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About Schley County news. (Ellaville, Ga.) 1889-1939 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 23, 1890)
A Presage. 1 have a friend, a dear one. Her name—but why I confess? Yon very Tarely hear one More fascinating—guess! Her merry voice is sweeter Than any rillct s flow; Her laugh has more of metre Than any song I know Her lovely eyes that lighten When robins softly sing Are like the skies that brighten At dawn in early spring; Her cheeks—his brain is duller Than dunce's who'll not own They’ve all the pinky color Of apple buds ball blown. You will agree; it's pleasant That such a one rliould send Each year a charming present To me, "her dearest friend.” And this year I’ve a presage— It makes my pulses start— That with a tender message She’ll give to me her heart. — Jii.srll ('Union in 1 far per' a Magazine. "A NICE OLD WOMAN.” 15V FLORENCE ALLEN. “Oh dear!” It was a pretty little face which was all puckered up into such a lot of wor ried little wrinkles; pretty in spite of the shadow of care in the fair blue eyes, and the tired drop at the corner of the girlish mouth, Tne owner of the face and the wrinkles and the blue eyes and the mouth in question, was a slight, rather delicate-looking girl of about 18 w T ho stood, atiired in a faded calico dress, in the doorway of a small wood-colored cottage (or “cabin” as they more truthfully call such edifices in the mountains) looking out at the sunny slope of the road before her. Two fresh-faced smiling girls of her own age had just gone by, stopping to Bay a pleasant word or two as they passed; and the sight of their pretty, though simple, lawn dresses and float ing ribbons had brought, as they de parted, those w orried wrinkles to the face that should have been ns bright as theirs, and the impatient exclamation with which our story begins to her ge nera lly uncomplaining lips. U As a general thing Phrosy Miller (slic was Euphrosyne by rights, through the instrumentality of her father, who had found the name in his somewhat limited reading, and had delighted in its long drawn sweetness,) was a very cheerful aud contented girl in spite of the troubles and hard work that had come iuto her young life so early; but, just at present, there was something especial upon her mind, and that was the pic nic. It was to be in just four weeks from today, and all the girb were going; and ahe, who had stayed at home so much and so patiently for the last year, felt as though she ready mint go, too. But how? That was the question that brought the worried little wrinkles to the front so conspicuously. All the girls were going to have new lawn dresses and fresh ribbons for the occasion, aud “do up” her blue muslin as best she could (and she was something wonderful in the laundress line all her neighbors said,) it wouid not look any way but old and faded; and her ribbons—well, her small stock thereof had been cleaned and dyed and “done over” so often that they were merely a travesty upon their kind. Of course a new dress aud the requisite adornments would cost very little; but, as Plirosy said, tersely but truly, “If diamonds could be bought for a nickel apiece and one didn’t have the nickel, where would be the comfort of it?” Money had been very tight in the Miller family ever since Mr. Miller along illness, ending in his death, had put the little household under a load of debt which seemed at first, simply over whelming. Ben Miller—a wild and reckless young fellow he had been while liis father was well and strong and able to cire for the mother and sister—had steadied down .wonderfully and taken the burden of ex f istence on his shoulders patiently and manfully. Mrs. Miller aud Phrosy had economized in every way, even to the extent of taking some of the many wood choppers about as boarders, and they had worked early aud late aud sewed and denied themselves until the debt was paid, and tho future began to look a lit tle brighter. Then fate frowned on them once again. Mrs. Miller, a large, heavy and somewhat unwieldy woman, in going iltwn the back-3teps one day unde a misstep and fell, receiving an injury to her side which made her utterly help less. Since then Phrosy had found life harder than ever. Additional doctor's tills piled in upon them; Mrs. Miller SCHLEY COUNTY NEWS. instead of helping as before was now as helpless as a baby and so nervously irri table that keeping boarders longer was on impossibility even had Phrosy been able to do the work. So it wi.s that every cent that cams into the family had to be earned by Bon; and so it was that the new* lawn dress, so ardently desired, seemed to be among the impossibilities of existence, for Ben’s wages w'ere small at best and there were at least a dozen wavs for every dollar. And Phrosy thought altogether too much of her patient and kind-hearted brother, who denied himself so much to keep her and his invalid mother from want, to add to his buidens by telling him her own troubles. “If there was only something that I could do myself to earn a little money,” she said to herself, “but there doesn’t seem to be. Mother wouldn’t hear to mv running the machine steadily, even if I could get sewing to do, and there is nothing else. It’s a homeless case, I guess.” And, sighing heavily, Phrosy turned to enter the house in answer to a fretful call from within, but as she did so her eyes fell upon the clothc3-line in the side-yard. “In one mnute, mother,” she ?aid cheerily. “I’ll just bring Ben’s shirts in as 1 come by, — they're all ready to raw-starch and I can iron them by the sup per fire.” IIow white and clean and sweet they were! As Phrosy gathered them into a st-ffiy awkward bundle in her arms she could not help bending her head to in hale the “smell of outdoors” (as 6he called it) that came from them. “They smell different from Chinese washing,” she thought. “There’s one thing certain,—poor as we are Ben’s shirts are always the nicest done up in town,” and then as that thought passed through her mind it left an inspiration behin/d it. That night after supper, when Ben was resting himself from his day’s labor by “puttering” around the chicken house and back-yard generally, and Mrs. Miller w r as chatting with a neigh bor who had opportunely dropped in, Phrosy, pleading an errand at the store, slipped away from them all and pro ceeded to put her inspiration to the test of practicality. “It might be a good idea,” said kindly Mrs. Jenk ns, to whom she had gone in her emergency, “but there’s so many o’ them plaguey Chinese around that it brings prices down dreadful, and most folks don’t care how ,a thing is done so it is done cheap.” “But my things don’t smell of opium and nastiness u3 the Chinamen’s do,” averred Phrosy stoutly, “there must be some one who would rather pay a little higher aud have things nice.” 4 4 Such folks is scarcer than dia monds in dust heaps,” was the senten tious reply, “I would myself, of course, but bid Ma'am Gilman has kind of got a mortgage on me, and though she’s failing dreadful and don’t send things home fit to he seen some weeks, I kinder can’t go back on her all at once.” “Of course not,” assented Phrosy unhesitatingly, “that isn’t what I want at all. But—sec here—you ask Joe to inquire around up to Loren’s mill and I do believe he’ll find something for me. 1 don’t care to say a word to Ben or he’d fly all to pieces—nor you needn’t tell Joe who it is that wants the things—just let him say ‘some one who'll do them the best they can be done and needs the money. • M “All right,” said Mrs. Jenkins, “I'll keep it as still as mice, whether it turns out well or not. Y'ou come by tomor row night and I’ll tell you the verdict. ” And so, full of hopes and fears and fond imaginings, Phrosy went home. The next night Mrs. Jenkins met her with her broad face homing. “I’ve got six for you,” she said, delightedly, “and sixtimc3two bits is a dollar and a half! you arc in luck, Phrosy! ’Tain’t one of the mill hands cither, but a young fellow that has bought out the old Bradbury ranch. He’s been up to the city for the last week and more and come home with about a carload of dirty things—its been thath-ot up there, Joe says, that you can’t keep nothing decent two minutes, and old Mrs. Bui gal that cooks up there don't know beans about doing up, so the grist naturally comes to your mill, and I'm glad of it for one.” “And 1 for two,” answered Phrosy gleefully, and then, with a light and thankful heart she took possession of her somewhat bulky bundle and w-cat merrily homeward. The next day six white shirts fluttered upon the Millers’ clothes-lme; the next day—stiff and shiny and odorous only of Heaven's pure breezes—they went to their owner, and Joe brought back to his mother in return Ills silver which looked to Phrosy brighter and better than silver ever looked lefore. lie brought something else, too, an over grown bundle of shirts which had evi dently seen sorrow and had not lived the lives that aristocratic white shirts ought to live. ‘ These belong to the mill boys,” he explained, “they got a tight at the others and nothing to do but they must send these down. They’re a pretty hard lot, ” (meaning the sbirls and not the mill boys) “but I guess your old ■woman can get ’em clean, mother.” And his mother, chuckling a little as she thought of “her old woman” took the bundle and informed her son that anything of the kind was welcome until further orders. That week, in the neighbors’ estima tion?, Ben Miller fairly blossomed wrth shirts, for the number of those useful and ornamental garments that hung on the Millers’ line was something abso lutely unprecedented. “Thirteen shirts for one poor work ingman is the worst I ever heard!” as severated the woman next door, whose propinquity gave her, in her own esti mation, a right to criticise the Millers with more frankness than “manners.” “I wouldn’t slave myself to death for the sake of Ben's vanity if I was his sister!” But Phrosy smiled serenely. “I don’t call Ben over vain myself,” she answered, “and I’m sure I am not slaving myself to death or near it for any one, and as long as I’m satisfied I don’t see what difference the size of my washings ought to make to any one else.” And with this the officious and would-be inquisitive neighbor was forced to retire discomfited. Phrosy went to the picnic under Mrs. Jenkins’ protecting wing (one of Mrs. Miller’s whilom cronies consenting glad ly to come and spend the day with her) and she had on a fresh pink lawn and ribbons to match and looked for ail the world like a peach-blossom. The picnic was near the “old Brad bury ranch” and its new owner—a tall, sun-burned, masterful youDg fellow with a plain, sensible face and a pair of eyes that seemed to Phrosy the kindest that she had ever seen—made them wel come to his home aud was as hospitable as a true Californian always is; and some way Phrosy was shyly conscious, after the first, that those kind eye3 looked a tritie more kindly upon her than they did upon some of the more noticeable girls. Phrosy was always one of the useful ones, and w r hen it fell to her lot to oversee the arrangement of the lunch her new acquaintance very quietly dis engaged himself from the others and devoted himself to her assistance, and Ben Miller, looking on from a distance, saw and approved. “Phrosy’s worth her weight in gold,” he said to himself, “and Dalton is just the kind of a fellow that she ought to have. I’d give four bits to have it turn out that way.” That night Phrosy enme home tired but radiant. John Dalton had har nessed up hi3 two-horse team and brought part of the picnickers down to the village himself, “jast to be socia ble,” he had said; and he had invited her to sit beside him on the front seat, and he had, moreover, told Ben that he was coming down to play him a game of checkers now and then when the evenings got a little longer. What wonder was it that the world seemed rosc-colored to Phrosy? and what -wonder was it that when John Dalton—not waiting for the evenings to lengthen perceptibly—made his appear ance in her home and, after making friends with her mother, proceeded to devote himself especially to that lady’s daughter, that she thought herself the happiest girl in the world. Only one thing shadowed her heart. Supposing that he should be angry when he found out that the shirts, which still came, through Mrs. Jenkins, to that mysteri ous “old woman” were her task, and that he was making love to his washer woman? That fear made her almost cowardly after she began to feel that she was growing to care for. this quiet, mauly, young fellow as she had never cared for any one else before; and al though she knew that she must tell him some day, she put that day off as long #3 possible and grew, girl- fashion, as nervous and feverish ami miserable us possible over her innocent little secret, until even her mother noticed that Phrosv was “fretting” as she called it, and wondered thereat. One day, John Dalton brought mat ters to a foeu3 by simply and seriously asking Phrosy if she could make up her mind to come to him, and let him take care of her as he had longed to do ever since he first met her. “I think that I fell in love with you at first sight,” he said, in his straight forward way, “and ever since then I have been hoping that you would let me make things easier for you some day. Do you care for me enough to be my wife, Phrosy?” Poor Phrosy!— 3 he blushed and hesi tated and then put out her hands like a frightened child. “I—I am afraid I do,” she faltered, “but first I must tell you about—about the shirts!” John Dalton was mystified, but cer tainly there was nothing about shirts that could separate them. He prisoned the pleading hands lovingly and smiled down into her blushing face. “Never mind the shirts,” he said, “lieu must get some one else to do his up for the future; and, as for me, you’ll never have any trouble about mine, for there is a nice old woman who does mine up like new—you couldn’t get the job away from her if you wanted to, my dear. ” Phrosy's face was a sight to see now, between laughing and crying, embar rassment and half-frightened amuse ment. “Oh, John Dilton!” she said, pushing him away very feebly, “you’ll never want to marry me now, for it isn’t Ben’s shirts I am thinking of at all—it’s yours; and I—I never meant to deceive you at all, but I wanted a new dress so badly, at first; and then, after wards, it was such an eary way to earn a little, and it helped along so. Please don’t be angry, and please don’t laugh, but I’m the ‘nice old woman,’ John, and I am very sorry!” * * * * * Phrosy Miller is Mrs. John Dalton now, and is as happy as possible in her lovely home, where her mother has grown strong and well, and where Ben has always a room and place of his own. She doesn’t “do up” shirts at all now, for the babies claim her attention; but as her husband’s linen is always im maculate it is to be supposed that some other “nice old woman” has been found who gives satisfaction in that line. — The Housewife. How Hie Trout Was Caught. Otis Goddard of East Hill, walkeJ into Biakosley, Penn., the other dai to have his oxen shod. While wait iag in the blacksmith shop, the brawn] young backwoodsman told this fist story, declaring that Jack Hayner, who was with him when he caught the trout, would swear to every word of his statement. Fer mouths God dard had tried to land a wily old trout that lurked in one of the deep pools in Tobyhanna Creek. Ho bad angled, he said, with flies, grasshop pers, worms, minnows and other kinds of bait, but he couldn’t get the big trout to notice any of them. He had seen the cunning speckled fellow time and again and he wanted him ever sc much. One day in July he caught a little deer mouse in the pasture, and he stuck his hook through the loose skin on the mouse's neck and threw it into the pool. It was a lively swimmer, but it hadn’t swam six feet before tlie trout gobbled it with a dash that sent his snout out of the water. That w r a3 an unfortunate move for the trout, because within five sec onds Goddard had him flopping on dry land, with his hat over the fight ing beauty. The trout weighed two pounds and fourteen ounces, Goddard declared. A Touching Episode. A statue commemorating a touching little episode in the life of the late Ger. man emperor, Frederick, is about to be erected at Kaiserslautern When Fred erick was crown prince he visited one of the orphan asylums of that town. Among the children was a sickly and sad-faccd little boy. Frederick noticed him, took him in his arms and thereup on agreed to become his godfather. The child, to whom a caress was a stranger, appeared somewhat frightened at first, but soon got over his d.fflculty and be gan to play with the Prince’s medals and decorations. The statue in ques tion will represent the Prince with a baby in his arms, and the youngster tu 33 ln £ at his cordons an 1 crosses. Old Songs. Over and over again, In every time and tongue, In every style and strain Have the world’s old songs been sung Since the sigh from the soul was stirred Since the heart of a man was broken Have the notes of despair been heard And the rythm of pain been spoken. The sot-g that you sing today, Sweet on the printed pages, Was sung in the far away, In the youth of the worn-out ages; The charm of your love-born tune, The gems that your lines uncover, Were set in some savage tune By the heart of some pagan lover. The fancies that fill your rhymes. The visions that haunt your lays, Are the spectres of olden times And the ghosts of forgotten days; Ye players on notes of woe, Ye dreamers of love and sorrow, They sang in the years ago The songs you will sing to-morrow. But what if the rhymes are new, And what if the thoughts are old, I f the touch of the chord be true And the (light of the singer bold! Let them come to us still again, To-morrow and yet hereafter, Fresh as a morning's rain. Old as the sob and the laughter. HUMOROUS. A flourishing man—The professor of penmanship. Why not ca l a balloon a tramp? It has no visible means of support. First Cucumber-—I’m in bad shape. Second Cucumber—You do look seedy. It is not surprising to find that air ship schemes arc supported entirely on wind. The eagle is dear to the American heart, but the double eagle is twice a3 dear. The monkey goes to the sunny side of the tree when he wants a warmer climb. * Some bard should arise to sing the mourning caused by the individual’s inhumanity to himself. It would seem that when seamen get tired of ship’s fare they would try to gather some ocean currents. The sentence “Ten dollars or thirty days” is another proof of the truth of the adage that time is money. “I never explain my jokes, sir,” said the humorist, curtly. “That’s where you’re wise, old boy,” a bystander re marked. The Philosopher at the Boarding* house—“Mrs. Brown, am I so very large today, or is it the slice of bread that is so small?” Sarcastic Individual (pointedly)— Well, the fools are n’t all dead yet. The Other Man—What’s the matter— don’t you feel well? We know men who insist at every point upon beating their way through life, but we observe that they all draw the line at a carpet. Stanley has taught the Africans some thing about exploration, but he has not taught them how to spell. The names of some of the places he has visited would break a Russian’s jaw. She got herself wedged in the door way ami kept a score of people waiting. “Just like a woman,” muttered a male growler. “Yes,” replied the woman, sweetly; “of course, you do. What a pity the sentiment isn’t returned.” The correspondent who wants to know “howto cook cabbage without having an odor in the house,” is in formed that it can be accomplished by boiling the cabbage in the back yard, keeping the doors and windows of the house tightly closed while it is cooking. The Triumphs of Surgery. A remarkable instance of surgical progress which occurred in the practice of Prof, von Bergmann of Berlin the other day is reported. * Tho Professor had two patients who were simultane ously brought to him for operations, one requiring amputation of the thigh at the hip joint, the other needing a portion of the humerus removed on ac count of tho bone being extensively diseased. The first operation to be done was the amputation, and imme diately afterwards the surgeon pro ceeded to excise the diseased portion of the humerus. The result of this latter procedure was necessarily to make a gap in the bone, but a piece of tbs thigh bone was taken from the limb which had just beeu amputated anil fixed in tho gap, by which the con tinuity of tho humerus was completely restored. Perfect union took place, and the patient recovered with a useful arm .—Vail Mall QazeUi.
