Storyteller.

Southern Cross, Volume 1, Issue 20, 12 August 1893, Page 13

Storyteller.

SETTLED OUT OP. COURT; (Detroit Free -Press.;) A divorce case is a rarity in the courts of the mountain districts of Kentucky, yet sometimes, among those persons living near the country towns, ' where lawyers congregate, such a legal proceeding occurs., Mr ana Mrs Harvey Looker were of this class. They lived near a country town, and had lived there for twenty years, very ~ comfortably, and had accumulated. some property. A difference arose between them, however, and they agreed to a division; of the property and a divorce.., Harvey let his wife have the house they had always lived in, and on that half bf the farm it was agreed should he his he built a log cabin for himself and transferred to it his share of the hpuseho|d effects. Bach one secured ia lawyer to attend to the legal part of the affair, and then they waited for developments. For the first month Harvey did very nicely in his new home, and was apparently quite well satisfied. The second month he was. lonesome, and. every evening he could be seen sitting in front of his cabin gazing longingly toward the much, better house iri which his wife lived. If she appeared at any time about her house, however, Harvey dodged out of sight and tried to make himself believe that Mandy was a woman any man ought to be 1 glad he had got rid of. He held frequent consultations with his lawyer, after each of which he felt betteh, but as the rough winter days came on, and he could not get into town so often, - and the long winter evenings shut him in by his fireside, Harvey felt sometimes that perhaps Mandy wasn’t quite as hard to get along with as some other things he knew of. One day he went to town for consultation, because he couldn’t stand it any longer, aud when he returned later in the afternoon he looked as if he had been, through a threshing mill, but here was a satisfied atmosphere about him which had not been there in the morning. After he had smoothed himself out a little at his cabin, he started off to his wife’s house. It was growing dark rapidly, and Mandy’s light streamed from the w'indovv that led Harvey from the gate to the house. He knocked nervously at the door—the door that he had opened so many times as his own. “ Who’s thar ?” called Mandy from within. “ It’s me,” responded Harvey, with a nervous jerk to his voice, that frightened him. “ Who’s me P ” “ Don’t you know me, Man—Mrs Looker P It’s Harvey.” “ Oh,” he could hear her say, as she unfastened the door, but he could not find much welcome in it. “ It’s ymi, is it ? ” she continued sharply, as she stood in the doorway with a candle in her hand. “ Yes, Mandy, it’s me,” he confessed awkwardly, without attempting to come beyond the sill. “ Well, what do you w'ant F I thought yon lived down thar by the road. . You hain’t made a mistake in the house, have you P” “ Ho, Mandy, 1 hain’t. I come up to see you about our divorce.” “ I thought the lawyers was tendin’ to that.” “ Your’n is Mandy, I guess,” he said, rather vaguely. “ Ain’t your'n too ?” she asked, manifesting an interest that gave him Some hope. “ No, Mandy, he ain’t. You see, Mandy,” he went on hurriedly, “ I had a talk with him to-day, an’ in the course uv his remarks he said some things about you that I wuzn’t goin’ to stand a minute, from nobody, so I throwed my coat, and I gave him such a whalin’, right thar in his office, that he ain’t agoin’ to be able to ’tend to nobody’s business fer a month, much less mine, so I thought. I’d better come up here an’ see you about it.” She made no reply for several seconds, but there was something in her

face that - .had - not; .beeriith4rei-sißce Harvey went away. “f Been do Ahpper : she! asked abruptly. “ Ho, Mandy,” replied Harvey with a shiver, for it-was cold at the door. : “ Then come in, and we, kin talk it over while we’re eaten’,” and as Harvey sat in the bright light and caught the fragrance of the coffee and the ham, and'Saw theffieecy white biscuits that Mandy set before him, now and then as she moved about, he thought of his cold, cheerless, comfortless cabin, and a great lump came, into his throat, and as Mandy, sat down at the . head of the table, he looked up at her, almost timidly. “Drat the divorce,” she said impetuously. “ Amen,” exclaimed Harvey, and he didn’t go back to his cabin that night, or ever again, except to bring home what was there of his and Mandy’s.