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Read Ebook: My Queen: A Weekly Journal for Young Women. Issue 3 October 13 1900 Marion Marlowe's True Heart; or How a Daughter Forgave by Sheldon Lurana
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Ebook has 634 lines and 24991 words, and 13 pages
MY QUEEN
A WEEKLY JOURNAL FOR YOUNG WOMEN
No. 3. PRICE, FIVE CENTS.
MARION MARLOWE'S TRUE HEART
HOW A DAUGHTER FORGAVE
BY GRACE SHIRLEY
PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY STREET & SMITH, 238 William Street, New York City.
MY QUEEN
A WEEKLY JOURNAL FOR YOUNG WOMEN
No. 3. NEW YORK, October 13, 1900. Price Five Cents.
Marion Marlowe's True Heart;
OR,
HOW A DAUGHTER FORGAVE.
IN THE FARMHOUSE KITCHEN.
It was a cold, dreary day and the country was white with snow, causing the sparsely settled village of Hickorytown to look even more desolate than usual.
Old Deacon Joshua Marlowe and his wife were seated in the dingy kitchen of the old farmhouse, and it was plainly to be seen that they were both worried and angry.
The farmer's elbows were on his knees and his head between his hands, and as he sat in silent meditation he spitefully chewed a long wisp of straw.
Martha Marlowe dried her eyes with her apron now and then, and finally a decided sniff evinced to her husband that she was crying.
Instead of becoming more calm at this sign of his wife's grief, Deacon Marlowe raised his head and scowled at her angrily.
"'Tain't no use tew snivel about it, Marthy," he said, snappishly. "It's got tew be did, an' thet's all thar is about it! Sile's got the mor'gage on the farm, an' he's a-goin' tew foreclose, an' all the cryin' yew kin dew won't help matters any."
"But where be we a-goin'?" asked his wife, desperately. "I've asked Samanthy tew take us, an' she 'lows Tom won't have us!"
"Tom's a doggoned jackass!" was the farmer's answer. "Ef I'd a-knowed how tarnal stingy he wuz, I'd never hev let Samanthy marry him!"
"Waal, you wuz pretty sot on the matter, Joshuy!" snapped his wife, with some spirit. "The Lord knows, Samanthy didn't want tew marry him!"
There was no answer to this, so Mrs. Marlowe grew bolder.
"Marion told yew how it would turn out when yew done it, Joshuy, an', in spite of that, yew done yewr best tew make Dollie marry Sile Johnson! Not but that yew meant well by the gal," she added, a little more humbly, "but it shows on the face of it that it ain't right fer a father tew interfere in sech matters. Ef our children hadn't been driv so by their father, they might a-been here tew comfort us this minute!"
She put her apron up to her face and burst out crying now. Her mother heart had at last conquered her fear of her husband.
"I hain't a-lookin' fer comfort, Marthy," said the old farmer, stubbornly. "The facts of the case is clear, an' we've got tew face 'em!"
"Yew mean we've got tew leave the old home an' go tew the Poor Farm, I s'pose," was the answer. "Oh, Joshuy! It's hard, an' I ain't done nothin' tew deserve it!"
Joshua Marlowe arose and paced the floor excitedly. For the first time in his life he began to feel the twinges of a rebuking conscience.
Only two years before he had been a fairly prosperous farmer, with a good wife and three of the prettiest daughters to be found in that section.
When Tom Wilders, a lean, lanky, close-fisted farmer from his own town, asked to marry Samantha; he gave her to him without a word, and his eldest daughter, who inherited her mother's meekness, accepted him for a husband, knowing that she loathed the fellow.
Only a little while after the marriage, Tom Wilders called on the deacon. His interview with his father-in-law was strictly private, but in some way it cost the deacon exactly five hundred dollars.
Where he got the money no one knew for a time, but very soon Silas Johnson, another neighbor, began suing boldly for the hand of Dollie Marlowe.
Dollie was only seventeen, but she had more spirit than Samantha, and, better yet, she had her sister Marion to protect her.
For what the rest of the women of the Marlowe family lacked in spirit, beautiful, gray-eyed Marion made up in full. As she grew older she developed the determination of her father, but it was backed by honor and good judgment, and her love for her twin sister made her as fearless as a lion.
Quite by accident Marion learned of her father's reason for assenting to Silas Johnson's suit. He had given Silas a mortgage on the farm for five hundred dollars in order to obtain the money to loan to Tom Wilders.
Now, when the mortgage was to be foreclosed and the old people turned out, Tom, the dutiful son-in-law, not only refused to pay up, but he also refused to even harbor his wife's parents.
There was still a mystery about the loan of the money, but neither Mrs. Marlowe nor Samantha dared to question their husbands, and there was not a scrap of paper to prove the transaction.
"Ef Marion wuz here, she'd sift this thing tew the bottom," thought poor, weak Mrs. Marlowe, as she sat and wept, and then for, perhaps, the first time in her life, she turned and bitterly berated her husband.
"Yew've done it all, Joshuy!" she said, lowering her apron. "Yew tied Samanthy hand and foot tew the stingiest critter this side er Jordan, an', what's more, yew've driv both Marion and Dollie from their own father's door--yew've done it, an' some day yew'll answer fer it, Joshuy!"
Her husband paused in his nervous pacing, and stared at her wonderingly. There was a red flush of shame creeping over his wrinkled forehead.
"I've never said it before, being I ain't dared, but I'll say it now ef yew kill me, Joshuy Marlowe! I'm tew full tew keep still! I jest can't, an' that's all there is about it! Yew've been tew hard on yewr own flesh an' blood, an' yew've been tew hard on me--an' we air goin' tew the Poor Farm as a jedgement upon us--yew fer bein' so hard, an' me fer keepin' still an' mindin' ye!"
Before such a flood of honest condemnation, Joshua Marlowe stood silent; he had not dreamed that his wife harbored such bitterness toward him.
With hardly a pause for breath, she went on speaking, rolling the corners of her apron in both hands and rocking her body back and forth in the torrent of her misery.
"Ef it warn't fer yewr hardness, they would be here now, Joshuy--Samanthy, Marion an' Dollie! But yew turned 'em out! Yew did, Joshuy Marlowe! Yew giv Samanthy tew Tom an' disowned poor Dollie, an' yew'd a-turned Marion out ef yew'd a-dared, but yew dassent! That's one of yewr children that wasn't afeard of yew, Joshuy! Oh, Marion! Marion! I wish yew wuz here this minute!"
The poor woman clasped her hands over her face and began weeping again, while Joshua Marlowe stood like one transfixed, staring grimly at her.
There was a light step on the snow outside, but neither of them heard it. The next second the door flew open and a beautiful girl stood upon the threshold, her eyes flashing like diamonds as their glance fell upon the weeping woman.
"Mother! Mother! I have come back!" cried a sweet, young voice.
The poor woman dropped her apron and gave a scream of joy.
"Oh, Marion! Thank God! It is my darter Marion!"
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