(Complete Story.) Coronation of Mrs. Beacock.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXIII, Issue XVI, 15 October 1904, Page 11

(Complete Story.) Coronation of Mrs. Beacock.

By

MARY B. MULLETT.

r Suddenly Mrs. Beaeock’s heart sank, and she turned to look out of the window. The cheap glass gave to the tumbled outline of the Tennessee mountains an even wilder exuberance of humps and hollows than they really possessed.

But Mrs. Beacock did not see the mountains, nor the tricks her poor window played with them. Neither did she. hear what her visitors were saying in their peculiarly well-trimmed speech, polished and pointed with a certain precision, quite unlike the negligent drawl of Mrs. IJeacock’s world.

Somehow, for the moment, the current of life had tossed two city women into this mountain settlement, and here they had found a minister's wife. She, like them, had been whirled in here, out of the big sweep of things, ft was the minister’s wife who had taken the strangers up to Mrs. Beaeock’s, up past the Institute which Northern women had planted here, and which would have dominated the huddle of houses had not the beetling mountains dwarfed even it into insignificance.

“It’s for the mountain girls,” explained the minister’s wife. ‘‘Most of them come alone and board at the Institute, but the Beacoek family has moved here in a body. You may think there arc eighteen children, if they're at home, but I assure you there are only eight, Mrs Beaeock—” “There is still a Mrs Beacoek after such a crop of little Beacocks?” asked one of the strangers—a tall girl, with a quizzical smite looking out of its home in her eyes. ■ “Indeed there’s a Mrs Beaeock!” said the minister’s wife. “She must be a really remarkable, person,” said the other stranger—a little woman who wore three veils, one. over another. She looped the outer one up on the brim of her hat as she spoke. She was always looping one of them up. “.She weaves these er—bedspreads?”

“Like the old blue-and-white ones of our grandmothers’ days. An interesting survival, isn’t it, like the hand-in-.ilustries abroad? And I’m. trying to play the part of guide, philosopher, and friend.” The minister’s wife was silent a moment; then she laughed softly. “As a matter of fact,” she said, “that’s alt absurd. I’m afraid I don’t care very much for all the hand-industries 5n the world—except Mrs Beaeoek’s. But I care awfully for hers. They’ve a scrap of land back in the mountains, where they were living the life of the average mountaineer. Not one .of the family could read or write until Mrs Beacock taught herself her letters and passed this sublime piece of knowledge on to the older children. But there were no schools and there was no prospect that the little Beacocks would ever get beyond the words of one syllable to which their mother had so laboriously introduced them. So Mrs Beacoek said, that the mountain must go to Mahommed. At least, she said something to "that effect, and they came. I don’t suppose we have any idea what a convulsion of nature it was when the family took itself up by the roots from its little yellow patch of ground and moved itself bodily to the settlement, so as to lie near a seat of learning," with a smile toward the Institute.

“They left a few sheep out there,” she went on, “and Mrs Beacock goes out and shears them, cards and spins the wool, dyes it and weaves it. I’m sure she works harder than any slave ever worked undbr the whip of an overseer. And yet, every lime she can get five minutes to herself, she pores over Ithe children’s schoolbooks. struggling along after them as if she were trying to keep within hailing distance. Yes, as you say, she is quite a remarkable person.” The beveiled one assented complacently, with the air of having invented Mrs Beacoek, and looped up another veil, the better to ace the rude shack they yyere approaching. By the way,*’ safid the minister’s Wife, as she knocked at the door, “Mrs

Beaeock is just getting over typhoid now.”

. it was just fifteen minutes later that the temperature of Mrs Beaeock’s heart dropped. For a quarter of an hour she had been in a fine glow. When the precious coverlets had been opened out. and al each new apparition the beveiled one would exclaim, “Very remarkable!” Mrs Beaeoek’s heart had throbbed with jrleasure. At last, however, with a sudden Hash of intuition, she knew how little it all amounted to. And even while the beveiled one mechanically re-

peated her formula of praise Mrs Bencock's heart grew cold. They did not like her coverlets. They did not mean what they said. For a little while she had forgotten the awful weakness which had hung like lead upon her during these days of convalescence, but now it reasserted its dominion over her. Siio was suddenly in terror of crying. “Won’t you let us help you put them away?” said the minister's wife. The sudden going out of the light which had filled the tired eyes had made a shadow in her heart.

No, Mrs Beacock could put the coverlets back, thank you. Anyway, the children would be coming from school, amt .they would do it; which reference made the visitors hurry away with profuse apologies for having taken up Mrs Beaeoek’s time. She looked after them as they trailed out of the yard, a final “very remarkable" drifting back as the home-made gate was closed.

“Words is cheap,” sighed Mrs. Beacock, a trifle bitterly, as she turned to put away the praised, despised coverlets. But the. noon bell of the Institute, rang at. the moment, and she left them untouched. Nine hungry mouths would he demanding dinner before she could gel it ready.

Outside the gate, the tall girl looked back rather wishfully from her place at. the end of their single-file procession. They walked thus along the brink of the omnipresent gully. “Really very remarkable,” said the beveiled one yet once more. “But quite impossible, you know.” The minister’s wife, at the head of the procession, stopped. “You mean the colours?" she said. “I know they’re impossible; but as soon as I get my role of guide, friend, and so forth, into better running order, I’m going to manage a change. Last year’s wool had been dyed before I had fairly discovered Mrs. Beacock. Then the little Beacocks entertained the measles—not unawares. Then the typhoid fever claimed Mrs. Beaeock’s attention, to the exclusion oven of my well-laid schemes. So that here we are on the brink of June, and the time has only just come for me to carry out a beautiful plan for the reformation of those colour schemes. I’ll admit they’re enough to make one bark and bite, even if it’s not one’s nature to." “Why didn’t you tell us that?” said the tall girl, abruptly. “I’ll order two pairs of portieres if you can devise a way of getting them done in dull green anti white. 1 was going to ask you to take one of the coverlets for me, anyway, and —do something with it. I didn’t know just what. I thought you might put it. in a missionary box. Missionaries are so used to bearing up under afflictions that, they might, not mind one more blow. But if you can manage the green portieres, why, I shall be delighted. And we’ll let the missionaries off this time.” “Manage it!” exclaimed the minister's wife. “All I needed was an order like yours. I’ve the thing all arranged. I’m going back to first principles; hickory bark, you know, and mulberry and—anil things like that,” somewhat, vaguely. “They're grst principles. They're the dyes that 'mother used to make,’ and they re the real thing. I’ll find something —or Mrs. Beacock will —that, will make the most, chastened green portieres ever hung." And the minister's wife laughed gayly. “Mell, said the beveiled one, “it would be a kindness to the poor soul. I don t think I ever saw a more hideous

lot of hue.a than that pile of coveileta made when they were alt in a heap. Ugh! they’ve set my teeth on edge for a Week.”

“Well, you'll find us alt reformed characters the next time you come,” said the minister’s wife, as she turned and went on picking her way along the edge of the yellow gully. While the others talked the tall girl was watching the outpouring of scholars from the ugly brown Institute. One young girl came running across the open space, laughing, and looking back at the others. Quite close io the path she turned, and, seeing the group of strangers in the path, hesitated a moment, then came slowly nearer. Suddenly, however, she stopped short; her eyes widened; .she Hushed scarlet; wavered a moment; then turned and ran swiftly back to the Institute yard. The tall girl looked after her, smiling and wondering at a timidity which was almost beyond the bounds of the possible to those who dwell in cities. She was the only one who had noticed either the approach or the retreat. “Is that yew, Lidy?” said Mrs. Beacock, looking up from the spluttering bacon as the eldest of the right, a dark eyed girl of sixteen, stepped in at the open door. “Yes,” said the girl, shortly. Lidy Beacoek was the pride and the puzzle of the Institute. The tearh.rrs, who seem to have been selected for their piety rather than for their learning, were no match for her eager intelligence. Not one of them but drew an apprehensive breath when Lidy Beacock opened her lips with an interrogation behind them. When Lidy Beaco k’s class (it was thus that they privately spoke of it) filed out of the recitationroom, Piety sighed with relief as the door closed. The girl was as keen and as ardent in her feelings as in her mental processes. Sometimes she knew why she was happy; oftener she wondered vaguely. Yet intensely happy she was at times; almost as happy as, at other times, she was wretched. Unfortunately, she had the rather common failing of being silenced by joy. Happiness seemed (o paralyse her tongue. Anger stung it into speech. Poor, stormy-hearled child! She divined as by intuition the mysteries of books, but. over the heart’s problems she alternately glowed and glowered.

When Lidy raised questions at grammar aud of arithmetic. Piety felt back on the rule!, in the Institute text-books. In quite the same way, it fell back on another text-book in matters of life and love, sin and sorrow, duty and deviltry. When these subjects raised their heads; forth came an inevitable Scripture verse appropriate to the occasion. Piety recited the verse precisely as it gave the rule for finding the common divisor oi the classic injunction that verbs must agree with, their subject in person ami number. Sometimes Lidy saw how to work out these Scriptural rules. Oftener she recognised only the voice of perfunctory Piety. If it had not been for the minister’s wife, Lidy would have had a low opinion of Piety as a medium of explanation. The minister’s wife was different. She knew “why." Sometimes in words, sometimes in dumb questioning, the cry for the wherefore of things was always repeating itself in Lidy Beaeoek’s mini!. Why was it “ungrammatical” (the bugaboo of the Institute) to say that you had done been there? Why did the farmer have 13.11d0l to spend for provisions, after spending one-half of his money for a corn-shellcr. one-third of the remainder for a dress for his wife, and 2.62d01, which was half the price of the dress plus one-tenth the price of the eorn-sheller, for a yellow dog? Why not let your angry passions rise, when you nre so sure that you have an excellent reason for being angry? Why do unto others as you would have others du unto you, when they won’t return the compliment? Why be meek when every instinct of self-respect is up in arms, protesting? Why, why, why? And the minister's wife know why. She and Lidy had talked these things out a good many times, ami Lilly ana slowly learning her way through the mysteries of life. When she stepped into the smoky kitchen, however, that noon in late May, she did not look as if she had found her way very far. Judging from her expression, life was a gloomy wilderness of error, ami she, Lidy Beacock, was in the middle of it. Mechanically she went into the next room to pul away her hat—-a millinery specimen which had migrated hither upon one. of the semiannual tidal waves of missionary boxes, but on the threshold she stopped short, as if she had seen r wild animal.

*Oh, sa?d her mother, wearily, “wun't ye put them spreads up? The minister’s wife was here ’th some folks from taown ez ’laowed ez they Wanted ter see the weavin’. I ain’t* had no time to git ’em put up.” ‘‘Did they buy any?” asked Lidy, Standing lense and unmoving in the. doorway. “No,” quietly. Then, with a note of appeal in her voice, for the hurt heart cried out to confess its hurt and be comforted, “1 reckon ez they ain’t litten fur taown folks.” “Oh, ’tain’t that, mother’” cried Lidy, flinging into the kitchen and standing with her back braced against the wail, in a defiant way she had at times, “(‘an’t you see that they’re ugly?” she went on. ‘‘t’gly! That’s what they are. 1 ’card ’em talkin’ jes now down the path. They called them hidjus. They eaid it set their teeth on edge. Of course they wouldn’t buy 'em. \\ ho d Want sech a lot o’ hidjus hues as them?’' Lidy was quoting, but her mother scarcely grasped the fact. She was looking with shrinking eyes at the girl, (who, with a smothered exclamation, flung out of the room as she had flung into it and began folding the despised

coverlets. Airs Bea co vic stood motionless. The fork with which she had been turning the bacon dropped from the hand that hung nerveless at her side. She picked it up and turned blindly toward the stove, putting her hand to her throat a moment as if it pained her. Then, mechanically, sin* pushed the fry-ing-pan to the back of the stove and stirred the potatoes, which were adding to the tumultuous sound of sizzling.

Dinner, that noon was an orgy of such unwonted freedom on the part of the younger Beacocks that the unusual silence of the elders was much more than counterbalanced. The meal was late, and as soon as it was over t’.ie. children hurried oIT to school. Lilly went without a word, the storm-cloud still in her eves.

When they bad gone, Mrs Beacock’ sat still for a long time, staring at the ugly wreck of what, at its best, had been a most unßesthetic meal. The quality of a heartache, however, is not. turned, chameleon like, to the colour ot the cireuin>.tanees the eyes look upon. It can be tragic even when one sits staring at scraps of bacon bring slowly imprisoned in the grip of cold grease.

And Airs. Beaeock's heart did ache. It was the ache of the mother who is proud of her child, and presses that pride to her bosom, even though, wonderful flower that it is, it. has thorns that wound. Lidy was her first-born. Sixteen years of love and longing were suinine I up in Lidy. fShe was to be, in fact, what her mother hail been in only the wildest of dreams. She was to have a richer life, an unbound soul. It was in Lidy’s future that her mother, who had walked in darkness, saw a great light. Blindly she had willed these things, blindly toiled and prayed for them, without ever realising what gulfs she might he opening between her heart and her heart’s desire. Even if she had seen the abyss there, black and impassable, she would not have turned bark. She thought ehe did see it now. The revelation about the coverlets had gone farther than the

mere wounding of her pride. It had shown her a gulf, and Lidy on the other bide. She sat at the messy table and stared at the scraps of bacon, but the was looking into the depths of that gulf. It must have l>een an hour after the family had gone that someone tapped at the door. Mrs. Beacock looked up with a start. It was the minister’s wife. Mrs. Bex cock tried to get up, but she felt as if there was no Mrs. Beacock at all from the waist down. ‘•There! Please? Don’t get up. You're not anywhere over that miserable fever yet!” exclaimed the minister’s wife. Mrs. Beacock smiled a wan smile. “Looks mighty shif’less.” she said, with a glance at the table. “J dun’no’s 1 ever did let the dinner things set before. 1 ain't feelin’ myself yit.” “1 should say not! You ought not to be out of bed. Now I'm going to clear off the table and wash the dishes while I tell you something. No, no!” holding Mrs. Beacock down. “Ah, please!” When the minister's wife said “please.” in that tone, adamant was discovered to lie water. “You remember the tall young lady who was with me this morning,” liegau the self-constituted maid of all work, gayly scraping the plates. “Yes.” Mrs. Beaeock’s pale face slowly Hushed a dull red. “She wants you to make her two pairs of ]M>rtieres this summer, as soon as you are able to get to work again. Do you think you can do it, say next month?” The red faded out of the thin face. There was a puzzled look in the eyes. The pause was so long that the minister’s wife looked around. “What does she want 'em fur?” asked Airs. Beacock, slowly. “Why, for portieres.” “Oh. 1 know,” quietly, “that's what she says. But she ain’t u-goin’ to hang up things ez ugly ez she thinks my spreads The minister’s wife stared. “They air ugly,” insisted Airs. Beaeork. “Yew think they're ugly, don't ye?” It was the turn of the ministers wife io flush. “There, there!” said Mrs. Beacock, with quiet dignity. “Don’t yew worrq ‘bout hurt in’ my feel in's. I know they’re ugly. Lidy”—a—pause—“Lidy told me.” “Lidy?” “Yes. She heard yew-all a-sayin’ so this newn. An’ I reckon it's trew, tew. It’s jest a sight o’ work that 'd a heap better not ben done. That’s ail. Only—■ l‘d ruther not make the port ya ires fur tiie young lady. Yew understand, don't The minister's wife had a mind and a heart which worked quickly and in unison. She drew a child’s low chair up beside Airs. Beacock. sat down, and took tiie worn, toil-stained hand. “I do understand,” she said, “and T like you better, if that’s possible, than ever. Now, what do you say to that?” She laughed and put her cheek against tiie rough hand. In all Airs. Boa cock's life she could not. remember ever having had anyone lay a cheek to her hand. She Hushed, and a little thrill went through her. “Those coverlets, dear Airs. Beacock, are ugly, as you put it, chiefly because they are out of style. Style is a king whom even this free republic can't seem to sbaKe off. In fact, I rather think he

lords it over us more than over anybody else. Everything nowadays is in these queerisli softish, die-away colours; and therefore, dear Lady of the Loom, all our line coverlets out there are just simply useless to those who follow the fashion. That’s what they are; they're useless.” The minister’s wife pouted her lipS dejectedly, as if the affliction were a mutual one.

“I’ve been meaning to talk it over with you as soon as you were well enough. You’re not a bit well enough now, but because of these portieres, you see, I couldn’t wait any longer. The young lady is furnishing a summer cottage and she wants them in green and white to match her other things. Dull green—that’s what 1 said, you know. Everything’s dull. I reckon that’s to match the people; don’t you think so? Anyway, it’s to be dull green, and I’ve a great scheme. Let's do our own dyeing!” “But I ben a-doin’ that all along!” “Yes, but I mean let’s make our own dyes and have them good and permanent. Did not your mother do it?” “Why, yes, she made blew outen indigo, an’ braown outen bark, an’ green outen hickory, an'- ——” The minister’s wife clapped her hands. “That’s it! that’s it! Why, Mrs Beaeock, we’ll have an infant industry here that will be the bouneingest baby you ever heard of!” Mrs Beaeock’s face had brightened, but ut the reference to babies the cloud fell again. "D'ye think. Lidy—-—” she stopped. “What about Lidy?” “She’s found out the spreads is ugly. She'll keep on. Where’s it a-goin to end?” suddenly cried the mother from the brink of her gulf. The ministers wife turned sober an instant. “End? End?” she repeated. “There! you mustn't pay no attention to me,” said Mrs Beacock, quickly recovering from so unaccustomed a dis-

play of feeling. “I’m hot myself yit.”

“You’re afraid of losing Lidy’s level and admiration? Is that it?” “Oh, 1 warn’t thinkin’ of admiration. Hit’s suthin’ else. "When yew all han childern a growiu’ up araoimd ye, yew II understand.” o “But of course Lidy ” I

Mrs Beacock interrupted with a gesture. She shook her head and slow* )y got to her feet. “My eyes is open now,” she said. “Lidy’s ’ll be open pretty sune, ef they ain’t already.”

She got the dishpan and begaft putting the dishes into it. Thfc minister's wife helped her. She said nothing more about Lidy. amt when the kitchen had been put to rights and Mrs Beaeoek had seated herself with a tired sigh on the doorstep the minister’s wife went thoughtfully down the path.

When school was "out” that afternoon Lidy Beacock stayed—by request. She was unconscious of having done violence to any of the rules, and this consideration. along with the storminess of her mood, put. her in a finely defiant frame of mind when she was called up to the oflieial desk. But her bravado melted when Piety said, “The minister’s wife wants to see you in the parlour.” All afternoon Lidy’s heart had been bitter and hard and comfortless. Now, it suddenly thrilled and warmed. Her emotion seemed somehow to get into her knees and they felt stiff and awkward as she walked to the parlour door; but her heart—suddenly, with her hand on the knob, Lidy remembered tha coverlets. She stopped to think. Then, witii her Jips set in a line, she, went

It was a long hour before she cants out, the minister’s wife with her. They, went into the yard and to the gate together, where they stood and talked and talked; at least, the minister’s wife talked. 1

“Have 1 made it plain to you!” she

■aid. *‘l want so much to help you to see, now, what might not come to you until too late. It is with people, Lidy, as it is with most other things. Sometimes you can judge better of their grandeur and their beauty if you are at a little distance. If you were right up there on the side of Hound Top Mountain, for instance, you wouldn’t know that it is so high and so beautiful with its mingling of the colpurs of the trees. Would you?” Lidy looked at the mountain blocking the eastern sky. “No,” she said, after she had reasoned it out.

“Well,” went on the minister’s wife, ‘‘that is the way it is with people, and perhaps, • most of all, with our own people. We ought to try really to see them. When you are able, to do that with that mother of yours, dear child, you will realise how wonderful she is. Stop and. - think about it. now, Lidy. Do you know any one with so much pluck, persistence, patience? Do you know any one who has the ingenuity, the skill, the cleverness that she has? Do you know any one who has done as much with a little as she has? Do you realise that, she is made, out of the stuff of which the great women of history were made?” Lidy’s dark eyes took fire in their depths and her lips quivered.

“Your mother” —the ministers’ wife Blared at Hound Top a minute, then her eyes came back to the young girl’s face—“your mother, Lidy Beaeock, is a woman whom I delight to honour, and whom you, dear little girl, will always reverence beyond words —oh, no!” with one of her sudden, gay laughs, “not beyond words'. That’s the very catastrophe we want to avoid, isn’t it? Well, you know what I think, and you're going to flatter my judgment by following it, aren’t you?” Lidy’s lips being occupied in struggling with quivers, she said nothing except with her eyes. “And to-morrow you and I will go bark-hunting for the new dyes. 1 must go now —and so must you.” The minister’s wife looked wistfully at the girl. “It may be wrong to envy, but, oh. I do envy you! To think that you can, in five minutes from now, put such happiness into a human heart! There, go on, and God bless you.”

Lidy looked after the minister’s wife a moment, then turned and ran up the slope beyond whose crest sat the Seacock dwelling.

During the hour since the close of school Mrs Seacock 'had been wearing a path to the bedroom window. It was not that it was unprecedented for Lidy to remain after school—by request; but, Somehow, Mrs Seacock’s troubled mind could not help connecting this hour of absence with what had been, for her, the tragedy of the noon revelation. So, while she sliced the inevitable potatoes for supper, she continually wandered, knife in hand, to the window from which she could get the first glimpse of any one approaching from the Institute. When, on one of these excursions, she saw Lidy coming at last, Mrs Seacock hurried baek to the potatoes and began slicing as it her thoughts bad never wandered from that particular occupation.

She did not even turn around when eflie heard Lidy on the porch. She wanted to say, in her usual quiet voice, •‘.ls that yew, Lidy?’’ but somehow the voice insisted on being altogether quiet. It stuck in her throat. Then, before she could arrange another course of action, two strong young arms were around her own tired ones; a red but rather shapely and unmistakably jmung hand took the potato-knife out

of her own fingers, limp with surprise. The two arms turned her about.

“I reckon I know- somebody that ’ll have to learn to do as she's been told,” said the girl, with mock solemnity. “Didn’t 1 tell you to leave supper for me to get?” Lidy was beginning with banter. She wanted it to be in the style of the minister’s wife. She didn’t want to precipitate things. She intended to do it all very naturally and permanently. But, suddenly, all her intentions went to nothing, dissolved in a rush of tears; and she put her arms around her mother's neck, and her head on the breast that had nursed her as a baby and yearned for her ever since, and there she clung and cried and tried to say things, and, happily, could not.

Mrs Beacock stood transfixed and transfigured. Her arms were tight around the girl, her head bent a little and resting on the brown hair, which she began to smooth soothingly, as Lidy kept on sobbing. She did not say a word. Iler eyelids were heavy with j«y -

Finally the sobs grew less violent, then stopped altogether, except for little catches of breath. It was so still that an exploring hen, advancing with much jerking of the head and with muted duckings away down in its throat, actually adventured within the open door and stole a fearful joy from the contemplation of the cook-stove.

Mrs. Beacock had not moved except lo stroke Lidy’s hair while the girl was sobbing. Now she stood absolutely still. One would have said she held her breath. She caught it as Lidy’s hand stole timidly upward and rounded itself to her mother's thin cheek. Here were marvels! Which was greater, that a cheek should be laid to one’s hand, or a hand to one’s cheek? Mrs. Beacock had felt a soft thrill of pleasure and surprise at the pretty caress of the minister’s wife; but only the mother heart, which know’s the purest yet keenest of raptures, could vibrate as did Mrs. Beacock’s at Lidy’s touch of tenderness.

“Yew’re the best mother that ever was,” whispered Lidy. Mrs. Beacock’s arms tightened convulsively, but she said nothing. Lidy’s hand patted the thin cheek. The burst of tears had relieved the tension with her, and her heart was ready to be flooded with sunshine. “Yew - air the best mother,” she repeated, unconsciously going back to her ante-Institute accent. She was not at all conscious that the little speech lacked variety. Something within her impelled her to words, but she did not choose. Without realising it, she took those which said everything. “Just the best mother,” again. Then with a sigh, somewhat hopeless but far more happy, “if I could ever be as nice as yew air!”

That brought words at last. “Yew’ll be findin’ yure mother aout some o’ these days.” “I hope so," said Lidy, suddenly serious and strangely older. “I hope so. The more I find out about you the more I’m bound to think of you, I’ve found Out that much already.” At this point Lidy remembered that she had had a plan of campaign; a plan which was to have begun with banter, after the manner of the minister’s wife. She made haste to resume operations along that line. Shaking her finger at her mother—her mother whose eyes were shining softly and whose face was inde.scril»ably altered by happiness—she exclaimed;

“Now I'm goin’ to play I’m your hired girl, so you’ve got to set down —set, sit ■ —oli, anyhow, you’ve got to set in this here chair an’ boss me. No, sir! no.

sir!” as her mother protested. “Now, mother! you got to let me or you —you —you ain’t the best mother!” Thereupon wise Mrs. Beaeock sat promptly down in the splint-bottomed chair and prepared to boss her hired girl. She proved to be a x cry cheerful person, the hired girl. She laughed and chatted while she finished the potatopeeling. She told tales out of school about school. She rehearsed her latest encounter with Piety on the subject of why you must say “the Beaeock family is,” when said family is plural to the extent of ten members. She referred to the papering of the kitchen walls, which, so she informed the mistress, was “almighty well put on.” “An’ wheer’d ye git the paper?” asked the hired girl, with her best twang. “’Pears ter me ez ef I done seen that thar pattron afore. It's one o' them new ones thet's black 'nd while ’nd read all over, ain’t it?” Mrs. Beacock dutifully and, it must be admitted, delightedly laughed at the old pun. Lidy had used it to good purpose, for her mother had papered the walls with old newspapers. “Yaas,” said Lidy, halting, dishes in hand, in front of a staring head line. “Naow here's a nice figger in the pattron.” She read aloud: “GREAT PREPARATIONS FOR THE CORONATION OF EDWARD VII. “Yaas’m, I dun’no's I ever seen a paper I tuck a better likin’ tew. That coronation figger’s almighty interestin’. Yew ain’t a-thinkin’ o’ going’ tew the coronation yerse’f, he ye?” with a happy carelessness as to present possibilities. Mrs. Beacock drew the girl down to her knee. “No, honey,” she said, with a wistful smile. “I don’t care much ter see other folks’s coronations. I’d a heap ruther stay ter home an’ hev one o’ my ownsame’s I’ve bed it to-day.*