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PREMONITIONS

BY EDWIN ASA DIX Author of "Deacon Bradbury," etc.

HERE 'S Martha Hackett? Ain't she comin'?" demanded Mrs. Finlay, as she stood at the side-porch door of her little house and greeted Mrs. Betts, who was coming up the steps.

"Yes, she 's comin'. She jest turned back to change her shoulder-shawl. She had her red one on when I stopped at her house for her, and we was part way here when she had a premonition that she 'd ought n't to wear it; so she went back to change it for her black Injy-silk one."

"Land! Another premonition!" sniffed Mrs. Finlay, scornfully, as she led her visitor into the little sitting-room. "It doos put me out of all patience with Martha to have her take sech notions. There ain't nothin' she can't git up a premonition about, seems to me.'

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"I dunno as she gits 'em up exac'ly," said mild Mrs. Betts, who avoided controversies. "They jest come to her, she says. An' y' know it doos seem sometimes as ef-"

Nonsense!" said Mrs. Finlay, getting out the sewing-table and drawing up chairs. "I s'pose you 're thinkin' of last Sunday, when she had a premonition not to set in her own pew, an' a stranger was put there instead, an' the seat broke down. But he was a sight heavier than Martha Hackett." "Well, there was the time she had a warnin' not to buy that pork she was jest havin' cut an' weighed for her at the

butcher's, an' Elder Jones bought that identical piece, an' he was took sick the very next week."

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Nothin' but biliousness. Lawson Jones is a hearty eater, an' he has an attack jest about so often. That pork did n't do it. I s'pose you've cut out that waist-pattern, have n't ye?. I 've got mine ready to sew. We might as well git to work on 'em. Those charity girls need 'em bad enough, that 's sart'in. Bess!"

A fresh-faced young girl entered at the call.

"How do you do, Mrs. Betts ?" she said pleasantly.

"Bess, you bring in your piece, too, an' we 'll start in. Mrs. Hackett she 'll be here before long. She was kep' back by a premonition."

Another, mama?" said the girl, with a little laugh. "How inconvenient they must be to her!"

"As bad as her asthmy turns," commented Mrs. Finlay. "Never can tell when they 're comin' on."

"They must be pretty troublesome for Mr. Hackett, too, I should think," added Bess, as she drew up her chair to the table, and the three fell to work on the charity sewing.

Mrs. Finlay made a grimace.

"I guess he don't say much. Jim Hackett did his fightin' when they was fust married. He got the wust of it, an' now he has the sense to know it an' stay quiet."

"Is there always a fight like that, mama,

when people get married?" queried Bess, and sat down, "you'd believe on 't." Mrs. demurely.

"Oh, not allers, child. Your pa an' I've never had a word; you know that. It 's because I know how to manage him, I s'pose."

Mrs. Finlay spoke with complacency. Her daughter's eyes were bent upon her work, but one might have seen a little naughty laughter in them. Zenas Finlay was quite the equal of any other Connecticut Yankee in shrewdness, and his wife was perhaps much oftener managed than she suspected. Mischievous Bess and her father had an excellent understanding.

The girl left the room to find her scissors. Mrs. Betts looked up from her work.

"Hollis Heywood still callin'?" she asked.

"Yes," said her hostess. "Every other Sunday. Queerest thing I ever knew."

"T is, ain't it?" the other responded. "Ef 't was every week, now—"

"Of course that 'u'd make plain sailin'. Hollis is a fine, likely feller, an' I don't know any one I'd like better. But between times he seems to go round to other places, jest as ef he had n't any idee of keepin' comp'ny."

"Bess likes him, don't she?"

"You never can tell 'bout Bess. Sometimes I think she doos, an' then ag'in I dunno. But I'd resk that part ef I could tell what to make of him."

Bess reëntered, and the subject was changed. Presently Mrs. Hackett came up the path, and entered by the open side door.

"Well," she said, in some excitement, "I tell ye what, Abby Betts, it's a mighty good thing I had a premonition an' went back an' changed that shawl! I was comin' along jest now with this black one on, an' Sam Haines came down the road with two young bulls he 'd jest been buyin'. They looked fractious, I can tell you! Ef I'd 'a' had on that red shawl there 's no knowin' what'd 've happened."

"Humph!" said Mrs. Finlay. "Ef you'd 'a' kep' your red shawl on an' come along with Abby when you fust started, you 'd 've got here before you met any bulls. So it's as broad as it is long. Premonition! Don't believe a word on 't."

"Well, ef you'd had as many warnin's as I've had, Ann Finlay," said Mrs. Hackett, defiantly, as she got out her work

Hackett was a nervous, active little woman, always equal to an argument, and particularly quick to defend her pet theory.

"I've had lots of 'em," declared her. hostess, basting in a sleeve with energetic stitches, "an' I never heeded one. Allers gone right in the face of 'em. An' here I be."

"Of course, sometimes, I s'pose, things come true," remarked pacific Mrs. Betts. "Sometimes? Pretty nearly always," Mrs. Hackett said. "There was that time I had a premonition not to let Johnny ride the mare down to the blacksmith's for shoein', an' I made Mike lead her; an' she got the staggers on the way, an' there's no tellin' where she 'd 've shook Johnny to."

"Wasn't that the day that Johnny stayed home, and fell off the shed roof and broke his leg?" inquired Bess, innocently.

He did n't break it," Mrs. Hackett retorted triumphantly. "Had to hop round with a stick for a week or two, till it got straightened out, that's all."

"Well, as I said before," remarked Mrs. Finlay, "I don't see but what it's as broad as it is long."

"Then I had the premonition 'bout not goin' to preparatory lecture, that time last October," went on Mrs. Hackett, “an' the plasterin' fell right down on the spot where I allers sit, an' hurt Elder Jones's head, he happenin' to be settin' there."

"How 'bout the elder's not havin' a premonition, too?" demanded Mrs. Finlay. "Don't ye s'pose Providence cal❜lates to take keer of him jest as much as it doos of you?"

“He had one, too," said Mrs. Hackett, solemnly. "He told me so afterward. He had one, an' did n't heed it."

"Land!” ejaculated Mrs. Betts, and even Mrs. Finlay was a little startled at this.

"I never heared tell of it," she said doubtfully.

"I never told it before," confessed Martha Hackett. "It slipped out. He told me kind o' secret. I should n't want ye to repeat it."

"Well, it's all foolishness, 'cordin' to my view," asseverated Mrs. Finlay, stoutly. Ef any-"

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"How shall we finish these wrist-bands, Annie," interrupted Mrs. Betts-"round or square-cornered ?" And the talk oppor

tunely drifted away to the discussion of trenched most inconveniently on household the work before them. duties.

Nevertheless, an impression had been made on Mrs. Finlay's mind. The most ⚫determined skeptics are often the readiest to be attracted by a mystery. Martha Hackett had at last aroused in Ann Finlay's mind a certain curiosity and a secret desire to experiment a little. She breathed nothing to her husband or to Bess, but during the next few days she caught herself attentively studying her impulses, on the lookout for a "premonition." She was rewarded by two or three such, and obeyed them at considerable inconvenience. One was to take an umbrella when going out, already laden with a basket and several parcels, on a particularly fine morning; and the coming up of a sudden shower made no little impression on her mind as she walked homeward, dry and comfortable, under the umbrella. Soon after, she found herself unmistakably impelled not to do her usual Saturday baking; and Zenas and Bess and she had very thin meals on Sunday in consequence. In the week following she was dissuaded by an inward monitor from venturing on the street for two entire days, and gave up a ladies' aid meeting and a free minstrel parade in consequence. Nothing happened that augured danger during the period, nor did any results disclose themselves regarding the baking; but Mrs. Finlay remembered the umbrella episode and felt that she had no means of divining what might have happened had she disobeyed her warnings.

She continued, however, to keep her own counsel on the subject, alleging other reasons for any unusual acts of hers, and believing her real motives to be securely concealed. Her husband was not a little puzzled, for a time, at his wife's apparent whims; but seeing her in one or two absorbed conversations with Martha Hackett, he began to reach certain astute conclusions. Still, he, too, kept his own counsel.

Mrs. Finlay's talks with Mrs. Hackett were adroitly steered to the subject of premonitions, on which her friend was nothing loath to hold forth; and she unlocked a surprising store of marvelous anecdotes relating to Martha's Socratic "daimon." She became more and more a convert; her premonitions began to be much more numerous and imperative now, and often

"Bessie, I dunno 'bout your doin' any sewin' this evenin'," she said one Saturday night after supper, as her daughter took up work on a pretty new dimity she was making for herself.

The girl looked up, rather surprised, and her father put down his weekly paper for a moment.

"Got a premonition, ma ?" he inquired humorously.

"Never you mind 'bout premonitions, Zenas," his wife said, with a touch of sharpness. I don't want Bessie to sew to-night, that's all. There's a good deal of bloodpoisonin' round from pricked fingers an' sech.”

"Any more catchin' on Saturday nights than other times?" quizzed the farmer. "I dunno but what it is. Those things happen very strange sometimes. Anyway, I'd ruther she would n't."

"Well, that 's reason enough, mama, I'm sure." Bess laughed a little, but put down her work with willing compliance. "Come, pa, let's go on with that chapter in Plutarch's 'Lives.""

"No, Bessie," said her father, gravely; "I guess not to-night." "Why not?"

"Well," said Zenas, slowly, "I 've had a kind o' presentiment that that chapter 'll have to be postponed."

Bessie looked at him swiftly, and Mrs. Finlay was startled.

"A what, Zenas?" the latter asked. "What's that you say?"

"I said I had a presentiment, ma," he explained. “Not a premonition, y' know. A presentiment."

"I dunno 's I see the difference," said his wife, dubiously. "An' I did n't know that you-"

"I don't. Not premonitions. But presentiments are diff'rent, of course. No, Bess; you give us some music, an' I 'll read ye that chapter another time."

So the girl betook herself to the piano, where she played for a long time, while her mother knitted and her father read his paper. She had a soft, agreeable touch, and her fingers gave expression to varying fancies as they wandered capriciously over the keys.

On the following morning Zenas had a presentiment that it would be safer not to

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see the Sabbath respected," with a meaning look at her husband's stubbly beard, "day an' evenin', too?"

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Partic❜larly every other Sabbath evenin', eh?" whispered Zenas to his daughter, with a jocular nudge. Bessie flushed. for a moment, then met his glance saucily.

In the evening Mrs. Finlay began to betray a certain air of expectancy. Finally a distant bell struck. Mr. Finlay got up from the lounge on which he had stretched himself.

"Half-past seven," he said. "I 'most dozed off." He rubbed his bristly cheek cheerfully. "Now, Bess, we might go on with that Plutarch."

parlor together, where we won't disturb your mother readin' her Bible."

"Parlor!" cried Mrs. Finlay, in distress. "Yes, parlor. We won't bother you the least mite."

"You won't bother me in here." "Oh, yes, we should. Come along, Bess."

Bess was a good deal surprised, and struggled a minute between laugh and protest. Then the laugh won, and the two disappeared into the best room, where the large lamp had been lighted fully half an hour before by Mrs. Finlay.

When Hollis Heywood arrived, ten minutes later, Zenas himself opened the

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