Part 5 (2/2)
”Great Tecumseh!” said Cousin Ephraiot a little mite too hot I callated she'd capitulate in the end, but she held out uncoly
”I--I was tellin' Bob I hain't got nothin' against him,” continued Ephrai in spite of herself, and glancing at Bob, ”is that all you can say?”
”Cousin Eph's all right,” said Bob, laughing too ”We understand each other”
”Callate we do,” answered Ephraio so far as to say there hain't nobody I'd ruther see you o back to the kit, now What's to become of the old pensioner, Cynthy?”
”The old pensioner needn't worry,” said Cynthia, Then drove up Silas the Silent, with Bob's buggy and his black trotters All of Braht see theot out,--his presence not being required,--and Cynthia was helped in, and Bob got in beside her, and away they went, leaving Ephrai his stick after theainst the black trotters that they h I cannot discover that either of them was lame Lem Hallowell, as there nearly an hour ahead of them, declares that the off horse had a bunch of branches in his mouth Perhaps Bob held them in on account of the scenery that September afternoon Incomparable scenery! I doubt if two lovers of the renaissance ever wandered through a more wondrous realm of pleasance-- to quote the words of the poet Spots in it are like a park, laid out by that peerless landscape gardener, nature: dark, symmetrical pine trees on the sward, and reat oaks on the hillsides, and, coppices; and beyond, the reens massed like cloud-shadows on its slopes; and all-trees and coppice and mountain --flattened by the haze until they seereens into one exquisite picture of an ancient tapestry I, myself, have seen these pictures in that country, and h that realm, which was to be their realreen Leh incredible news, that Cynthia Wetherell was to marry the son of the mill-owner and railroad president of Brampton, and it seemed to Cynthia that every athered at the store Although she loved theht sight of that group on the platform, and he spoke to the trotters Thus it happened that they flew by, and were at the tannery house before they knew it; and Cynthia, all unaided, sprang out of the buggy and ran in, alone She found Jethro sitting outside of the kitchen door with a volue, and she knew that the book was ”Robinson Crusoe”
Cynthia knelt down on the grass beside hiht his hands in hers
”Uncle Jethro,” she said, ”I aton”
”Yes, Cynthy,” he answered And taking the initiative for the first time in his life, he stooped down and kissed her
”I knew--you would be happy--inin her eyes
”N-never have been so happy, Cynthy,--never have”
”Uncle Jethro, I never will desert you I shall always take care of you”
”R-read to me sometimes, Cynthy--r-read toon the pages of that book he had given her--long ago
I like to dwell on happiness, and I arown to love Jethro Bass lived to take Cynthia's children down by the brook and to show them the pictures, at least, in that wonderful edition of ”Robinson Crusoe” He would never depart from the tannery house, but Cynthia went to him there, many times a week There is a spot not far from the Coniston road, and five miles distant alike froton built his house, and where he and Cynthia dwelt o there to this day, in the suround in front of it slopes down to Coniston Water, artificially widened here by a stone dam into a little lake Fros the lake there is a wonderful view of Coniston Mountain, and Cynthia Worthington often sits there with her sewing or her book, listening to the laughter of her children, and thinking, soone days
AFTERWORD
The reality of the foregoing pages has to the author, at least, beco to add an afterword Every novel is, to some extent, a compound of truth and fiction, and he has done his best to picture conditions as they were, and to make the spirit of his book true Certain people ere living in St Louis during the Civil War have been inals of characters in ”The Crisis,” and there are houses in that city which have been pointed out as fitting descriptions in that novel An author has, frequently, people, houses, and localities in es them, sometimes very materially, in the process of literary construction
It is inevitable, perhaps, that nize Jethro Bass There are different opinions extant concerning the reinal of this character; ardent defenders and detractors of his are still living, but all agree that he was a strange reat power The author disclairaphy of his set down in this book he did, and others he did not do So him are, in the es his indebtedness particularly to Colonel Thomas B Cheney of Ashland, New Hampshi+re, and to other friends who have helped him Jethro Bass was typical of his Era, and it is of the Era that this book atte the locality where Jethro Bass was born and lived, it will and will not be recognized It would have been the extrees any portraits which ht have offended families or individuals, and in order that it may be known that the author has not done so he has written this Afterword Nor has he particularly chosen for the field of this novel a state of which he is a citizen, and for which he has a sincere affection The conditions here depicted, while retaining the characteristics of the locality, he believes to be typical of the Era over a large part of the United States
Many of the Puritans who carate fro the forelock as well as by religious principles, and the spirit of these ht Such men lived and ruled in Coniston before the rise of Jethro Bass
Self-examination is necessary for the moral health of nations as well as ns that in the United States we are to-day going through a period of self-examination
We shall do well to ascertain the causes which have led us gradually to stray from the political principles laid down by our forefathers for all the world to see Some of us do not even knohat those principles were I have ent men, in different states of the Union, who could not even repeat the naress Macaulay said, in 1852, ”We no, by the clearest of all proof, that universal suffrage, even united with secret voting, is no security, against the establishment of arbitrary power” To quote Jaun obscurely to recognize thatpopular government is not in itself a panacea, is no better than any other form except as the virtue and wisdom of the people make it so”
As Aoes down in its foundations to the solid rock of truth One of the best reasons for our belief lies in the fact that, since 1776, governovernment has imitated our example We have, by our very existence and rise to power, ression from these doctrines impossible So many people have tried to rule theins to believe that the time is not far distant when the United States, once the most radical, will become the most conservative of nations
Thus the duty rests to-day, ood to the world those principles upon which his governested by the calamity which has lately befallen one of the most beloved of our cities, there is a theory that earthquakes are caused by a necessary ain its axis Whether or not the theory be true, it has its political application In Aain the true axis established for us by the founders of our Republic
HARLAKENDEN HOUSE, May 7, 1906