AN OLD FAMILY SERVANT.1

BY F. HOPKINSON SMITH.

(From "Colonel Carter of Cartersville.")

[FRANCIS HOPKINSON SMITH, artist, author, and civil engineer, was born in Baltimore, Md., October 3, 1838. He is one of the most popular writers of the day, and has also displayed marked ability as a painter in water colors. Besides contributing largely to magazines and reviews, he has published: "Old Lines in New Black and White," "Well-worn Roads of Spain," "Holland and Italy," "Colonel Carter of Cartersville," "A Day at Laguerre's," "A Gentleman Vagabond," ‚” “ Espero Gorgoni, Gondolier," and "Tom Grogan." All his works are illustrated by himself.]

THE colonel's front yard, while as quaint and old-fashioned as his house, was not-if I may be allowed-quite so well bred.

This came partly from the outdoor life it had always led and from its close association with other yards that had lost all semblance of respectability, and partly from the fact that it had never felt the refining influences of the friends of the house; for nobody ever lingered in the front yard who by any possibility could get into the front door-nobody, except perhaps now and then a stray tramp, who felt at home at once and went to sleep on the steps.

That all this told upon its character and appearance was shown in the remnants of whitewash on the high wall, scaling off in discolored patches; in the stagger of the tall fence opposite, drooping like a drunkard between two policemen of posts; and in the unkempt, bulging rear of the third wall,— the front house,-stuffed with rags and tied up with clotheslines.

If in the purity of its youth it had ever seen better days as a garden - but then no possible stretch of imagination, however brilliant, could ever convert this miserable quadrangle into a garden.

It contained, of course, as all such yards do, one lone plant, this time a honeysuckle,- which had clambered over the front door and there rested as if content to stay; but which later on, frightened at the surroundings, had with one great

1 Copyright, 1891, by F. Hopkinson Smith and Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Published by permission.

spring cleared the slippery wall between, reached the rain spout above, and by its helping arm had thus escaped to the roof and the sunlight.

It is also true that high up on this same wall there still clung the remains of a crisscross wooden trellis supporting the shivering branches of an old vine, which had spent its whole life trying to grow high enough to look over the tall fence into the yard beyond; but this was so long ago that not even the landlord remembered the color of its blossoms.

Then there was an old-fashioned hydrant, with a half-spiral crank of a handle on its top and the curved end of a lead pipe always aleak thrust through its rotten side, with its little statues of ice all winter and its spattering slop all summer.

Besides all this there were some broken flowerpots in a heap in one corner,-suicides from the window sills above, and some sagging clotheslines, and a battered watering pot, and a box or two that might once have held flowers; and yet with all this circumstantial evidence against me I cannot conscientiously believe that this forlorn courtyard ever could have risen to the dignity of a garden.

But of course nothing of all this can be seen at night. At night one sees only the tall clock tower of Jefferson Market with its one blazing eye glaring high up over the fence, the little lantern hung in the tunnel, and the glow through the curtains shading the old-fashioned windows of the house itself, telling of warmth and comfort within..

To-night when I pushed open the swinging door- the door of the tunnel entering from the street-the lantern was gone, and in its stead there was only the glimmer of a mysterious light moving about the yard,-a light that fell now on the bare wall, now on the front steps, making threads of gold of the twisted iron railings, then on the posts of the leaning fence, against which hung three feathery objects,-grotesque and curious in the changing shadows,-and again on some barrels and boxes surrounded by loose straw.

Following this light, in fact, guiding it. was a noiseless, crouching figure peering under the open steps, groping around the front door, creeping beneath the windows; moving uneasily with a burglarlike tread.

I grasped my umbrella, advanced to the edge of the tunnel, and called out:

"Who's that?"

The figure stopped, straightened up, held a lantern high over its head, and peered into the darkness.

There was no mistaking that face.

"Oh, that's you, Chad, is it? What the devil are you doing?" "Lookin' for one ob dese yer tar'pins Miss Nancy sent de colonel. Dey was seben ob 'em in dis box, an' now dey ain't but six. Hole dis light, Major, an' lemme fumble round

dis rain spout."

Chad handed me the lantern, fell on his knees, and began crawling around the small yard like an old dog hunting for a possum, feeling in among the roots of the honeysuckle, between the barrels that had brought the colonel's china from Carter Hall, under the steps, way back where Chad kept his wood ashes - but no "brer tar'pin."

"Well, if dat don't beat de lan'! Dey was two ba'elsone had dat wild turkey an' de pair o' geese you see hangin' on de fence dar, an' de udder ba'el I jest ca'aed down de cellar full er oishters. De tar'pins was in dis box-seben ob 'em. Spec' dat rapscallion crawled ober de fence. " And Chad picked up the basket with the remaining half-dozen, and descended the basement steps on his way through the kitchen to the front door above. Before he reached the bottom step I heard him break out with:

"Oh, yer you is, you black debbil! Tryin' to git in de door, is ye? De pot is whar you'll git!"

At the foot of the short steps, flat on his back, head and legs wriggling like an overturned roach, lay the missing terrapin. It had crawled to the edge of the opening and had fallen down in the darkness.

Chad picked him up and kept on grumbling, shaking his finger at the motionless terrapin, whose head and legs were now tight drawn between its shells.

"Gre't mine to squash ye! Wearin' out my old knees lookin' for ye. Nebber mine, I'm gwine to bile ye fust an' de longest-hear dat?- de longest! de longest!" Then looking up at me, "I got him, Major-try dat do'. Spec' it's open. Colonel ain't yer yit. Reckon some ob dem moonshiners is keepin' him down town. 'Fo' I forgit it, dar's a letter for ye hangin' to de mantelpiece."

The door and the letter were both open, the latter being half a sheet of paper impaled by a pin, which alone saved it from the roaring fire that Chad had just replenished.