The Haplessness of Hezekiah.

Evening Post, Volume LXI, Issue 30, 3 August 1895, Page 1 (Supplement)

The Haplessness of Hezekiah.

I don't know anyone for whom I am sorrier than I am for Hezekiah Heston. Hezekiah is a good fellow and always was, but he never seemed to have the luck a real good man should have, and very often does not. But I have been particularly sorry for him Bince that Kitty Clone affair. Kitty was by all odds the prettiest girl in town, and Hezekiah, like most of the other courting men in that viuinity, fell in love with her. She was tawny haired, with snapping black eyes, and a tongue that was as sharp as a two-edged razor, but she was as bright as a dollar in a basket of chips, and she hod only to smile to have a retinue of men at her beck and nod at once. I stood closer to Hezekiah than any man in town, and practically knew his inmost thoughts. In fact, I was the only one he cinfided in after tho Kitty Clone affair— Kitty, before that, being a little nearer to him, he thought, than I was. He confided the whole sad story to me, and I cannot refrain from telling it now. For some subtle purpose, not at the time apparent, Kitty had indicated very plainly her preference for Hezekiah, and a happier man no one ever saw iv our town. But preference merely was not what Hezekiah sought, and he let her see that quite early. It began to happen one moonlight night on her father's porch, where the honeysuckles clambered over the roof and the • ireet wild rose vine entwined the corner. Through the trellised vines, the silver shafts of the moon shot that soft night in June and fell in sifted strands over Kitty and Hezekiah, sitting in the mellow shadows. If the nightingale had been indigenous to that section I am sure it would have added its liquid notes to the music in Hezekiah's heart, but there was no nightingale, and Hezekiah did not miss it. Kitty was enough for him, and Kitty sat close beside him, and every word she spoke waa a bird song to him. "Did you know, Miss Kitty," he said tentatively, for Hezekiah was not a rash lover, and he had not mentioned the sacred subject of love to her, although he had thought of a thousand ways by which he might, and had thrown them all aside when the time came, " Did you know that I have something to say to you P" "Well," she twinkled, "I should hope you had, Mr. Heston. I'm sure I don't want to do aU the talking." " I could listen to you if you did, I am sure," he replied, with a halting helplessness of manner that mtn have sometimes in the moonlight. " That sounds so much like sweethearts' talk," she twittered, as she shook the gold of her pretty hair out into the line of the silver light with its scent of honeysuckles and roses. "Perhaps it is," he ventured, doubtfully. "But I am sure you don't want to talk such nonsense to me," she protested. "Why not?" he asked, so promptly that he frightened himself. But not Kitty ; oh, no. "Because," she answered, "we have known eachother solong that it would sound Billy for you to say such things to me." ' ' Must a man select a stranger if he wants to confide to a woman all that is in his heart f " he enquired with a gravity that made her laugh. "Oh, I suppose not. Still it doesn't seem quite natural for you to make love to me." "If I did, what would you say P" " I really don't know, Mr. Heston," she said, tucking her head down and blushing, perhaps, though it was not visible in the shadows of the poich. "You know." he went on with more courage, now that he had made a start, "that I have recently come into a little fortune of something like 10, 000 dol., and ' ' "I thought it had come in to you," she interrupted with a ploasant little bird note of a chuckle. Hezekiah was just stupid and slow enough to be delighted with such flashes of feminine wit, and Kitty's brightness in this respect was always a charm to him. He liked it now, but with a shade of reflex action, for the flash of it had dazzled him when he was on the path to telling her what was in his heart. " Isn't it just the same?" he asked, with a laugh, half of admiration and half of nervousness. " Oh, of course, but what were you about to say p Excuse me for interrupting you." " Do you want me to say it ?" he asked, £O eagerly that she laughed at him again. ' ' How do I know P It may be something dreadful." "It is something about the- sweetest thing in the world," he said bravely to her. "Frank Moore said I was that," she answered, with a demureness that was distracting. "Is it about me ?" Hezekiah got up and walked to the edge of the porch. He looked fiercely up at the moon as if he thought there ought to be blood on it, but there wasn't, and the Bweet odours of the night were wafted to him on the silently stirring breeze, and he was soothed. " Whatever is the matterP" she asked, in the querulous tone of young women tinder similar circumstances, and he turned to her again. "Kitty," he said, dropping the polite title of young-ladyhood, "it is you, and it is me, too. Both of us," he added, regardless of syntax. "Who ever said you were the sweetest thing in the world, I'd like to know ?" she laughed, and Hezekiah thought he could see the keen edge of her tongue flash in the moonlight. - "You never did," he replied, in the surliest manner. " Oo," sho crooned to him softly, in the language of (he cradle, "has de itUe tootsy wootsy pinched his b'essed ittle fum ?" Hezekiah went to the edge of the porch again, aud was about to shake his fist at the moon, when he saw someone open the gate from the street and come up the walk towards the house. It was tho hated Frank Moore, and Hezekiah had only a minute to make his peace with the sarcastic goddess. " Kitty," he exclaimed desperately, as he came back to her, ' ' there comes Moore. It's only nine o'clock, and he will stay hero all the evening. I can't say all I want to say, but I can Say this much— l love you, Kitty, and I want you to be my wife. Will you P' ' In his excitement he had taken her hand, and sho had risen to his side. "Come to-morrownight," she said, in the softest whisper, and the gentle pressure of her hand spoke a sweeter language to him than even the music of her lips. "Ah, Frank," greeted Hezekiah, as his late rival came up, "I'm glad to see you, real glad"— and he was speaking the solemn truth, for there is no telling how much time he would have wasted if Moore hadn't come just as he did — " I was about going, and it looks like a pity to leave Miss Kitty all alone amidst this bower of honeysuckles, moon: shine, roses and June. Come and take my place. I'm sure sho will welcome you with open arms, or words to that effect." "Why, Mr. Heston," protested Miss Kitty, "you are really brilliant this evening. Who taught you how ? It must be an acquired habit. I'm sure it isn't natural." Moore laughed at this pleasant persiflage of Kitty's. Everybody laughed at Kitty's wit, except the victims of it, but on this occasion even the victim laughed, for he could yet feel the eostaoy of Kitty'B hand clasping his, and could yet hear the music of her words, " Come to-morrow night." Of course Mr. Moore apologised for disturbing their ttte-h-tite., and said he had merely drooped in for a minute ; but men are given to that kindof palliating prevarication, and he sat down in the most comfortable place he could find before Hezekiah had left file porch. Hezekiah did not I arry long after this, but Mr. Moore remnimdfor two hours chattering with Miss Kitty, and then they separated, leaving the moon, the honeysuckles and the rotes out iv the June uight.all alone. The stars twinkled in the Mlver-blue sky, the fragrance of the flowers filled the air, and far down the quiet street Hezokiali sat by his open window dreaming the night away, and there was a smile ou -his face as if an angel had come in the glory. of the moonlight and touched him with the breath of June. And the next night it rained. But there was sunshine and moonlight and honeysuckles and roses and June in Hezekiah's heart, and he was promptly in piquant Kitty's pretty parlour early on the night of the morrow which hud promised so much to him. Alas ! how easily things go wrong and so forth. They quarrelled, and Hezekiah went out into the night, gloomier than the night was. All the music.ol her voice was a discord, and the dank, djirk air was filled with an odour as of dead honeysuckles and roses, and a decaying June. . t . j But the next night was perfect again, and once more Hezekiah sat with Miss Kitty on the porch and the monn was flooding the valley with the yellow light that marks it as it rests upon the distant mountain tops. " Kitty, said Hezekiah, in the voice of a penitent, " can you forgive me ?"' "J. can, Mr. Heston, but will IP" she answered, not unkindly. "Won't you ?" he pleaded. " And if I do?" she asked, with a coyness that charmed him. "You will marry me?" he said, so firmly that she trembled. " Then I'll forgive you," and her saucy face was buried in his coat front, and the gold of her tresses threw a soft light into his face that gave it the look of seraph's. And it came to pass according to the prophecy of Hezekiah. D (That's why I'm so sorry for Hezekiah . Heston. I'm Hezekiah Heaton, and Kitty has been my wife for twenty years, and her hair is no less tawny, nor is her tongue less sharp than when the honeysuckles, the roses, the moonlight, and June threw their gentle glamour o'or tho scene.— Detroit Free Pretf.