The Sketcher.

Western Star, Issue 2220, 8 July 1898, Page 4

The Sketcher.

" Pressie."

John Bray and his wife sat at the door of their little home on Sunday evening. He was baggage master at the far station, and Sunday was his one night: off. He had tilted his chair back to the wall of the house, and lie was drowsily content.

" Yer ilow'rs is doing pretty well, Mary," he began presently. Mary had been crouched on the step, her elbows •on her knees, her face buried in her hands.

" Oh, yes," she answered. The tone was hopelessly dreary. " Yer ■sturtiums ain't blowed yit," he continued, with a wish to enliven her. """•• No," jist buddiu'." "An' the sweet peas ?" '•'They'll be out in a week." Then the silence grew around them again. "There's the down train," John volunteered after a long pause. A puff of smoke rose beyond the bridge, the headlight leaped into sight, the whistle screeched its warning and the train thundered by. "There they go" Mary said enviously, "camin' here an goin' there, seem' things an' people, an' enjoyin' theirselves, an' we jusi stick here in the'one place like the boulders over on the roadside."

" I guess you git pretty lonely, some days," John ventured, putting his hand on his wife's shoulder in a half clumsy caress.

"Oh ! it's awful, John," she said brokenly, taken off her guard by the tenderness. " when I've washed up an' cleaned myself an' there ain't not'hin' more to do. "I'ain't but what I could do knittin' or sewin' for winter, but I can't get the things to do with. Then the trains keep goin' by, an' I hate the people who kin go to places. I'd go ravin' mad ef I didn't do sometbin', so I alius go an' scrub up the kitchen floor."

•• Why don't you go over an' set with Jim La'wsou's wife ?" John suggested. "I don't like her," Mary answered promptly, " fer she's alius braggin' 'bout her babies." " How many hev they got ?" asked ■the hus'baud carelessly. '■ Four." Mie childless woman at his side whispered. Mary had been a 'tailoress before she was married. She was ambitious beyond her fellow-workers, deft with her needle, quick with her tongue, and she dreamed of a future far different than the life of John Bray's wife. But ten tours a day ai a sewing machine wears upon a woman. John asked her to marry him, and she thought, the little brown house would be a paradise. She kept the room* spotlessly neat, she planted aud tended flowers, and helped her husband in the strip of land where fflifiir vegetables were. She had been ■married four years. John's salary was no higher, the house began to look a little Shabby here and there, aud Mary pined for companionship and grew bitter as s'he saw her ideals of life being slowly strangled one by one. John wa's away most of the time. She thought him cold aud irresponsive. She thought him changed. It had come to him before that Sunday evening that she was unhappy. Now he brooded over it. Sometimes he reproached himself, more often, as poor human nature goes, he was oul of patience with her. Day after day. when he went home for his noonday dinner, the little kitchen reeked of soapsuds, and the floor was damp from scrubbing. Often it was so at night. He knew his wife was discontented. , " You'll wear that floor out,' he saiu angrily one night, some time after that Sunday. „ „ . „ " I'll wear the heart out oi me last, was the retort. And John went away without kissing her good-bye. •■ it's enough to make a man stay oul of his home." he muttered, and then lie saw a train stop, aud half-mecham-callv he begin to run. It had only Stopped for orders and began to move toe&re he came up. Looking along the track, he saw a woman catch the rail of the last carriage and swing herself on. When he reached the ulace he saw a curious black übjeij on the bank. He jumped Ihe ditch and took hold of it.. It was a basket. He onened It, started back will, muttered words, shut lhe lids tight down, and ran down to hi* house. -Mary was willing the tea-things. " What's up V" she asked. •• See here." lie said, lifting both lids of the old-fashioned market basket. A little baby lav there, crying a little. " Where did you get that. John Bray ?" 11,. told her. . " Take it hack," she cried. l » have no such child around me." " Hadn't we better keep it till morniu' ? I'll let the constable or somebody know about it. Then they kin take it away." ••Well," Mary assented, "an 111 mice it out; it's all crowded up there." John went off to his work, and Mary's tea dishes stood while she liflecl out the tiny baby, and tended to it. There were clothes and food in the basket, and a note, beseeching the finder to care for the three-weeks'-old baby girl. Mary wept and crooned by turns over the wee. dark-haired thing, and presently it went to sleep in her arms. " Why don't you set it down ?" John \ asked when he came in.

■' 1 wnz waitin' Uti- you to turn down the bed, fer she seemed so comfortable cuddled up here I hated to font her up, doin' the things myself." John's boots were noisy, as he stepped about. :' Hadn't ye better go stock in -footed, ye.'ll wake her up," suggested Mary. John took the oath of allegiance to the baby sovereign mentally, and drew off his shoes. " Ain't she a picture ?" asked the wife, wben site had nestled the wee thing down. " 1 guess you liked holdin' that baby in yer arms ?" John began, and Mary hid'her face on his shoulder and cried. " Ye'll kinder hate to give it up, won't ve '' An' the constable's goin' to see about it ta-imarrer. I wnz down there. That's what kep' me so late. There don't seem to be any pertieler place fer to put it. but he'll find out." Mary was silent for a little, and then the babv stirred. She hurried over to it, shaded the lamp, and tip-toed back to John.

"Can't, we keep her?" Mary began wistfully. •'lh-v little clothes was in the basket and her food in a tin can. an' this note says about her." " I guess we kin keep her el' we want to," lie said judicially ; and then, eaeerlv. " What'll we call her '{"

" I wuz thinkin' Express 'lid be a good name," Mary answered. " It's too long." John objected. " Well, Pressie fer short, an' Pressle's a real pretty name." " Pore little mite," John said solemnly, looking steadily at the same place in the floor for several minutes.

Mary crept up to him and sat on his knee. " " 1 didn't know what wuz wrong with me, nor what I wanted," she sobbed, " but. Jobu, ef I bin keep that baby, there ain't nothin' I want. She won't cost much, John."

"No, it won't take much to keep her. 'an' I think Pressie'll hev to stay." John made answer, and then they rose and moved together to the door and out into the starlight. John was moist about the eyes and happy 'at bis heart. Ho rook a new and strange delight in everything, in his present and future, his home, the sky, and his wife beside bim. And they plauned and wondered what Pressie would be like when she grew up.

"I'll make a gate fer the door," John said, and he looked around for timber as if he thought he ought to. do it tomorrow.

" Ye won't hev time to scrub yer floor so mud) now." John's tone was mischievous as he said it. But 'Mary only sighed a long, deep sigh of content. Her childless misery had passed away. And in after years, when her own children were around her. the interest that hallow<«l the winning Pressie was as tender as ever.— E. S. A., in the " Weekly Sun."