The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, April 1, 1900, Page 1

MARGARE T, MINE; STRANGE STORY OF MRS. DUNTON, WRO CLAIMS SHE 15 GOING INSANE. HE world went mad one day. It had been a sanely sunny world the old country. There was the way the thistles 1 the year grew green and there was a laugh in the voice of the bustling little river beyond, and healthy Irish ess bloomed in all the faces tb y, now Mrs. Dunton faces always smiled at atled back, or else it was around. Bhe gave a good and she was fore the hand “It's & falr pink that shines your cheeks mine,” said John Wood- ok e's roses on many a bush would hide their hes e sight of yours, for the shame they were put to.” Then he married her. They and fc perched on a edge, end going at California in 1874, g young city nt of the land’s pace set by its hn and Margaret d they took hold he merry hus- ©f bands and 1 n wit tie, for there was the tang of wine in the alr, and it was good alive. Here in Ban Francis ehe could look at the world eye to eye and tear nothing. There was e r. The e the touch of the hand was went away—but walt “John Woodlock was & good man in those &:ys nd I loved him. lovec me, too. ‘Maggle, it seems that eax’t tell the sun twinkles from your when I look you around the cor- of my eye,’ John Woodlock said. That % was thirty years ago he said it. Thirty pears axo—he said my hair was Dot to be * she says toid from the sun—he said—he was my husband, you remember—you remember, don’t you?" The words came slowly in the timid, wondering tone of a little child - whe whimpers .in the dark. -The old woman’'s hand crept to her forehead and seemed trying to brush away something. Her eyes, the samé blue eyes that John Wood- lock, the lover, had likened in the poetry of his Irish tongue to the nemophila blos- som - of Callfornia hillsides—these same eyes grew fixed and feariug. “Whenever I talk about old times and think—and think—my head—the trouble—" Then the words went back and sald themselves again, and 1 broke in briskly with a town topic of the now, and she met me on safe ground and the face grew sure once more. For the morning sun was deluging her room, and there were those who meant well, like the sunshine, and had come to chat through & friendly hour with her, end the @ay side of nature was upper- most. 1 believe it is Robert Owen who writes of the night side. Mrs. Margaret Dunton has seen the night side. She has been afraid of some- thing that she could not see, something that she could not hear, something that she could not touch. It comes when the sun has slipped away. Then the sudden dark strides in, gulping houses and trees and people &s it comes. Then a lonely old woman, who looks for no more from life, sits in her room in an unper flat and reads over letters which tneir writers have forgotten, and caresses the painted ribbon nonsenses that Josephine treas- ured, and then— All at once she is on the edge of & cruel precipice, and below it are the crashing and whirling of madness. BShe HOME- “ALL AT ‘ONMCE SHE 1S OM THE EDGE OF A PRECIPICE,” MRS DUNTON'S MRS. MARGARET DUNTOMN she feels that it is terrible—it is destrey— ing. And while she stands on the edge, peering down, she feels the hand. It comes behind her and pushes, pushes ~ashe struggles and pits her strength against it and it gives way.. Bhe turns, te see no one thers. The precipice is gons and she is at home once more. But every time the hand comes It pushes harder and after every strugsle she is weaker. “Some day—the time will come when—" she says. ¢« s e After a few years of married life in California the poetry died out of the Irish 1ove story. Just why I do not know. Mar- garet was the ssme as ever—good to look upon. Her cheeks would still have shamed roses and her hair still played at being sunshine, and her eyes were still like the flowers of the nemophila. The wholesome beauty of her native land was in her face and her strong young body. There is plenty of it left even to-day. for the matter of that, though she is only & Jorely old woman who fears. Her mother had died when she was 16, hor father a few years later, and then John Woodlock had brought her to a strange land and had set out to be to her husband and all besides. But it &id not last. The day came when she went to visit her sister in Dublin, and wrote back to Mr. Woodlock to sue for divorge on the ground of desertion. He did €0, and after the divorce was secured she returned to Ban Francisco. “I think fate meant me to be always alone,” she says. Still she had never stood upon the preci- pice; had never felt the hand. She was not entirely happy, but she was living comfortably enough on the property which her father had left her. As time went on she came to know Oliver Dunton. She thought of him as a boy at first, for he was almost a score of years younger than she, and she used to play adviser and com- forter to him. He found the little home a cozy place in which to spend the even- ing. He could take his pleasures or his troubles there and be sure that either would be kindly received. The big chair was always ready for him, and it seemed to grow more and more comfortable as the weeks went by, and it was the nicest thing in the world to see the way Mrs. Margaret would whip the album and the wvaze off the sitting-room table, spread out a white cloth and set forth a ginger-bread and buttermilk supper. By and by young Mr. Dunton came to notice how bewitch- ingly the hair waved of fts own accord over Mrs. Margaret's temples. At the same time she began to feel her attitude changing, and she could not be quite as motherly as she once had been. There came to be seven years of happy married life to Mrs, Oliver Dunton. She put up the bullding where she now lives on Seventeenth street. Below is a store that used to bring in a neat little rent, and above is the spick and span flat where the Duntons made their home, The lace curtains were crisp In thelr newness, and the upholstery of the new furniture stood up springy and proud. The same turniture is there to-day, but it is not as proud as it once was. After the two had snuggled down in the flat it seemed that life was complete. They adopted a little girl and gave her the pret- tiest name that they could find in the back of the dictionary—Josephine. She grew up to be one of California’s daughters, her Ppeauty fed by the wind and the sun and the fog. But she brought trouble into the Jittle home. She caused disagreement be- tween the foster-parents, and at last came their separation. All in a breath, Mrs. Dunton awoke to find her husband parted from her, her adopted daughter gone from home, her property involved. She could hardly take in‘all the trouble at once. It was so great, so. much for her brain to realize. Little by little she came to know it in all its ugliness—to know It thoeugh and through.: It had come to stay. “Fate seems to have meant that I should always be alone,” she says. She was indeed alone. She had law- sults to enter into on account of her prop- erty, so she met many lawyers. Day after day she put-her house in order—just as much in order as If there were somebody coming home to see it—and after the work was done she sat down to talk it all over with her trouble. The work had come’to be a slim enough task now that the flat had onmly one oc- cupant, and it was done all too quickly. This left much time to be spent with her trouble. AS she brooded and brooded and brooded she came nearer to the night side. At first she saw grief and Dittermess M the whole matter and they were clear enough. Then they grew confused. When she sat down by herself to think of them they seemed to whirl and take Indistinet shapes, out of which nothing could be made but chaos and terror. Bhe wondered what it mx t. Thers ‘Was a strange pressure in the brain, “It wasn't like & headache st all,”™ she told me. “It was as If the brain was too full and must burst. And thers seemed to be something inside that kept grawing, gnawing.” Her hand stole to her forshead again and her eyes grew once miors fixed and fearing. When she talks of these thiugs she feels a touch of the unseen hand. “{ knew something w=s wrong,” she went on after a second. She was calm now. “I know, but I dreaded to say, even to think what I feared I went te St Mary's Hospital and sald that I was net well. The doctors never spoke to ™« about my brain, but I knew that 2O knew. “One day & sister told me “The See~ tors fear for your reason,’ she said. “Then it was out. I had kept It seaved, but at last it had taken shape in weeds, I was going insane.” It is not given to all to ses the pusch- pice, to hear the crashing, to foel the bhand. To this woman it i “At first I had the sense of comfusiom ‘when I thought of my trouble; them omme little aberrations. I would suddenly be- come conscious that I was talking fast te myself about the lawsuita™ ‘When she told me this I recalled whas & physician once sald to me “To talk to no listener,” sald he, and his eyes were grave, “be careful; it is the first sign.” She knew at last what it all meant. Over the precipice lay madness In very truth. She tried to look the matter fairty Im the face. The band was growing stronger day by day and the striggies against it wers longer and harder. She was coming to be always afrald. In the street she grew terrified, for all the hurrying world seemed mad and it seemed calling her to come and be mad, too. She slunk back to her own home and cowered there, atrald. Now she never leaves it, except when there comes a summons to court. Some of these things I had heard when 1 went to ses her last week. I found a tidy little home, kept neat and sweet by the touch of the homemaker. She i a woman of 60 years, whose face would bear witness to no more than 8. An Irishly rosy face, it is round and clear- cut of feature, and over the forehead flutter curly gray locks, and the eyes are summery blue. Face and volce and man- ner are womanly, strong, wholesome. “This is all the day side of nature,” sald I to myself. But as she talked I caught glimpses of something else. She clung to a well-bred composure while she told of her los~es; she repeated the story that was already known of her growing fear of inssmitw her final certainty of it. A few days ago the struggle on the brink had grown so desperate that she went to & one time friend and asked help. She wanted to be protected from herself. She cannot remain alone. She will give up everything she owns for enough money to pay her entrance fee to an old people’s home. “If I could once have it all over,” she says, “the endless litigation; if I could give up the effort of hanging on to my possessions; if I could go where there was no mere struggle—only rest—I think I might be saved.” She was looking calmly at the matter which she has had to fac: n, as she talked, she grew afraid aga The way of the law is long—if she can only cling until—until— The edge is a dizzy edge and the hand is strong. ‘Will help come In time? BARAH COMSTOCK.