice. Mrs. Hamilton caught up the words and echoed them in' the high pitched, querulous accents of a thoroughly selfish and superficial person. "Married for love," she echoed shrilly. "Yes, and what did love ever ao ror me r 1 mturied for love, married on ?80 a year, drudged on it, slaved, toiled, almost starved on it. DonJt talk to me about marrying for love, Mary?love in a cottage is a will-o'-the-wisp that leads many people astray, and your poor father and I were among the number. Was it natural, right, proper, that he should die at 85, a wornout, prematurely old man, leaving me helpless, homeless, penniless, to struggle on as best I could, to drag you up as best I could ? That was what marrying for love did for him. poor fellow! He never would own it. He died with his hand in mine?his last words 'The Lord will provide'?and now when provision has come it is only to be rejected. " Mary Hamilton sat still while this inconsequent torrent of recollection and vexation poured from her mother's lips. At the vision of the red faced, burly, bluff sailor being regarded as a provision sent by the Lord to take her from an independent life of honeat work to one of degrading idlenese, she almost laughed aloud, but she- resolutely choked down the inclination and spoke quietly and reasonably to the excited woman on the other side of the table. "Dear mother," she said gently, "cannot you for my sake endure this life a little longer? After midsummer we shall be better off. Even now we can well ufford to have a woman in to do the rougher work?it has always 06611 IOr you lU UCCIUC uuw liic uiuucj shall be spent. For my sake, dear?" "And why not for mine?" asked the mother fiercely. "Listen! He has laid all his plans before me. You will have a charming house and garden, a couple of good maidservants, a handsome housekeeping purse, an ample allowance for your dress and pocket money. There will always be room for me?I am to live with you?to give the benefit of my advice, my experience in housekeeping and all such things. Yon will have as much society as you care to take?there will be no anxiety, no thinking about the rent or how to get seven days' dinners out of a certain sum. You will have"? "Oh, don't, mother; please don't!" the girl cried. "I know all these things are a temptation to you, poor dear. It must be to you just like opening a prison door and seeing a lovely view over which you may walk forever on one condition. But the condition, dear mother, the condition! Think! It is that of reaching the fair pathways over your own child's body. Oh, worse, worse?over her very soul! It means the sacrifice of all that is best in your child's life?the giving up of her freedom, her honor, her ambition, of all her better self. Don't ask me to do it, dear. Pray, pray don't. I will work?oh, how I will work! How thankfully and gratefully I will bring you every farthing that I make, so that you may be more content, less straitened. Mother, dear, speak for me! For my father's sake, say that you won't urge this upon me." But the words of appeal, glowing, passionate, heartful as they were, failed to touch the shallow nature oi the woman who in her day had married for love and had found the dinner oi herbs turn to dust and ashes between her teeth. She rested her head dejectedly upon her hand and gave several long drawn sighs of misery, calculated tc move the heart of a stone. "Dear mother!" murmured Marj from the other side of the table. But Mrs. Hamilton shook her head resolutely. "No, Mary, it's nouseyoui saying 'Dear mother!' It's worth noth ling; it means nothing. I can't make you marry Captain Conway; indeed, I've no wish to do so. I can't make you see what is best for you, although you might trust your own mother to give you good advice on such a subject. I can do nothing but bear my disappointment with resignation and fortitude. After all, it is only one more titter pill to swallow, one more drop of bitterness in my cup of humiliation and self sacrifice. I'll say nothing more, Mary, only ?only?don't prate to me about love and devotion. I've proved the value of both today. And. after all my struggles to give you the best of education, it's hard, it's heartbreaking." A sudden thought flashed across Mary Hamilton's mind of certain clerical charities which had from the time of v -- J ?*V. V>ay mother ucr laiuer 9 ucuiu piuviucu uca u?v?mv* with the wherewithal of living, of the great institution wherein she had received her education free of cost to her mother and because of the position in life which her father had occupied, but she said nothing; she felt that it would be useless. "So my dream ends," said Mrs. Hamilton bitterly. "It says somewhere in the Bible, 'Her children ehall rise up and call her blessed.' It's a fallacy, nowadaye at least; for veneration for parents has gone cut of fashion." Mary Hamilton sat back in her chair wondering whether it would be best to let the storm pass in silence or not. Mrs. Hamilton got up from her place and went blindly toward the door. I say blindly because she went stumblingly and groped her way like a person whose eyes were full of tears. There were, however, no tears in her eyes, but a strange sightlessness, as if she had suddenly walked into a heavy sea fog. Then at the door she stumbled and fell, not the sharp fall of a person tripping by accident, but the huddled up dropping to the ground of one unable any longer to keep her feet. Mary sprang from her seat with a cry. "Mother?mother?you are illl" she burst out. The answer came thick and indistinct. "Dying, dying! You have?killed? me!" The girl tried to lift the prostrate woman, bat found herself powerless. She sank upon her knees in an agony of apprehension. "No?no?mother; don't say that! Det rue helD von?only try to get up! I'll do anything to please you?mother ?mother!'1 CHAPTER II. ION1 IN A MOMENT. When M*ry Hamilton found that her mother bad slipped into utter unconsciousness. she ran to their nearest neighbors a:id begged them to come in and aid her. So her mother was with no little difficulty lifted from the ground and carried up to her bedroom, and a doctor was quickly sent for. His fiat was given without the smallest hesitation. "It's i stroke," he said, "but it might have been much worse; for instance, if it had been on the other side it would prtbably have proved fatal almost immediately. As it is, with care, your mother will probably recover and be quite or very nearly herseK' again." With care! Mary Hamilton's heart went down to zero as she heard the two -little simple words which give hope to some anxious watchers of the sick, but which open out endless possibilities of unattainable needs to those who are poorly placed in the world. In her case it meant having an experienced person to tend her mother by day and night alike, for, be the circumstances cf life what they would, her work must go on just the same. With the best intentions in the world she could not be in two places at once. Yet, how was she to afford skilled attendance for her mother? It was a terrible question to answer. At this point the advantages of the alliance which the sick woman had been pressing upon her daughter came prominently into view. During the course of the evening Captain Conway arrived, eager and anxious as to his answer. I V>o mot iili (homnnmfnl TlPU'fi that Mrs. Hamilton had been seized with a paralytic stroke and was still unconscious. His first words were a suggestion. "You will want a nurse." i "I shall want some one to look after my mother while I am away at my t: ! ,/ I" ; "I can't let you," began Mary. i work," Mary admitted. "For tonight Mrs. Robinson has kindly promised to ; stay with me, and tomorrow I mast ) find some nice, respectable person"? "I will send in a proper nurse at once," said the sailor, speaking in rough but kindly accents. "Skilled | nursing is half the battle in such cases as these. I never did believe in make. shift nursing. It'si the very?the. very mischief." He bad been going to use another word, but changed it ont of deference to Mary with a very perceptible effort over the substitution. "I can't let yon," began Mary, at which he pntnp his hand imperatively. "Now, Miss Mary, none of that, if you please. I'm your friend, and friends are allowed to make themselves useful to one another in times of trouble all the world over. I'll take it all on myself and will account to your mother for the liberty I'm taking when she's well enough to discuss such things. Ho now I'll be off and will send in a suitable nurse at once. Goodbyl Good bless you, my dear I" < He roughly pressed her hand and was \ gone in a moment, leaving ner stana- ] ing looking desolately after him. She ] shuddered as she thought of him as her ( possible, nay probable, husband; he was ] so bluff and burly and grizzled, so loud ] of voice, so red cf face, so dominant. ] He jarred upon every fiber of her being. , But it was useless to fight longer against ( fate, even in the person of a man who < was utterly and entirely distasteful to , her. She bad struggled with all her 1 might against the sacrifice of her soul's < beet instincts, but to no purpose. The threads were drawing closer and closer ( around her, and if her mother recovered 1 and still demanded the complete sacri fice of herself against which she bad so < passionately fought she had given her , word and must carry it through to the ; very end. , Before a couple of hours had gone by ; a white capped nurse in dainty uniform i had arrived at the little house and had ; installed herself in charge of the case, < and when Mary .got home from her work 1 the following afternoon Mrs. Hamilton ' had recovered her senses again and was i pronounced to be vastly improved. Her first mumbled words were as a deathknell to Mary's heart. "You? promised," she said thickly. "Yes, yes; I have not forgotten," Mary said hurriedly. "Don't think of that, dear; only get well and I will do anything you like." The sirk wnman erave a murmur of satisfaction and closed b?r eyes again. Mary turned away and went to the , window, where she stood looking out trying to keep herself under control. Her face was white and set, her hands shaking and cold. So her mother bad not forgotten; the sacrifice would have to be made and she must at no distant time sell herself into a slavery which would be a living horror. And this was the end of all her toil, of all her ambitions, of all her brilliant hopes and vivid dreamings! Small wonder that her heart seemed as if it had turned to water within her; that her soul seemed numb and dead, as if she had lost herself in a deep and treacherous morass from which she could never be extricated, try and struggle as she would. I need not dwell upon this part of Mary Hamilton's story. The hot and dusty Bummer days dragged drearily by, each one bringing the inevitable nearer and nearer. Mrs. Hamilton slowly improved in health. Mary went to and fro to her work, the white capped nurse remained in attendance, and Captain Conway hovered around the little household like a good angel, an angel with a red, weather beaten face and with a very large circumference. The end came all too soon. He spoke to her one evening, told her his hopes and fears?a great many hopes it must be owned aqd a very few fears it most be confessed. And Mary told hiin honestly that she had never thought of him before her mother's illness as a possible husband, told him she had never thought cf marrying him or any one else, thanked him, with tears in her gray eyes, for his goodness to her mother and promised that if be would not expect too much of her she would do her best to be a good and faithful wife to him. Captain Conway's answer was characteristic of the man. He told her with all the assurance and confidence of an Adonia 20 years his junior that he was perfectly satisfied with her promises; that he would teach her to love him when once she was really his own. Mary shuddered, but allowed the remark to pass in silence, and, if the whole truth be told, let an inward prayer escape her heart that some thunderbolt might fall and strike her before that terrible day dawned. Such prayers, however, are mostly futile. Mary's wedding day dawned all too soon, and the warning, "Be not afraid with any amazement." rang out over the heads of an ashen pale bride, who had steadfastly and resolutely refused to allow herself to be decked in bridal attire; a rather nervous and rubicund bridegroom, who dropped the ring and mumbled his vows defiantly after the officiating minister; a mahogany faced groomsman and a frail, elderly lady in a mauve silk who leaned upon the arm of a tall young woman in nurse's uniform. ? - ~ i-A-x i m_ So the sacrifice was compieieu i 10 Mary Hamilton, Mary Conway by then, it passed like a hideous dream, only there was no awakening. "My darling child!" cried her mother enthusiastically. "I am so happy! My dear child!" "I am glad, mother," Mary whispered back and wondered the while if God would ever forgive her for the false vows she had plighted, the outrage she had done to herself, for being the living lie that she was. ; And then began a life which was an i hourly, daily torture and martyrdom. ; The husband was quick to see that he had made the gravest of all mistakes, I that he had bought the casket, but i could not possess himself of the jewel i within, to realize that his wife was i his. but that her heart was miles an4 miles away and would never be his, even though he were to live for a thou sand years. He was quick to learn that he would never be the master to teach this particular pupil to conjugate the verb to love, and the knowledge, coining npon his passionate love and admiration for her, was as oil poured upon a fierce fiame. How can I describe those few weeks which passed between the marriage and Captain Conway's first departure on a voyage to the other side of the world? They were hideous! Mary, who had been awakened also, was possessed of only one desire?to hide the truth from the mother for whose sake she had sold herself, to hide from her the knowledge which had came to her all too surely that the genial, bluff, jovial sailor, with ais frank, hearty ways and his open banded generosity, was in reality of a coarse and calculating nature, which bad taken count of every farthing that be had expended and who looked to bave payment and interest for every jingle coin, to bide from her that bis geniality too often meant drink, and that his frank bluffness was merely the cover for a vindicative and passionate temper; to hide from her, in short, all that he really and truly was. It was not nntil within a few days of the time fixed for the sailing of Captain Conway's ship that there was actually any open disagreement between them, and even then the full measure of her humiliation and misery came pon her like a thunderclap. It happened that Captain Conway had been explaining to her how she must manage about money during his absence. "The ( rent is paid," he said. "And you can draw ?10 a week, which ought to cover the bare expenses. If you fall short at the end of the month when the wages are due? Are you listening, Mary?" be broke off in a voice of thunder. "Yes, Edward, of course I am listening," said Mary with a violent start. "Then what do you want to look like that for? Do you want to make me think you're pining because I am going? Bab! You're enough to sicken a man, you white faced cat." The girl's first instinct was to start to her feet. Her fingers almost without her own will clinched themselves to* " J I "Edward, don't say that!" she began nervously. gether, her cheeks were as red as peonies until, in her anger at snch an insnlt,' they faded to the paleness of death. Then she remembered her moth er, the frail, weak, feeble soal who persisted in calling Captain Conway her dear boy and in attributing to him every noble and generous attribute that could by any chance be found in the character of any man, and her instinct was to hide it, to smooth things over, to?to go on living the life as she had begun. "Edward, don't say that!" she began namrtnai-c "Vnn will frighten mv mother." "And if I do!" be cried roughly. "It's always mother here, mother there. What do I care whether she's frightened or not?" "You frighten me I" Mary gasped, and in truth she was shaking in every limb, shaking like an aspen leaf in a storm. "I'm glad of that. It's a relief to find I can make you feel something. What did you marry me for?" "You wanted me to marry you," she said unsteadily. "I wanted you! I?I? Yes, and you laid yourself out to please me"? "My God, no I" she cried sharply, forgetting for a moment her policy of conciliation. And then?I don't like to write it; I don't like to think of it? then there was a blow?a fall?and dead silence, only broken by the deep drawn, gasping sobs of an outraged and broken hearted woman. For a moment he said nothing. Then he seemed to pull himself together, and he put out his hand to help her. "I didn't mean to do that," he said shamefacedly. "I ought not to have dene it. You drew it on yourself, Mary, but I'm sorry. Kiss me and be friends." She put his hand aside and rose to her feet without aid, and there they stood facing each other, be flushed and ashamed, she with the mark of his hand upon her face. "You struck me!" she Baid at last. Her whole face and being were changed. From a passive martyr she had become an accusing spirit. "You?struck? me I" The words hissed oat like whips catting through the air. The man shrank a little as he heard. "I forgot myself," he mattered sullenly. "I admit it. I want to be friends." The girl's gray eyes were fixed upon him and seemed to look into his very soul. "Yoa told me yoa woald teach me to love yoa," she said with intense scorn. "Your way is rough and ready. I congratulate yoa apon yoar success." "Mary, "he burst oat. "You never did care?you've cheated me"? "Care?I?" she echoed. "You are strong for a man?I am not even strong for a girl, for all my life*has been pass eu id silling ai a aesa. 1 uu may aiu me if you like. I daresay yon will, and I shall not mind, for at least it will take me ont of this. Bnt at any rate I will tell yon one thing. I have hated myself for not caring. I have never ceased to reproach myself for having loathed yon. Now, with all my heart, I thank God for it" to be continued. NOT AFRAID OF DEATH. Stephen Crane as a Correspondent, Who Was In Cuba During the Late War. Near the close of the war, a group of correspondents in Porto Rico made out a list of the events which, in their opinion, were of the greatest news value during the campaign, and a list of the correspondents, with the events each had witnessed credited to bis name. Judged from this basis, Mr. Crane easily led all the rest. Of his power to make the public see what he sees it would be impertinent to speak. His story of Nolan, the regular, bleeding to death on the San Juan hill is, so far as- I have read, the most valuable contribution to literature that the war has produced. It is only necessary to imagine bow other writers would have handled it, to appreciate that it could not have been better done. His story of the marine at Guantanamo, who stood on the crest of the hill to "wigwag" to the warships, and so exposed himself to the fire of the entire Spanish force, is also particularly interesting, as it illustrates that in bis devotion to duty, and also in his readiness at the exciting moments of life, Crane is quite as much a soldier as the man whose courage he described. He tslls how the marine stood erect, staring through the dust with half-closed eyes, and with his lips moving as be counted the answers of the warships, while innumerable bullets splashed the sand around bim. But it never occurs to Crane that to sit at the man's feet, as be did, close enough to watch bis lips move and to be able to make mental notes for a later tribute to the marine's scorn of fear was equally deserving of praise. Crane was the coolest man, whether army officer or civilian, that I saw under fire at any time during the war. He was most annoyiugly cool, with the assurance of a fatalist. When the San Juan hills were taken, he came up them with James Hare, of Coller's. He was walking leisurely, and though the ' bullets passed continuously, he never once ducked his head. He wore a long rain-coat, and as be stood peering over the edge of the hill, with bis bands in his pockets and smoking his pipe, be was as uuconcerned as though he were gazing at a cinematograph. The fire from the enemy was so heavy that only one troop along the line of the hills was returning it, and all the rest of our men were lying down. General Wood, who was then colonel of the Rough Rides, and I were lying on our elbows at Crane's feet, and Wood ordered him also to lie down. Crane pretended not to hear, and moved further away, still peering over the hill with the same interested expression. Wood told him for (he second time that if he did not lie down be would be killed ; but Craue paid no attention. So, iu order to make him take shelter, I told him that he was trying to impress us with bis courage, and that if he thought be was making me feel badly by walking about, he might as well sit down. As soon as I told him be was trying to impress us with bis courage, he dropped on his knees, as I had hoped be would, and we breathed again.?Richard Harding Davis, in Harper's Magazine. FEDERAL CAKE OF GRAVES. U. C. V. Not Enthusiastic Over McKlnley's Proposition. At the morning session of the United Confederate Veterans last Wednesday, General Stephen D. Lee, introduced the following: "Whereas, in Atlanta, Ga., on December^, 1898, the president of the United States of America gave utterance to the sentiment that the time has come when the United States should share in caring for the graves of the Confederate dead, ana "Whereas this utterance of the chief executive of the nation demands from us the survivors of our dead comrades in arms a frank and generous response to so loftly and magnanimous sentiment; therefore be it "Resolved, by the United Confederate veterans in annual convention assembled, That in this act of President McKinley's, and in its reception by our brethren of the uortb, we recognize authoritative evidence that we are again a united people and one in determination to exhibit to the world the gentler as well as the sterner traits of American character, and that we accept the statement of our chief executive in the spirit in which it was made, believing that such legislation by the general government as he has suggested ? would show clearly the advance that the American people have achieved in those higher virtues that adorn a great nation." A motion was made to adopt the report. Dr. J. William Jones moved as an amendment to refer it to the committee on resolutions. J. M. Busbee, of North Carolina, made a spirited speech in which he declared tho line was indelibly drawn between the graves of the north and the south. "The Federal government can decorate the graves of the north ; but the graves of southern heroes are in the keeping of other bands," and waved his hands to the boxes which were filled with ladies. A heated and almost outer uiscussion followed. The amendment was carried, however, practically unanimously, and the resolutions were referred.