Prescott journal. [volume] (Prescott, Wis.) 1861-1871, 1868-06-05
GENERAL INTELLIGENCE.
JENNIE ROCHESTER,.
BY SUSAN NICHOLS CARTER.
rProm the Riverside Magazine.l

that looked as If the young soul Denlnu
them were thinking and wondering a
great deal. She had tiny hands and
feet. and was altogether one of the
smallest girls of her age that L ever saw.
Her brown hair was usually put up
in curl-papers In front, end hung In
two little braids-tails she called them
down her back, except when she was
dressed in the afternoon, with her locks
unbraided into a soft fleece over her
shoulders. She wore about the yard,
where she spent much OF her time, a
little yellow sun-bonnet, and a long
sleeved tire, reaching nearly to her feet.
When I first saw her much, it was Ia the
spring of the year, and she bad a black
kitten. which she carried about, swung
over her arm, nearly all day, while she
hunted for dandelions, and, after the
flowers were gone, for the seed puffs
that follow them. She used to be very
fond of playing with a boy named
Harry, and the two children chased
butterflies together; but when one few
tawards Jennie, she was frightened,
ana screamed out, and thought it was
going to hurt her; and later in the sea-
son, In the nights when the mosquitoes
were about, and bit her in her sleep,
she would cry out, THE butterflies
are biting me"
Jennie had an old black nurse named
Liza, who often set her up in the mid
die of the great white kitchen table, by
the window, and told her stories about
robins and their wives, and how they
built their houses, and about God and
the angels. Liza, like many old black
woman, had had, and still continued
to have, a great many troubles about
her children who had got lost from her,
aud she grieved good deal for her son
William who was dead. So when she
felt lonely and sad, she went out into
an old open shed, and sat down in 6
dim corner, on an old beam. in a par
tition made by a couple of joists, an6
took out her stump of clay pipe and
smoked it, while she rested her elbow
on her knee and her chin in her hand,
looking very dusky and forlorn.
Jennie, who was seldom long away
from her, would call, Liza, Lizap
aud come RAINING to bring her some
little flowers. But when she found
1tZh sllLluk 81 stAAls BIC cCCLucu ONcE
come with awe and impressed will
sympathy, and would sit down by her
between the next two loists, and res
her little elbow on her knee, and pu
her little soft chin into her small whit,
hand, and mediate too.
One day Jennie was made exceeding
" happy, because Liza, who was very
fond of her, bought her a clay pipe like
her own; and after that, Jennie, wher
she found Liza smoking In the shed
always ran and brought her pipe and
filed MP the bowl with bits of paper
and pretended to smoke il, and muse
lust as Liza did. The only trouble she
had with it was, that it would some
times turn over In her little rosy mouth
and spill out all her paper. While she
was making believe smoke, she felt Just
like Liza, but was not one bit, for she
was as soft and fair and white, as LIS
was black and wrinkled; and Liza look
ed like all I'D gnarled tree, and Jennie
like little rose.
Her mother was often afraid that
Jennie might some time be tempted to
light her "bacco, as she called the paper
an her pipe; but she was very honest
child, and very obedient. aid never did
what she had promised not to do, and
she never really tried to smoke, I b.
lieve.
The house where Jennie lived was an
old-fashioDed brick one, somewhat In
decay, and infested with rats, which
made great noise. They rummsged
in the cupboards and tipped over the
pans, and pushed potatoes, and even
souashes, down from the shelves of the
closet on the floor. They troubled
Jennie's mother very much, and almost
every day she had something to say
about the rats. She used to fret and
scold about them, and declare how she
hated them, always speaking of them
as if they were something very fearful
and disaereeable; but Jennie never saw
them, because she was always in bed
and asleep herself before they began
their revels. But she knew they were
very bad, naughty creatures. and I
suppose she thought they we're big and
ugly. Well one day Jennie's mother
wanted to 60 to the cellar to look at
her preserves, and as Jennie was in the
room she wanted to go too. Her moth
er took a lighted candle with her,
for the cellar was dark, and went down
stairs, Jennie followin gclosely behind.
She set the lamp on the floor; and be
gan examining the covers of the cans,
TO see that they were all tight.
Jennie, who stood by her. suddenly
grasped her dress as if alarmed at
something. This attracted her mothers
attention, who, looking down, saw the
little girl staring with her great brown
ewes, and her whole face full of terror,
at her own black shadow on the wall,
which was moving grotesquely with her
motions. Her mother was so amused
to think she did not know what it was,
that she began to laugh. Jennie
somewhat relieved when she heard felt
her laugh and laughed too. "What
did you think it WASP" asked her moth
or.
"I thought IL might be O rat, {" said
Jennie, speaking low and shyly, as il
afraid that the awful creature might
hear her.
Jennie was a dutiful little girl, an6
loved by her father and mother very
dearly; but her father had to be away
from home q good deal, and while h
was gone she often got her mother tt
tell her stories about little girls who's
fathers went away, and she got excited
over their being lonely for them. tina
great tears would roll ont of her eye
In sympathy.
Onceshe and her father and mothe
were making visit a good way from
home, and while they were gone he