Newspapers / Siler City Leader (Siler … / Dec. 25, 1886, edition 1 / Page 6
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THE TALE OF LIFE Han is to-day what man was yesterdays Will be to-morrow; let him curse or pray Drink or be dull,, he learnt not; nor shall - learn . - The lesson that shall laugh the vrorld away. '.v - .-j The world as gray or just as golden shinera, The wine as sweet or justr as bitter flow3 For you and me; and you, like me, may .find , Perfume or canker in the reddest rose. The tale of life is hard to understand ; But , w".:ile the cup waits ready to your -.hand : : . : ' J Drink, and declare the summer roses blow As red in London as in Samareandj lips are as sweet to kiss and eyes as iright As ever flattered Omar with delight: English or Persian, while the mouth; is fair. What can it matter how it says good night? '.- -:; Justin McCarthy, AN ORANGE HUMMOOE. , BY HAKRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORD. Julian could hardly remember the fine old t'mes before the war, att'iough it could not be said to be the fault of his mother and his elder sisters, or of old Mammy Dinah, all of whom kept the legends of those times pretty constantly before h's eyes and ears. The splendor, the company, the feasts, the slaves, all seemed to him the veriest idle storv hp- side 'he fact of unvarying corn bread and oacon now. i The house was tumbling to pieces; he wondered if there was a worse ruin in all Florida; the almost boundless extent of the lands was uncultivated; the slaves were all goto. r "I don't see why we should be poor," said Jul.an, having made up"his mind i for a good square talk at last, "with all inciana mat is here." 1 mat's half the reason," said his lather. . ' - .- - j . but 1 thought that it was off the land people made their money." 1 " When they already have money and , iuu iianqs wiin wmch. to " c ultivate land. i taites lianas and it tnk-Aa moana .grow, cotton and sugar. l ean hafdly be expected to go to work myself I "1 Then," persisted Julian, j "whv couldn t we hire people, and pay them from the crop when ic comes? " I "You don t know what you are talking about, my son." - "I know we have hundreds of acres of land,! and if they were mine. I think that I could do something with, them.' . "You may do what you please with them," said his father.1 "I give you carte blanche,", and he went back to the reading of the Gongremionalliecad. Or at least he.. would have gone back, if Julian wou d have let him. But! Julian had not begun to talk without being very much in earnest, and now he meant to go through. ' ' . ' "Well," he said laughing, "carte Tjlanehe is a good thing to have, but one needs some help to do anything with even that. I think if you will Jet me hare the hummock in OfcemnlknVpi Js-vergade, and will lend old Dandridge and me" "Old Cyrus! What would Cy to mother do without him, and whati would your .Kachel and Rebecca do? -The orilv of all the hands that has stayed faithful rw lis ' "V. - j . j t . t .... w . xvu tau uo nommg witnout capital." J "But Northern people come here, and seem sure of doing well. And we have the land they come to buy. That's cap ital. If you lend old Cy to Dan and me, vrc won't ask you for more, fori we've been saving our edd pennies for this, and we've got enough to buy all the grafts we want, and Col. Burbeck will give us som 3 besides." I "Grafts (" said his father, pushing up his silver-bowed spectacles in perplexitv. "urausf ' "Yes." "What crafts?" are you going to do with "Look at them," said Julian, with a gTin. "So i ree you'll lend me Cy. What if Rachel went along with usj" ! "Your mother might not approye." "3Iother"ll appro f&t inough, I reckon, when we're g5i&g five-thousand a year." -;. - v.-- j ' "five thousand "a year!" cried his father, letting the Congressional Record fall. "Have you gone daft, Julian?" "Well, father," said Julian, with a great laugh, throwing back the dark curl that was always dropping into bis eyes, Til send for you to make us a visit on the big hummock in Okemotkokee Ever glade by-and-by, and then we'll see." , yi don't know about it ; I don't know," said his father, picking up the scattered leaves of his cherished document. But Julian knew that his father would lend bid Cy to Danbridge and himsplf, and he made his preparations for the enter prise, saying little or nothing. Rachel had already agreed to come to them whenever they should send for her. it was a week from that day that. with a pack of simple provisions, with riCes, picks, hatchets and pruning knives, and some ! twine hammocks in addition, Julian and his party started on their excursion, as they called it, Julian carrying on his back greatly to old Cy's disturbance, but, then, old Cy couldn't carry everything himself a bundle wrapped in moss, which he gayly de clared they must save first in case of fire, for it was all their fortune, j 4Bre33 yer heart,' honey;" said old Cy, where's dis yer fire gwino to be, onlest Mars Dan knocks my pipe onto a cypress tree? An' it's so damp in dese yer swamps, 'spect it'll put de pipe out any how." '-' ! They made their beds that night in the hammocks that t he v slung high in the boughs, and that Julian had brought along against the wishes of old Cy, who thought a bed of broken boughs fit for a king, snakes or not: j What a scene it I was on which their eyes opened in the early morning! Ce dars supurb as the ! cedars of Lebanon, dropping great circles of shade, the huge live-oaks, trembling with webs and fes tcons of grey moss, that made sheets of diamonds as it swung in the sun, here and there a palm-tree, lifting its green crown in the clear air, and vistas into the rich vendure of the swamp beyond, gay with every color, and sweet with every scent of honey moon suckle, vanilla, heliotrope, and great unknown flowers. ; In and out the thickets flashed wings like jewels; scarlet flamingoes stood in the poX)ls, the great white heron rose heavily, and little alligators, that looked as if they were living bronze', crept up to sun themselves on the banks. After they had finished their frugal breakfast, and rolled their hammocks in the smallest knot they could make, they pushed on after old Cyrus, who knew the paths and by-paths to everywhere, and they were only a week on their way, adding to their larder jgame brought down by their rifles before they came up from the swamp they had skirted, and found themselves on the hummock of Okemolkokee Everglade. What a strange place it was, and what a wilderness of wealth it looked to Julian ; It was a slight elevation, but a few feet in all above the swamp, and its rich lands had become a forest of the bitter wild orange, at present of no good to anybody, except in - its season of hloom, wh:n the rapturously delicious fragrance drifted for miles on the soft air. i "We will explore a mile or two to day," fa:d Julian, "and mark the trees we think best to keep, and thin out all It was a busy.day they had of it, and many a busy day that followed, while they let -sun and j air into the great thicket, and, as far as possible, saved trees in the regularity tbey would have had if set out in an orchard. Three or four times before they finished Cyrus left them and returned for provisions, the second time bringing his son Darius with him: ; And s.t last the wilderness was cleared, and every tree remaining in the first sestion had received the bud of the sweet orange,1 which had been the precious freight of wrapped bundle. I Julian's moss- "Now,'! said Julian, "while these'are accommodating themselves to the new circifmtances, we will go ahead and clear out next year's extension. I don't know exactly how long this hummock is, but in time I mean to get all the worthless growth cleared out of so much of it as belongs to father, if its ten miles, and every tres left grafted, and we'll have every so; t of orange that grows : the blood-red Maltese, the spicy little Mandarin, and .all the rest.. This is better than standing behind counters or over desks, isn't it, Dan i" "Heap sweeter work than picking cot ton on the field honey," said old Cy. What a day it was to the boys and the : old j Vant when the ' whole orange for est, as far as eye could see, burst out in Cower, with such a blossoming as would have wreathed all the brides of the earth Tfith snowy sprays, and -whose rich, rare odors one would think might have sailed over the seas themselves, and penetrated foreign countries with their sweetness. "Now," said Julian, to his brother and confidante, "we want to be fit for time. Dr. Yancey has bonks enough, and he'll tell us what to read, and we'll go and see him and begin to get an edu cation." And so much of their plan a this they announced to the family. "I'm sure I don't secj what you can be thinking about,' whimpered his sistei Frarnie, "when we're all but starving.r B it Rachel was the only one who took hold of the books with them, nd la bored along as near them as she cold fol low; and before the year was out it was surprising how much those lads and iht young girl had put into their memories.! Twice a year Julian and Dan and old Cj and Darius went off on what their mot hei called their wicked and idle shooting, for which she didn't see why their fathei was willing to spare them old Cy. Bui the father kept the secret.' They believed ifr would make the mother hppy enough by-and-by. : Some years later, they set out early one morning for the! oransre hummock, the father having left a note for the mother, saying that he was going with the boy?, and go'ng to take Rachel. t . Nobody enjoyed the jwhole enterprise more than Rachel, who was a helpful little body, and knew of countless meth ods of adding to theirj comfort on the way. Her own comfort was secured by the little donkey that Cy had borrowed of Dr. Yancey and on.whi h she rode. "You'llhavc to be a lot of use, Rachel, as soon as we get there," said Julian, "and so has Mr. Father!" , But when she did get there, she found as romantic, a littla hut), made of orange boujrhs, with two rooms in it, too, that the bovs had made for her the last time they were there, as onei could have out of a fairy story; and (long before she reached the place she could have found the way by the odors jb'owing toward her ; and when, all at once, the orange forest not an orange-grove or planta tion, but the orange-forest burst upon her in full gorgeous fruit she could have cried with rapture, only she knew her father liked to have herj staid and quiet. Bufc she knew she had cpme to help them gather their fortune, and all hands be gan at once. ; j "We made a raft, you see, father," said Julian, "the last time we were here, too, and we can float it; and there is a raft tied up under the bjushe? there, and that will let us into the water ways to the St. John's. If. we sell our oranges well, we'll have a better equipment next year. After that, patience, patience, father! When we've rafted down one lot we'll come back for the next. When those first old Spanish colonists, three hundred years ; ao, brought over a few orange shoots from Seville, di you believe it ever occurred to them that such a forest as this would find a place here?" It was all a Julian jt-aid, and when they had finished their voyaging and sold the last orange, the boys went back with their father,' and made their mother a visit, and stopped all her reproaches by telling her their storir. Shortly after that, masons and carpenters and garden- ers were at work upon the house and the grounds; and then thej boys had taken. servants and mules with them, and had gone bick to the Okemolkokee hum mock, and Racbeb wijth her mother's consent,! had gone along, to keep the mildew olf, Dan said, w!hile they cleared out the hummock farther along, grafting new trCes and tending old ones, and read their books at night, (by the light of burning pitch-pine knots, before the lit tle hut in the centre -of their orange- trees, that seemed to bud and bloom as if they knew the work jthey were doing for the family that had two such sons and such a daughter as Rachel, in it. It was a half-dozen yjears later, that I met at Ne w Orleans a stately old gentle man, dressed faultlessly!; on his arm wa3 a pale and graceful lady whose face, happy and smiling though it wasbore traces of old discontent and sorrow: a group of young people in There was the distance, busy over trunks and bas kets and wraps, Frarnie and Rebecca, and little Rachel, grown as tall and handsome as they, and their pert and pretty quadroon waiting maid; and James, who had grandly thrown up the place under Government, anxiety to keep which had once nearly woru his life out; and the two boys, who had forgotten there was such a thing as a shop counter or an oyster-scow; and Dariu, grinning like a masque and old Cy, hovering round Julias and Dandrigde as if they were the chief treasures of the family, and losing them one lost orange groves and all. J "Yes, said the stately old gentleman, "yes, we are on the way to see the boys off to Europe, to give them the advan tages of the best education. Splendid bys, sirfdeserTe the best there is, and I am able to give it to them," and they ihall have it. ' . "Am I still in the cotton business? Oh, no; the cotton business left me with the war. I am largely interested in orange growing. My boys fine ycung men early turned their attention to the wi!d bitter orange on my waste lands, and thanks to them I mean, thanks to Julian and Dandri lge there you will hardly believe it, but I receive more than ten thousand dollars a year clear profit from my orange groves ." The steamer bore away over the ola Spanish main, to Gibraltar and Genoa, two promising young men, if young they might be called, when nearly thirty. Ten years had changed their fortune. The old hummock still blossoms and bears, and becomes a richer income year ly, and is likely to do .so until "th boys" are o'.d.-r-Youth's Companioiu Beeclier ou Gladstone. . Her. Henry Ward Becsher heard ex Premier Gladstone speak at Liverpool, and writes h:s impressions of the great Engli3h leader for the New York World as. follows: 1 i Taking ther address as a whole, and comparing it with the elaborate efforts of such an American as Dani.l Webster, or with some of the old Greek orators, it could scarcely be said to have the form and finish that applies to many of the masterpieces of eloquence. Judging of it? effect on myself, a stranger, a for eigner, one not well versed in the details -which he discussed, I found myself, nevertheless, glowing with the sympathy of the audience and in full admiration of this remarkable man. Wh .tevermay be the issue of the great question upon which he ha? expended his genius, which he regards as his last great life's work the emancipation of Ireland there can be no doubt that Gladstone is pre-eminently the central figure in the politics of Great Britain, and that he also i3 or has been a leading figure in the affairs of 'all Europe. 1 Hi i veriatirty is proverbial. His knowledge of classical languages and of modern languages, which is not so pro found or so minute as that of many other men. is, nevertheless, remarkable. There are few subjects which interest thinking men to-day about which he cannot wisely and instructively discourse. His memory is something prod:gious. His command of material very strik'ng; his accuracy in statement marvclou. He impresses one as a far-seeing and comprehensive statesman, void of the arts of politicians, in deep earnest and with stiong moral . convictions. ! . Mr. Gladstone seems to be a man, I should say, of about five feet ten inches in height. He is active, supple and erect; capable of enduring great fatigue, quite clastic in spirits, genial and social. His head is said to be a Websterian head, but in my judgment it will hardly tear that comparisou.. The lines upon his face are fctrong; his features are large, and, being nearly bald, the impression, of the height of his foreheap is apt to b3 exaggerated. A strong nose, a mouth fine.-jbut Very firm, the chin only moder ately full. Altogether a striking head and physiognomy. I met hiai subsequently at his own dwelling in London at a breakfast. He was very simple and unpretentious in his manner; grave anyl very dignified, yet familiar. I cannot say that he is a good conversationalist, bat he is an ex cellent talker. Although there were several gentleman present, pretty much all the discourse fell from his lips. Mr. Gladstone has not e caped very bitter detraction. . The hatred of him on some sides is intense and even malig nant. Even his personal morality has not "escaped virulent criticism. It is probable that no statesman for the last hundred years has been subjected to greater abuse and vindictive 'misrepre sentations.. To me he seemed like a great man seeking great ends and by very noble measures and from pure motives. Whatever may be the outcome of the present struggle, I think it beyond all controversy that when the rights of Ireland are acknowhdged and estab lished all men will see that the redeem ing measures must be traced back to the wisdom of William E. Gladstone. A high class weekly, something after the style of the London Saturday Jleeiete, will soon make its appearance in this city. The proprietor will be Dewitt J. Seligman, a son of the wealthy banker and himself a millionaire. The new journal will contain short articles on poli tics, society, art and literature, supple mented by brief debates on current topics by well known writers, and a short story In every number.
Siler City Leader (Siler City, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
Dec. 25, 1886, edition 1
6
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