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"I s'pose," said she, "that if that poor girl goes down on her knees to you, an' tells you her heart is breakin', that you'll jest hand her over to the town poor, the way you did your money." "Don't, mother," whispered Elmira, as Jerome went out, making no response. "I'm goin' to say what I think 's best. I'm his mother," returned Ann.
"Father, I'd die before I'd touch a dollar of your money!" cried Jerome, passionately, and, tears in his eyes, flung away out to the barn, whither he was bound, to feed the horse. He watched all day for a chance to speak alone to Elmira, but she gave him none, until after supper that night. Then, when he beckoned her into the parlor, she followed him.
The whole theory of the Elmira system is to keep men long enough under a strict discipline to change their habits. This discipline is administered in three ways. They are put to school; they are put at work; they are prescribed minute and severe rules of conduct, and in the latter training is included military drill.
So up in his little chamber, with his mother and Elmira listening curiously below, and a little whining, trembling dog for a patient, Jerome learned to set a bone. His first surgical case was nearly a complete success, moreover, for the little dog abode with him for many a year after that, and went nimbly and merrily on his four legs, with scarcely a limp.
"I guess they needn't, either," assented Jerome, coming with the towel and wiping her face gently. "I'd like to hear anybody," he added, fiercely. "He's fell down and died," said his mother. She made sounds like sobs as she spoke, but there were no tears in her eyes. "I s'pose I ought to go an' take the horse out," said Jerome. "Well." "I'll send Elmira in; she's holdin' him." "Well."
An' when Mis' Doctor Prescott comes, you courtesy an' say, 'Good-mornin', Mis' Prescott. Mis' Abel Edwards sends you her compliments, and hopes you're enjoyin' good health, an' begs you'll accept this bowl of parsnip stew. She thought perhaps you hadn't had any this season." Mrs. Edwards repeated the speech in a little, fine, mincing voice, presumably the one which Elmira was to use.
"Are you the same officer, sir, who escaped from Elmira?" "I am, sir," Vincent replied; "and at the same time aided in the escape of the man who denounced me to-day, and who then did his best to have me arrested by sending an anonymous letter stating the disguise in which I was making my way through the country.
They all worked smartly, and nothing more was said, but Ann Edwards had an air of having conclusively established the subject rather than dropped it. Jerome kept stealing troubled glances at his sister's pretty face. Elmira was a mystery to him, which was not strange, since he had not yet learned the letters of the heart of any girl; but she was somewhat of a mystery to her mother as well.
I ain't going to wait any longer. He'll have to eat his dinner cold if he can't get home." Elmira put the dish of stew on the table. Jerome drew his chair up. Mrs. Edwards grasped the long-handled dipper preparatory to distributing the savory mess, then suddenly stopped and turned to Elmira.
Louis, a city having a large trade with the South, and containing many sympathizers with the Confederate cause. Vincent, having now no fear of detection, went at once to an hotel, and taking up the newspaper, one of the first paragraphs that met his eye was headed: "Escape of three Confederate officers from Elmira.
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