Wetmore

“ Toward eight o’clock, Harvey, who had stepped out on the balcony for a minute, suggested that they stroll over to Mar Bravo beach.
“It’s a perfect night,” he said. “The moon is full and there’s hardly a cloud to be seen; only a few of fleecy white that scud along as if ashamed to interrupt the light.”
“Do you realize, sir, that if you should change that sentence a trifle you would have a verse for a poem?” laughingly said Bella Caceras. “But you are right. It is lovely. Let’s all go. The evening is warm and we do not need any wraps, do we, Rosita?” ”

“ The only question is whether Miss Saunders can keep that saving simplicity. It may be trained out of her, or she may be taught to put other things before it. Wetmore felt the danger of that, when we looked at her sketches. I'm not saying they're not full of faults; the technique is bad enough; sometimes it's almost childish; but the root of the matter is there. She knows what she sees, and she tells."
"Really?" said Mrs. Westley. "It is hard for a woman to believe much in women; we don't expect anything of each other yet. Should you like her to paint me?" ”

“ She forbade Charmian the indignation which she would have liked to vent, but she let her cry over the event with her. No one else knew that it had actually happened except Wetmore and Ludlow; she was angry with them at first for encouraging her to offer the picture, but Wetmore came and was so mystified and humbled by its refusal, that she forgave him and even comforted him for his part in the affair.
"She acted like a little man about it," he reported to Ludlow. "She'll do. When a girl can take a blow like that the way she does, she makes you wish that more fellows were girls. ”

“ The announcement was made to her by Wilbur at about this time that his plans for Wetmore College had been accepted, and that he was to be the architect of the new buildings. As he told her his face showed a tremulous animation which it had not worn for many weeks, and he regarded her for a moment with shy eagerness, as though he half hoped that this vindication of his purposes by success might prompt her to tender some sort of apology, and thus afford him the chance to persuade himself that he had been mistaken after all in his judgment of her.
"You must be very much pleased," she said. ”

“ WETMORE, GEORGE PEABODY, a United States Senator from Rhode Island, born at London, England, in 1846. He graduated from Yale in 1867, and from the Columbia Law School in 1869. In the same year he was admitted to the bar. He was trustee of the Peabody Museum of Natural History of Yale, and of the Peabody Educational Fund. ”

“ Wetmore shrugged, as if this were something Ludlow ought not to have asked. He went back to Cornelia's sketches, and looked at them one after another. "That girl knows what she's about, or what she wants to do, and she goes for it every time. She has got talent. Whether she's got enough to stand the training! That's the great difference, after all. Lots of people have talent ”

“ You can't get away from it, any more than you can get away from the truth. There it is!"
"Where?" asked Wetmore. He looked at the ladies as if he thought one of them had been indicated.
"How delightful to have one's ideas jumped on just as if they were a man's!" sighed Mrs. Rangeley. Her opponent laughed a generous delight, as if he liked nothing better than having his reasoning brought to naught. He entered joyously into the tumult which the utterance of the different opinions, prejudices and prepossessions of the company became.
Ludlow escaped from it, and made his way to Mrs. ”

“ But with a blockade established, no ships will come in, and I shall have nothing to do.”
“Then, isn’t that a reason for my remaining? You will be very lonely, and should have one of your sons by your side.”
Captain Saunders smiled. “Very well put, Carl,” he said, “but I wonder how much Louis and Harvey have to do with your anxiety to remain? But you may do as you wish, and I shall reserve a stateroom for your mother and Harold. Now that this is settled, I wish you to take the next dummy back to La Punta, and tell your mother what has occurred; then help her all you can with the packing. ”

“ A joke is a joke, but they ought not to worry her.”
The boys ran down the steps and out in front. The girls were not in sight. They looked in the doorways of the neighboring houses. No one could be seen.
“Rosita! Rosita!” called Harvey and Louis. “Don’t try to hide any longer. We know where you are.”
There was no answer.
“Where do you suppose they are?” asked Harvey, and his voice trembled.
“I think we should tell father,” said Louis, and running to the foot of the stairs he called to Mr. Dartmoor.
“What is it, Louis?” asked the iron merchant.
“We can’t find Rosita and Bella Caceras.” ”

“ Wetmore's son, and to demand his explanations in that character; one that would clearly give him every claim to be heard.
"I know what these usurers, as you call 'em, Miles, must be," said the mate. "They are a sort of in-shore pawn-brokers; and the Lord have mercy on them, for I'll have none. I've had occasion to pawn a watch, or a quadrant, in my time; and bloody poor prices does a fellow get for his goods and chattels. Yes, yes; I'll let the old gentleman know, at once, I'm Van Duzer Oloff Marble Wetmore Moses, or whatever's my name ”

“ The whole chirography puts us in mind of a jig. We can fancy the writer jerking up his hand from the paper at the end of each word, and, indeed, of each letter. What mental idiosyncrasy lies perdu beneath all this, is more than we can say, but we will venture to assert that Mr. Greely (whom we do not know personally) is, personally, a very remarkable man.
The name of Mr. Prosper M. Wetmore is familiar to all readers of American light literature. ”

“ The midnight hush was unbroken, and the darkness lay thick upon the plain, but shapes blacker than night hovered near, and Will laid his hand on Simpson's shoulder.
The latter was instantly alive, and Woods was wakened. A faint click went away on the night breeze, and a moment later three jets of flame carried warning to the up-creeping foe that the whites were both alive and on the alert.
There was no more sleep within the barricade. The dawn grew into day, and anxious eyes scanned the trail for reinforcements—coming surely, but on what heavy and slow-turning wheels! ”

“ His MS. is fully shown in the signature. It evinces the direct, unpretending strength and simplicity which characterize the man, not less than his general compositions.
The name of William B. O. Peabody, like that of Mr. Wetmore, is known chiefly to the readers of our light literature, and much more familiarly to Northern than to Southern readers. He is a resident of Springfield, Mass. His occasional poems have been much admired.
His chirography is what would be called beautiful by the ladies universally, and, perhaps, by a large majority of the bolder sex. ”

“ What’s the row in the yard? And, Louis, mother is screaming, calling out, or something. Come on! Come on, Carl!”
They needed no urging, but dashed up the stairs, two and three steps at a time, then through the house to the rear balcony, which overlooked a large court. There they met Mrs. Dartmoor, who was crying hysterically.
256“What’s the matter, mother?” asked Louis and Harvey, at the same instant.
“I don’t know,” she sobbed. “There was a noise in the stables and your father went down. I heard some terrible sounds, and then he called for Carl’s father and Señor Cisneros. ”

“ Is the most distinguished woman writer and lecturer on ornithology in this country. She was born in Auburn, New York, June 25, 1831. Daughter of Seth Hunt Mann and Mary Holbrook Mann. Married in 1854 to Mr. Watts Todd Miller. The lists of her books are numerous and valuable, especially to children in the study of bird life, and include, "Little Folks in Feathers and Fur," "Little Brothers of the Air," "True Bird Stories," and "The Bird, Our Brother."
ELIZABETH BISLAND WETMORE.
Mrs. Wetmore was born in Camp Bisland, Fairfax Plantation, Teche County, Louisiana, in 1863. ”

“ Hope-Jones had left an aged mother in England, who, though not in want, would be none the less a sharer in any good fortune that might come to her son; Ferguson built air-castles for his sister, who was studying music in Boston, and who had written him only by the last mail that she would be perfectly happy, could she but go abroad. As for the captain, he had long wished that six months might be passed in Lima and the remaining period of the year in their home in Huari. ”

“ Living in the scoop of a sidehill when one is strong and able to get about and keep the blood coursing is one thing; living there pent up through a tedious winter is quite another. Dave meditated as he worked away at the pair of crutches.
"Tell you what I think I'd better do," said he. "The nearest settlement is some hundred miles away, and I can get there and back in twenty days. Suppose I make the trip, get a team for our wagon, and come back for you?" ”

“ ATTACKED BY CANNIBALS. In his descent the savage struck Harvey, who was crawling from under the shelter, and the lad was sent sprawling to the other side of the little enclosure.
“Hold him! Keep him down!” called the señor to Hope-Jones, who with great presence of mind had fallen upon the struggling Majerona. But there was little use for the Peruvian to urge, or the Englishman to use his strength, for the Indian was mortally wounded; his struggles were death throes, not efforts to give combat, and in a few seconds he rolled over, dead. The rifle ball had pierced his brain. ”

“ What will you do?” he asked, turning to Señor Cisneros, who had remained in Callao, hoping that the clouds of depression might lift.
“I shall return to Huari and wait for peace,” he replied. “We are safe in the mountains. I wish you all could go with me.”
They thanked him, but declined. Mr. Dartmoor had not been home save for a brief period since the Civil War; he wished his children to become better acquainted with the great republic to the north, and he was anxious that Mrs. Dartmoor should see more of the United States. ”

“ Whatever Lo's faults, he never forgets a kindness any more than he forgets an injury. The chief, who went by the name of Rain-in-the-Face, at once recognized Will, and asked him what he was doing in that place. Will displayed his bandages, and related the mishap that had made them necessary, and refreshed the chief's memory of a certain occasion when a blanket and provisions had drifted his way. Rain-in-the-Face replied, with proper gravity, that he and his chums were out after scalps, and confessed to designs upon Will's, but in consideration of Auld Lang Syne he would spare the paleface boy. ”

“ To add to the confusion, Hope-Jones, who had been dreaming of the Majeronas, imagined an attack was on, and reaching out for the fancied opponent nearest him, he commenced pommelling Ferguson lustily. The elder American, who was so imprisoned by the canvas that he could not defend himself, might have been seriously injured had not Señor Cisneros rolled himself free, and dragged the bellicose Englishman away. He then freed the others, and as Harvey was still breathing heavily, after the wild dash through the woods, he drew the boy to him, believing he had been injured. ”

“ He was seated in a big arm-chair before the open fire, with his family gathered round him, by his side our frail, beautiful mother, with Baby Charlie on her knee, Martha and Julia, with their sewing, and Will, back of mother's chair, tenderly smoothing the hair from her brow, while he related spiritedly some new escapade of Turk. Suddenly he checked his narrative, listened for a space, and announced:
"There are some men riding on the road toward the house. We'd better be ready for trouble."
Mother, equal to every emergency, hurriedly disposed her slender forces for defense. ”

“ Unless they gave thought to the cause, their low tones seemed very strange and unnecessary, for nothing was in evidence to remind them of the presence in the vicinity of savages; not even did smoke 114rise from the place where they were encamped. Soon after breakfast Harvey said to Señor Cisneros:—
“If you will permit me, captain, I will crawl over to that tree,” and he pointed to one whose lower branches were near the ground, yet whose trunk rose to quite a height, “and by climbing I can see what the Indians are doing. ”

“ Only the day before, while on a reconnoissance, Will had captured a Confederate soldier, who proved to be an old acquaintance named Nat Golden. Will had served with Nat on one of Russell, Majors & Waddell's freight trains, and at one time had saved the young man's life, and thereby earned his enduring friendship. Nat was born in the East, became infected with Western fever, and ran away from home in order to become a plainsman. ”

“ The physician shook his head, after examining the old man, and said:—
“He cannot linger long; perhaps a week, possibly two, but no longer.”
16Ten days later the end came, and a few hours before Huayno breathed his last, he beckoned Hope-Jones and Ferguson to his side.
“My masters, I know that I am about to die,” said he. “The sun of my life is setting in the hills and soon it will have disappeared. Before darkness comes I have much to tell you. In these weeks you have done much for me, as much as you would have done a brother ”

“ Towering above them, ready, at an instant’s notice, to crush them out of being, was the rock of ages, the righteous spirit of Alleghenia, integral and indestructible, illumined by the ancient, undimmed, and eternal sense of rectitude inherent in the American people! ”