The Argosy, Vol. XXIV, No. 3 — page 73: what you’re looking at

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

CONTENTMENT. 457 odor had floated around me all the way, as if some power sought to force , my dull memory to recognition of the real clue tothe mystery. Yet, there was no May apple any way near enough for its scent to have reached me, and I did not wear the coat in which I had carried the one I found in the mattress. When Mr. Arney returned to me, I gave him the rifle, which he took~ mechanically, and stood watching me, in evident surprise, as I stooped down and drew the wilted leaves and limp stalk of the plant out of the stump. Something clung to its root and was drawn out with it—the chain attached to my watch. With a cry of exultation I could not repress, I thrust my hand deep in the cavity and brought out the lost wallet ! I was the only one who had any idea of how it got there. Of course, I could not know positively, but I believe that I, myself, had hidden it in that place. _When a boy I had been a somnambulist, but the doctors told my mother I would outgrow the habit, and I supposed I had done so. But my nervous excitement, that Sunday evening, doubtless provoked a return of it. I had climbed out of the window, found a hiding place for my valuables, and gone to bed again, all ina dream, of which I hadno remembrance upon ‘awaking. The saving of the May apple was probably the product of a lingering impression of fondness, in waking consciousness, for that wild fruit. Jacob and the judge, seeing my excited action, joined us just as I drew out the wallet. The young man refused to take the shot at me, which I offered to stand, to give him satisfaction for the wrong I had done him, and we have been warm friends ever since. Not until long after Mary and I were married did he tell me why he tapped my breast that night. He had been in love with her all his life, but his affliction prevented his thinking of making her his wife. Tortured as he was by jealous pain at seeing me her accepted lover, his deepest concern was for her and he meant to ask me seriously, man to man, if in my heart I loved her truly. Accustomed as he was to the quick understanding of his panto- mime by all his family, it did not occur to him that I could not catch his_ meaning. So, when I nodded, he went his way resignedly. J. HI. Connelly. CONTENTMENT. If all our lives were one broad glare Of sunlight, clear, unclouded ; If all our paths were smooth and fair, By no soft gloom enshrouded ; If all life’s flowers were fully blown Without the sweet unfolding, And happiness were rudely thrown On hands too weak for holding— Should we not miss the twilight hours, The gentle haze of sadness? Should we not long for storms and showers To break the constant gladness ? CONnnicGlOoks.cO