Newspapers / Oxford Public Ledger (Oxford, … / June 13, 1914, edition 1 / Page 2
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PUBLIC LEDGER SATURDAY, JUNE 13TI1, 1914. Bf . " I ki POULTRY X II " rV exhibits .J i1: fh V ' I 1I1LE illlill ft AN SETTER . 1 F.S 1 " ' ' i OTOQ INCREASED INTEREST ALONG ALL LINES. THE LADIES ARE ALREADY PLANMIG FOR LARGER AND BETTER EXHIBITS FINE STOCK EXHIBITS A hi - I IThe Mistake i of Her Life It Was Rectified by a Third Party By MAY C. ETHERIDGE I am fond of motoring and am con sidered about as good a driver as any woman in the town in which I live. In summer I make long tours, some- I times extending over several weeks. One night while touring I stopped at a neat-rfarmhouse, the owner and sole occupant of which was a young woman about twenty-seven and come ly, but there was a dissatisfied expres sion on her face as though she had met with, some serious disappointment. She told me her name was Elizabeth Wyman; her father and mother were dead and had left her the property on which she lived a dairy farm. She had nothing to complain of except lone liness. I suggested that an.attractlve young woman with a nice farm should have no trouble in getting a good hus band, the best panacea for loneliness. This brought about a confidence which resulted in her giving me the cause of her disappointed look. 'The trouble about men," she said, "is' that they don't understand us wo men." : "And perhaps," I interrupted, women don't understand men." "When I was a girl living here with my parents a man named Warren bought a farm down where the road crosses the creek. He had a son nam ed Abner. I first met Abner Warren at a cofhhusking, and he picked me out among all the girls present, danc ing with me oftener than with any of the rest of them. He- seemed then to be a fine, manly fellow who could look any one straight in the eye. He didn't treat me right afterward, but however he acted he had that same honest pride in his look. "Two or three of the girls made a dead set' for him, and Agnes Walker got him. I thought at the, time she must have managed it very adroitly, and couldn't understand his erigag- r "i BPOKB OF HER IN VERY HIGH TERMS." ing himself to her when he had at least on our first acquaintance favor ed me. Agnes was not well liked by us girls, and that was another reason why I was surprised at Abner's en gaging himself to her. "The engagement between these two didn't last long. I never understood why it was broken, and no one else seemed to know. Abner never said a word about it. As for Agnes, all she would say was that she didn't care. It was whispered aboutthat she didn't confine her loveniaking to Abner, and he objected to having to divide it with some one else. It .was the general im pression that Agnes was one of that kind of girls who make, or seem to make, easy conquests of men, but who don't seem to have the faculty of hold ing them after they get them. "As soon as Aner Warren broke with Agnes he renewed his attentions to me. I was' glad enough to get him back, though his affair with her left a ecar in me. He was very, respectful to me as well as attentive, and it was not long before he proposed to me. Before I accepted him I told him I thought I had a right to know what had passed .between him and Agnes. He replied that he didn't think I had any such right. I gave up the point, though I was not' satisfied to do so, and we became engaged. " . "All went well with tis till -one day Bettie Underwood came to see me, os tensibly ; to talk about some church -matter, but I've always believed since that she , had another object in view. While we were talking she asked me if I'd heard that Agnes v Walker and Cyrus Buckley "were engaged. I said I had not, remarking at the same time that if it were so Agnes had not been a long while getting -over her affair with" Abner. Bet replied that Agnes wouldn't marry Abner on any account. Naturally I asked why." . " 'You don't know anything about that matter,' she said. 'You've, doubt less, heard '-Abner's side of the story, but you've never heard Agnes. x " 'I've never heard either side, I re piled. - She went on talking about soma. thing else, but what she had said left a very unpleasant impression on me. I tried not to think of it, but the more I tried to banish it the more it persist ed in coming back to me. At last I could stand it no longer and spoke to Abner about it, telling him what Bet tie Underwood had said. "He seemed ill at ease and tried to turn the matter aside. This made me the more suspicious, and I told him that if he had treated Agnes badly I should know it, for if a man will deal wrongfully with one woman he will do so' with another. To this he replied that a girl about to be married had best leave, alone her lover's previous affairs with women. Her only concern was his treatment of her. "I insisted that he should make a clean breast of it, and he refused. Then I took off the engagement ring he had given me and handed it to him. He looked, at me for a few moments with a sorrowful expression, then told me that I was making, the mistake of my life, and would prove the truth of what he said. He wouldn't treat any woman badly unless she treated him or some one whom he loved badly, and then not for revenge, but for inflic tion of a just punishment. He left me and has never been to see me since." My hostess paused in her story, and I saw that what her lover had said to her was true. She, not he, had made the mistake of a life. Doubtless there was something between him and the girl he had broken with that he could not speak of without casting blame upon her. If both were at fault there was all the more reason that whatever it was it should be kept secret. There are many affairs of little or much im portance that cannot be unraveled without a regular trial, and even then it is often impossible to extract the truth. But I said nothing of this to the sto ry teller at least, not then. I was curious to know what her lover meant by saying that he would prove that she was making a mistake in endeavoring to force him to make a clean breast of his relations with his first fiancee. So I asked her if there was no more to tell. "Yes," she continued, "there is one very important matter to tell. Soon after Abner's parting with me I heard that he had' become attentive to Bettie Underwood. I inquired if Bettie ac cepted his attentions and was inform ed that she was very much pleased with them. Can it be, I thought, that she will engage herself to the man against whom she had covertly warned me? I had not long to wait for an answer -to my question. It was soon generally understood that Abner and Bettie were engaged. One day I met Bet in the street and asked her if the report was true. She said it was and flounced away from me, evidently de siring to avoid a discussion of what she knew I had on my mind." Again the narrator paused, and asked her if she had finished her story. "There is little more to tell," she said. "The engagement between Ab ner and Bettie lasted just one month when it was broken off. Since Abner never came to see me after I returned my engagement ring I could not ask him what it all meant. I suppose he engaged himself to Bettie to show me how silly I had been to permit her to make a breach between him and me, and that she did it because she wanted him herself.' I doubt if she was a girl of much feeling, for she married some one else within a year after she broke with Abner." I asked Miss Wyman if Abner War ren had maiTied, and she said he had not. He had since inherited the farm on which he lived and kept house alone. Before leaving I asked to be informed of its location, thinking that I would like to meet him. It happened that my route passed his house, and I made up my mind I would find an ex cuse to have a word with bim. I bid my hostess a sympathetic good by, promising to make her a visit on another occasion, then started again on my travels. When I reached the house of Abner Warren I left my car at the gate, and, seeing a man at work, asked him some questions as to the roads I was to traverse. In the course of the conversation I gave him an opportunity to tell me his name and learned that he was the man I sought. Then 1 asked him for a glass of buttermilk and sat on the porch of his house while he got it for me. - ' While drinking the buttermilk I told him that I had been entertained by a Miss Elizabeth Wyman, who lived a few miles down the road, and I spoke of her in very high terms. I told him that I wondered that so lovely and at tractive a woman had not been appro priated and hinted that 1 surmised she had experienced a disappointment. I could not help being amused at the interest he took in the subject, and when I added that Miss Wyman was one of those" true women who when they gave their hearts away would never withdraw them I hoped he would give me his confidence, but he did not, proving himself to be the kind of man I supposed him to be from the story I had heard. However, I thought it quite probable from - the effect my words produced on him that something would come of my effort. I left him without having given, him any reason to suspect that I knew his secret. What I said to him bore quick fruit, for, returning that way, I stopped at Miss Wyman's and found a great change in her. "What do you think has happened hince you were here?" she asked, her race lighted by a radiant smile. "What?" I asked. "Abner Warren has been to see me." "You don't mean it? And all is made up?" .. ' . "Yes, and we are engaged again "The Lord be praised!" j !H!?AY NIGHT SEEMONS lip THE BIRDS or t. Text, "Behold the l Z , Matt vi, 26. of the air,". There must be a .nel nf ,Ki Christ seemed to be fo,- 5,.th,a sons in objects about him n H cation is that we. too. ou'-bft' ?'! lessons from all We ..J , 0 dra the bee that can lT flower, we ought to w r from every source. m back our image, so a'iVatmT,, cloud, leaf, tree, floati',,, In sunshine, flju,, v Z. ? evening sky, give ba,k io and speak to us i an emblem of the Sun of ness, rock of God's .tmiitv. u.it , leaf emblem of hu,: , !lft! ) Christ says, "Behold uirC 0M? air." And of all livi,,, ,,.at seem more like spiritual beings d tures of earth and heaven, hovering ! tween the two. There is a fasci in study of their habils and bodi structure They are to the anima world what flowers are to the vee table, precious stones to the mineral what brilliant rainbow is to the dark ened sky. Flower, perfume, sin!ns birds, arched bow, are added touches of nature from the fingers of God's love. I like the bird fv..n,i., ' , ..nuuiu ironi care. Whether migrating north , south, it Is with happy voices of pa gnms. xwo Homes have they, one here another there. Born into one. when winter comes something calls them to a sunnier clime. Get that, Christian- child of two worlds? A Lesson In Faith. TtT ' i . l . . .... iotice tneir brilliant robes. All the artists in the world couldn't equal In delicacy of color peacock's feather or silvery light about dove's neck. Will God not provide garments of imnioru splendor for the soul poisl for eternal flight? Sometimes food is plentiful sometimes scarce, for the little sons sters. They chirp content on emptj stomach or full one. Itccently, vhilt the snow was yet on the ground, I m my first robin of the season. He bow ed and chirruped with a grace and aii dacity and courage that seemed to say, "You may think it's winter, hut 1 know better." I looked all around and there wasn't one living thing besides him self that gave evidence that spring would ever come. The trees looked as lifeless as dead sticks. Not a hud was swollen with hope or promise; not even a crocus bud dared to thrust its nose throusrh the cold earth. As I walked down the street ray heart was lighter. I said: "That robin redbreast knows better than I if it is true that spring is near. He has" the faith to sing be fore there is anything visible to sing about. He sees the spring and summer while it is yt cold and dark." Than you, Mr. Robin Redbreast, for your lesson of faith. 1 know that faith Is the evidence of things not yet seen Th Winas of the Almighty w David prayed to be kept under the shadow of God's wings. U yearaws heart of fiod, whatever is meant bj wing of mother bird warmtn, sneiiu. nearness of love-all is realized for the human soul under the shadow of the wings of the Almighty. Are we a.t, i. sif lnnVn 1,TW? Get irom iue jusutc vm. - to the mercy seat. Cowering 1 xi .1 r.fnvm rf !lltlrlll sh? for the secret place of the tabernacj .1.. TTtfrii a we surrounaeu oi ine luusi iiu- .ii by strife of tongues? From that W . vmir mountain Diast nee as a unu - to the hidtng Place under the shadow of God's wing quiet That as cod- t.riror slow ns fli'-rht of crow. f han ns rliiilit of swallow. wing is broad as eagle's, st. ms dor's. "Not a sparrow fnliotb. J the word. That means care. jv Ull U 11 " : mother n n. :t. ,n tn Till ut;i'.' Its young; u - ; , the Darn ooor. i , ; her, she is back. The flattering x. iiu.r s-nre are stilled as me ""'L"v' '.r(,yoii her wings. God seeros to for a time. He'll return J -i may endure the night; joy come the morning." "Behold the Birds of the He" Behold them! They are uj nest making or food ste i nirllL iiw " . do not turn uuy w " into day. There ts into day. 'lueie mUst picS thein. .Every grown bird must lilt' them. n.very K"wli v" . .' . All i-l.if Qlsk own living, ah hW ninnn Tiirv I lit: CliVli. LJ J ns -Mate me iuu - ries in their gilded cages. the bat, half bird. f IS ture neither of earth nor the Christian holding on v heaven: I dislike the vulture. . folks f dead. Une tnints Vfl'ngs r prey on character and it- a fw weeks ago a bat , j bird; fattens-on tee ca t, rand. One thinks oi " ' : 0f ju ) a b dancl hid sometime before I could d iorb r-nme in and Ali"'h() ers. A few week my the in my soui. inoiu. , : : n ; night, do eru1r: T .ve sunshine in my soll. V X one Is a sacrificial bird, like w vulture and hawk oftbe at Golgotha. It is ej. ri-h love nie , bed or ayiuB , ffllra its flight pd like bird , ,ie top. spirit win i:; t -Jijjf!,r. call of ansei ni land-and shewa!i3----
Oxford Public Ledger (Oxford, N.C.)
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June 13, 1914, edition 1
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