Judge — December 1887 — page 14: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

CHRISTMAS “You came for your answer, and it is No!" have spoken to your sex, of which [am sure you are the loveliest representative.” “He talks like a juke,” softly said Farmer Graham's daughter, 0 had cultivated her intellect by frequent indulgence in the ights of the Brookside library, “Oh, w s Reuben in com parison with him? What is Reuben’s farm when I hear the rich- ss of that voice?’ Is the patriarch within ways as hospitable as he has been to-night?” inquired the si “You see the company I was with bu'sted, to use a th | expression, some three weeks ago. I have enjoyed very little sumptuousr appreciate his boundless charit Do you not feel sometimes as if he would fire everything away, even to himself, and so leave you penniless and unprotected ?” ever thus, ‘said the maiden, sighing deeply; “but I ed until the moon came up, and then the stranger rose “You willcome again?” said the maiden, anxiously. “You bet!" was the pointed reply, ‘Or rather, to be more I go, but I return. a juke, and he will comeagain,” said the mai her hands with rapture as she watched him limp sight. As y y on whose face were drawn lines that indi- cated id despair, suddenly stood at her side. “Reuben, ¢ said sternl “have you been dropping ? But no matter. You came for your answer, and itis No!” She turned and sought her chamber, still c’ i her hands and saying to herself, over and over again, * He juke, andhe will come again,” iden, clasping ainfully out of ABOUT THE SAME THING. “2 am going out of the milk: business. «Indeed | What are you going tod am going to serve city customers BaLt— Oh! no great change, then, I suppose you will use the same old pump, and just change the label on your cans?” JUDGE Three o'clock of the Christmas morning. A blustering morn- ing. The frost thick in the water pitcher. There is a stillness over the crusted snow as profound as the rest of the sepulcher. The atmosphere of Farmer Graham's house is like that of the barn slightly removed from it; for the fires are out and the frost is everywhere. There is likewise the strong smell of some strange liquid there. It seems like chloroform. “TL beg the patriarch’s pardon,” said a strange man within the farmer's bed-room to himself, as he moved stealthily about, meanwhile putting on the farmer's overcoat.“ He hasn’t much of a wardrobe, but if I don’t put this on I'll freeze to death. And it's very comfortable!) Hah! his watch. A very fair watch, and it and I will be going presently.” He moved frum place to place and from room to room, silently, swiftly, glidingly, with the confidence of a man of the world and the caution of a cat. He found plate. He found a stocking crammed with bank notes. He found clothes of various kinds. All these he dropped to a stranger outside, and they two presently made their way to a horse and sleigh concealed in a brief stretch of wood$ near by, and drove rapidly away. “I said I would return,” said the juke, “and I am a man of my word; in the language of the other gentleman, Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!” and he blew kisses in the direction of the sleeping patriarch’s home. When Farmer Graham awoke, late, and with a strange fecling of mingled heart-sickness and nausea, he found a note on the table at his bedside. ‘Thus it read Gen'rous an clothes is better. Tc butitwill do. Your k your noble daughter. each an’ to awl. “It is the juke!” exclaimed the maiden Graham when she read these brief lines, “Them is his hand and his peculiar spell- ing. No other man could write like that.” And she fainted. “Soho !” exclaimed Farmer Graham, been exchanging lettérs with him, has she? This foolishnes: gone far enough; we must ha Reuben and his farm to square these losses. Hello, without there ! send for Reuben! ch_is of some value, but the i ad the privilidg, e my compliments to ‘An’ Merry Christmas, patriark—Merry Christmas to Waugh ! piled high. soughing and shri Christmas wind ran wild. The Christmas snow rdness against weirdness in the sighing and ing of the Christmas imps of the Christmas atmosphere. Drift upon drift in the country roads, and revelation upon revelation of the long and striped Christmas stocking as the Christmas sleighs went over and the Christmas drivers swore, “Has Reuben come?” inquired Farmer Graham, as the Christ- mas lights began to reach up from the primitive Christmas tallow and twinkle through the Christmas darkness. “He is here.” “Have you borrowed a sufficiency of plate and crockery w make a respectable show at the Christmas wedding-festival—and have my garments arrived so that I may be attired as becomes a father-in-law ?—for, behold you, the juke has robbed me almost to my night-shirt.” “We have.” “Then let the proceedings begin, and heap high the logs on the hearth, the meat on the platter,the apples in the bowl, and the cider in the pitcher, and let there be such a roar of good cheer that Santa Claus wilt open wide his eyes in sheer astonishment.” * * ’ That Christmas night, as Reuben held his bride to his breast, he inquired casually, “And what of the juke?” ‘Have no fear of him,” said the maiden, with trusting and im- plicit confidence. “I am sure, dear, that he will not return again. And the Christmas logs below roared for a moment, then flickered, and then went out in Christmas darkness. comicbooks.com