The Widowed Bride — page 16: what you’re looking at

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

THE WIDOWED BRIDE.’ 7 splendid? Grandpapa, we never saw any such butterflies when we lived up among the mountains.” Jason Garfield did not answer. In truth and in fact he heard not a word of the children’s merry babble as he plodded on over the level roadsthat had been familiar to his feet years and yearsago. Just then he was existing not so much in the present as in the past. ‘‘T wonder what she will say to me?” he thought. “Sheu be angered sore, I’m afeared—and she wasn’t a woman any one would like to face in her angry moods—but it isn’t na- ture to expect a man to keep away from his own native _ place forever. I could have lived in them furrin’ parts, but when it came to die there—and I mistrust me the end isn't far off now, for I’ve lived my three-score years and ten, and the old machinery’s pretty well-nigh rusted out. I wouldn’t betray her, but I can’t die with that secreton mysoul. No, no; [’ll give it back-to her—I'll give it back to her, and— ‘Give what bask, grandpapa?” asked a small, wondering voice, and little Alice’s blue-gray eyes gazed up into his own. ‘‘Grandpapa, what are you talking about?” ‘Was I taiking?” said the old man, with a guilty flush on his cheek. ‘‘Some nonsense—some old song I used to hum, hke enough, when I wasa boy. Don’t you pay no attention to what the oid man says, Allie—run on with your sister.” ‘T don’t want to run,” said the child, ‘‘my foot is sore. Did my father and mother live hereabouts, too, grand- apar” "HY es, child, yes! where should they live? and what makes you ask such silly questions?” “YT don’t know,” said Alice, mechanically, catching at _ the poppies that nodded their scarlet heads from the hedge rows as they passed. ‘‘l suppose I was thinking about my “mother. It would be nice to have a mother, wouldn't it, grandpapa—a real mother all to myself, like other little girls?” But before Jason Garfield could frame an answer, Rena, standing on the rise of a hill a few rods beyond, beckoned eer her small hands, and called to her sister with noisy de- ight. “Oh, come Allie, come! I see such a queer old church, with the steeple all covered with ivy, and a great, deep porch, where we can all sit down and rest on the stone steps. May we rest there, grandpapa?” (eo palielovore) <arere)