The Knoxville journal. (Knoxville, Ga.) 1888-18??, March 30, 1888, Image 2

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    GREATNESS.
He may be great who proudly rears
For coming years strong pyramids
But greater ho who hourly builds
A character by noble deeds.
Ho may be wise whoso mind is filled
With all the wisdom time ha.s give;
Who sees and does his duty well
Is wiser in tho sight of Heavon.
It may be grand to deck the walls
With pictures by rare genius wrought;
Greater it is to line the soul
With tints and gems ot noble thought
He may be groat who can indite
Songs that shall every bosom thrill;
He who knows how to make his life
A poem grand is greater still.
—Miss F. H. Marr , in Youth's Companion
TEOTTY’S JOTJENEY.
BY RACHEL CAREW.
bard's, Subdued joy pervaded because the Hotel it Lom¬
at blorence, was ru
anored abroad , tha- Miss . . Koseieat ,
s pug
1 rotty was in extremis, tie was not^au
attractive animal men.ally or physically,
and had endeared hunselt to no one savo
his lovely young mistress. Hisligure was
ruined through overfeeding; he had lost
one eye inn bygone tussel with a butch
er’s ea,t, and the other optic glared at the
world with a sinister expression .rom out
2 Had j vd he no- V atc mouthed i V?°j- i vf .a * or C0 \v “ mkham DC< r s
slipper into an unpleasant pulp, and re
tired under Miss ! ilcnerton s bed, tneie
to snore and frighten that lady into
spasms, l e nad also snatched a biscuit
out of the hand of infant lauocence—the
niother of said innocencei passing a sleep
less ni"ht wonoenng u it were not well
to send ; or 1 astiiur, to be quite sure that
the bite was no more than biscuit.
lor all these misdemeanors, M ss hose
leaf apologized with a grace so charming,
that the malcontents were seen to stop on
the stairs to stroke Tiofty, and tell him
he was a dear little fellow, so he was—
the same quadruped which they had erst
while apostrophized as a hideous, squab
leggeil, liowcould ovened. vieious-tempered they do than brute, melt,
Lut elso
wnii i,ons i.oscleut s sweet ejis caress
lpg t.icm fiom under the shade of her
big to-sip.g-p.uiiied hat, and the shell
pink on her cheeks deepenmg to a warm
sunset rose at praise oi her ill-favored
l’ ct:
“Yes, Dori3 is so foolishly fond of the
dog, I’m obliged to .put up with him
but he isa great nuisance, to be sure,
particularly in traveling. When we
start for the Tyrol next week there will
be the usual harrowing scene—the rail
way people refusing to let Trotty go in
the carriage with us, Doris in tears, and
at la3t a fee to pay, or a bribe, that
really breaks my heart. We cannot af
ford such toolisli outlay. I wish some
thing animal; would happen lived quite to long the wretched enough.”
he has
In the above words, Mrs. Roseleaf had
been wont to express her chief grievance
to a mixed aud cuce for years. Now
that destiny, in the shape of cramps and
a stiif ueok, seemed close upon the heels
of Trotty, Sirs. Roseleaf inwardly re
joiced, but maintained a hypocritical at
titude of unconcern in the presence of
her
“f believeit would be well to send for
a veterinary doctor ; ho could give poor
Trotty some chloroform, or something
to end his sufferings,” she said to Doris,
and. in an aside to a friend, added: “I
grudge such the relief expense, have but the it little would be
a to brute
surely done for, once and for all.”
A few hours la'er, as Mrs. Roseleaf re
turned from a walk, Doris met her with
a radiant face, crying: “Oil, mamma,
Trotty is so much better and 1 Going to than re
cover and be better stronger
ever before, the doctor says.”
'
“What doctor?”
“Why, the vet. you said we ought to
send for. I had him come while you
were away, and he must be a wonder
fully clever man—-ho has certainly saved
Trotty’s life. He asked fifteen franc3,
but I had to give him twenty, as you hail
couldn't nothing smaller him in for your five purse, and I
ask francs change,
Mamma, I don't believe that you are one
bit glad that poor Trotty is better 1” and
tears welled over in the lovely violet
cyes which worked so much havoc in the
mother most of all.
“Yes—yes, child, I'm very glad,” the
mendacious old lady answered, but her
looks hcliid her words. “Twenty francs
more paid than for before, making and the believed dog’s life
surer I he
would be dead to-night. Ah, me land
that dreadful journey impending!" was
the burden of her thoughts.
“Mamma,” in said her Doris one morning,
breaking have upon brilliant parent's idea perusal for mak- of
‘•She,” “I a
ing the journey easy for us all. ‘Miss
Willis told me she gave her cat an
opium powder once, before taking him
on a thirty-six hours’ journey in the
train. He dozed all the time in his
basket, quiet as a Iamb, and the guard
thought ho was luncheon.”
“1 opium suppose powder, you mean fear to give guards Trotty
an but 1 the
can scarcely bo induced to mistake him
for luncheon.”
“No, they will be otherwise deceived,
Trotty is to be given a big powder to
keep him quiet, and he is then to be
dressed as a baby, laid on a pillow, and
with a vail over his face is to cross the
frontier. Perk shall carry him.”
“Doris, do you think I would ever
consent to such a preposterous idea? It
isn’t respectable. What would people
say and think? Put such nonsense out
of your head at once, I beg of you.”
“Not a bit of it, mamma dear; the
idea is too excellent a one to let slip,
y 0 u will be of my opinion quite, wheu
you jj^yg a u owe dyourself time to reflect,
The Stauntons’ nurso is going to lend
me a p re tty pillow with lace and em
broidery, and one of their baby’s dresses,
an( j a ca p Your chuddah will do to
wra p ar0 un(l his body. Tina will dress
j,j m and tie him on the pillow in quite
orthodox way. It will bo great fua;
Perk’s face will be a treat when she hears
gke j ias g 0 t to carry Trotty masquerading
asa baby.” clouded
p 0 orMrs. Roscleafs face was
and S ad. gi 10 knew perfectly well that
jj or j 3 W ould carry her point—she and al
w a yi e i<j ed to the child; what
,j r( , a( ]ful re <ulta might not follow this
: ] as t escapade! But in this instance, as
j a thousands of others, the weak old lady
decided there was nothing to do but to
laako rp G 0 f a bad' bargain, and she
K took ft u interes( . iQ the preparations
j for what sccme( i to be a most novel un
dertakiag .
“There is another blessed infant to
jn ako the ni<*ht hideous for somebody,”
so 'iloquized a good-looking young Eng
jj s h man , j peeing tthe f or Florence th from the Station. window
0 j a carr a g C a
“The train seems very full; I’m afraid
we ca n’t have a coupe to ourselves,” said
Mrs . Rogel j efi regretfully. “There is
on0 compartment with only a young
man in it; shall we go there?”
“Yes,” said Doris, promptly. odd in “A
man will not notice anything the
conduct of my baby, and will not wish
to kiss it, as some silly woman might.”
.“By Jupiter! they are coming in here
—I a m an unlucky dog, and no mis
take!” exclaimed Mr. Harold Lyman,
the young man already mentioned.
His dismay was pardonable. He was
escorting from Florence to Verona his
sister’s baby, the very juvenile Contessa
Montefiore, as well as her stolid Abruzzi
nurse; the woman to return at once to
her mountains so soon as she should have
laid her young charge in the arms of her
successor at Verona. The baby’s mother
was ill of measles at Florence, and to
escape infection, the little contessa was
hastily under the dispatched to of its its rather grandfather’s
brained guidance The scatter
uncle. was a
sleeping brazen-lunged like young fiend of laced six months; pillow
an angel on a
at that moment, but anon she would
awake and rend the air with her yells.
To escape guard this, Mr. Lyman had feed a
perfidious for the adjoining behold coup
left vacant for him. and now his
privacy invaded fumed by another and fretted squalling
torment. He in
wardly in for a time, and then found some
solace watching the movements of
Doris, in the light of the half-vailed
lamp. She took'thc baby from the grim
Abigail, him hugged him white to her breast,
kissed through his gauze vail,
and hushed him to sleep on her soft arm
—the sweetest rest in the world.
“Impossible that that girl is the baby’s
mother,” mused Mr. Lyman to himself;
“and yet, why not? She is very young,
but that kind of exquisitely pretty girl
generally marries young. Lucky baby— chap,
herhusband! It must bo her
girls don’t coddle and pet other peo
pie’s offspring in that way. The old
dame has‘grandmother’plainly and inter written fussy
on her countenance
manner, and I heard the young lady
call the elder one mamma. The vinegar
visaged party is their maid, of course.”
Thus Mr. Lyman mused on in a way
that caused him an anoyance he could
not understand. Why should he care
whether his pretty traveling companion
was married a dozen times or not at All ?
He would never see her again after that
brief journey. What an extraordinary
had quiet baby stirred it was! for two hours now it
not or lifted up its voice,
though it had Lyman. been laid by itself on the
seat by Mr. Was it a baby at
all? Perhaps sigh only a from doll or a bundle,
But a long the somnolent
Trotty, and a slight figeting of his cor
pulent body, dawning removed the young
Englishman's doubts, and
caused Miss Roseleaf to redouble her
attentions to her disguised pet.
Presently a violent jerk of the train
threw everybody into everybody cise's
arms. Mr. Lyman found himself closely
clasping both her of that Miss Roseleaf’s hands,
and assuring danger, though he there was not the
least knew no more
than she did what was the trouble. A
guard, crying running the length of the train,
out some trifling cause for the
sudden stop, soon restored serenity.
All through this commotion the re
markable infant uttered not a sound nor
,-moved as much as a Anger. Lyman re
solved to hazard a remark that would con
vince him whether or not his fair com
panion cherub. was the mother of this stolid
“The—it—your baby is unusually
good; does it never cry?” he managed to
enunciate.
His charming neighbor’s face broke
into smiles. Lyman’s face fell—yes, only
a mother could look so radiant at praise
of her darling.
“ Yes, he is very good,” the young lady
said, with a blush.
Mr. Lyman somehow did not seem to
feel a desire to pursue the conversation
which the mishap to the train had started,
and he soon sank quietly back into his
coiner.
Doris settled back for a reverie in her
corner, with her hand laid caressingly on
Trotty’s fat back.
What a good-looking, intelligent, liu
morous fellow he seemed—her vis-a-vis!
How she would like to know him, and
lead him back an adoring slave to flaunt
before the envious girls at the “Lombar
dia 1” One met such men onlv in books
and 0Q fleeting journeys, where one lost
them again for ever at the first big sta
tion. This phase of Jifc was really very
hard.
* * * * * * *
Early dawn at Verona; here the silly
boy and girl who had traveled ten hours
together took leave of each other for
ever, they supposed, and both looked
grieved out of all proportion little to the niece oe
casion. Mr. Lyman saw his
and her nurse' installed by the door of
the waiting-room, and then went out on
the platform to fume and fret because
the Monteliore carriage had not come.
“That baby looks about the age of
ours,” said Doris to her mother, desig
nating the little eontessa, of whose ex
istence she had heard nothing from its
uncle. “Ecru gauze vails are evidently the
proper thing, too. Perk, we will put
Trotty on (he bench on the other side of
the door,beside that very safe-looking old
dame who is half asleep, and then I want
you to come with me to the toilet-room
to mend the flounce I tore getting out of
the train. Mamma will keep an eye on
Alas! “mamma’s” eyes saw only the
land of dreams while her daughter and
maid were absent.
The baby contessa becoming parti
cularly fretful, the nurse bethought her
self of a possible baby pin, or off too tight string,
and carried the to Toilet-room
No. 2, to investigate.
At this juncture the Montefiore car
riage drove up in a tremendous hurry,
There was not a moment to lose. The
Signor Conte had been telegraphed ill, and for
to go to his son, who was very
it was only by a miracle that they had
wrong out the time to come for the con
tessiua. The Signor Conte must have
the carriage " in twenty minutes, without
fail.
“Go,” said Mr. I.yman to the foot
man, “and take the baby from the nurse;
she is waiting at the door. You need
have no words withher, as she has been
paid and dismissed. Make haste, and
don’t wake the child.”
To the great disgust of the affectionate
uncle, the new nurse had not been able
to come in the carriage for the baby, and
he must have a tetea-tete drive with it.
Fortunately, it was not far. While the
man was gone for the baby, he busied
himself arranging a bed of shawls in the
carriage, big enough for the infant’s
grandfather “There, I hope to she repose will comfortably sleep,” he said, on.
giving his work a final pat.
The footman dashed into the waiting
room, cast a and hasty, gathered comprehensive the
glance about, then up
unconscious Trotty as the only infant in
the room, lie quietly withdrew him
from the partially overhanging draperies
of the snoring old woman at his side,
whom he took for the nurse. “Madonna
mia! what a fright the old girl will have
when she finds the baby gone! It serve-;
her right, though; she ought not to go
to sleep at her post, and I have no time
for explanations.”
Mrs. Roseleaf, on the bench opposite,
continued to sleep the sleep of the just,
and Trotty was borne away,
her “Asleep, down gingerly, Carlino? That is lucky. Put
shawls. my boy, til” on these
All right. , Avan and the
Count's carriage dashed forward,
Before the rattle 1 of its wheels died
away the waiting-room there bfljpin an Verona. animated scene in
toilet at Doris, her
where adjusted, sought but the cozy nest
she hail left her pet, but toiler
horror the bird was ilown. Then arose
tears and lamentations which would have
melted granite. Where was he, her
darling, if her beauty? She did not cave
the whole world knew he was a dog—
should only let some one return him, and he
have any reward he asked for.
Somebody testified to having seen afoot
man, in livery, come in and take away
the baby, or dog, or whatever it was.
“A case of abduction, then, and more
hopeless imperturbable than ever!” wailed Doris. with The
Abruzzi nurse, her
baby sleeping sweetly as an angel,
blinked stupidly at the excited people
around nothing her, understanding their evident or distress. caring
about
She only wondered vaguely why the
Signor Conte's carr.iige was so slow in
Presently Harold Lyman, with a face
as white as carried a ghost,-dashed handkerchief. into the
room. He a lace
in his hand, and went straight up to the
weeping Doris, saying: believe "Madam, it js I this
your ticed property? the I is, for no
the same train.” name on your portmau
teau in
“Yes, it is mine. It was round my
darling Trotty’s don’t neck. tell Is he he still dead!” alive?
Pray, pray me is
“Very much alive, my dear young
lady, and I am here to heg you to much conic
and claim him. He is quite too
lor any of us to manage.” Then turning
to the nurse and a baby on whom his
eyes had rested for a moment with in
tense relief as he entered the room, he
said to the woman, with flashing eyes*
“How dared you disobey me and the- go
wandering off and losing yourself dour stupid- at
most ity important moment! death all.
has nearly been the of us
The other nurse has gore into fits, and
if she dies, her blood will be on your
soul!”
“It was unmoved, a pin, Fceellcnz,” the wo mam
replied, Roseleaf,
Five minutes later, Mrs.
Dorris, Mr. Lyman and the real baby
were packed into a carriage and which were
spinningaloug to the Palazzo to
Trotty Never had in been all her conveyed, life will Doris forget
the aspect of things as she was ushered
' n t° the presence of her lost darling. It
was a large, airy room, recovered like a from nursery, his
Trotty, considerably stood theflooriu
cpium drowsiness, on
extreme at a
dozen or more frightened people, any
one of whom would rather grasp hot coals
than touch him. His cap was rakishly
careened to one side, he had torn his
lace dress fore and aft, and his shawl
trailed sideways cn the carpet,
“Trotty, dear Trottyl” cried Doris,
rushing forward.
Benignity and.pk'.asuro softened Trot
ty’s sinister eye; slowly his tattered
draperies swayed to and fro with the
beatific wagging of his tail. He started
toward his mistress, but tripped ignobly
in his petticoat and rolled over, “You
darling, you shall not be a baby any
more 1” and she tore off the garments sir
much the worse for wear, and allowed
Trotty to appear in the dignity of his
own coat.
This interview, very painful for alt
persons concerned, save one, was ended
as soon as possible, anil the Roseleaf*
were driven back-to the station, there to
begin their usual pleading with the
guards to allow their dog to accompany
them.
Before bidding them adieu, Mr. Lyman fin^
managed with considerable and jinesse daughter to
out where Mrs. Roseleaf her
were going to spend the next six weeks, by
chance Oddly enough, he,appeared, quite
of course, at the same place a
fortnight later, and somehow found it
necessary and expedient to go to the re
sort next selected by them,
It so turned out that when Doris re
turned in the autumn to the “Lorn
bardia ” she did have a handsome ad
mirer to flaunt in the faces of the other
girls. is wonderfully devoted. Wheu
“ He
is the wedding to be?”