The Superior times. [volume] (Superior, Wis.) 1870-1912, 1872-10-26
A TIDDLE-AGED love STORY.
From Chambers journal,

They had come, a little group of friendly
faces, 10 watch me OF, with waving hand
kerchiefs and kindly good byes; and stood
on the stern, nodding and waving back, till
the steamer swepS down the river out of
their sight.
[ knew should have their prayers that
the great sea might be gentle with me !
knew they would watch the weather. and
look for the telegram of the arrival OF our
ship; yet | knew | was taking nothing
from their lives, and that they each would
go home hardly missing me; so it was
with no great wrench Of heart that | saw
the pilot put off from us, and took the
last look at my native shores.
During most of tho passage [ was lust
comfortably sca-sick, so sat all the day
long i chair on deck, watching the
white caps on the purple and green and
blue waves that mounted and fell, down
and up, away out to the horizon. saw
the shining uautiluses float hy, and now
and thnn whale, or snoal of porpoises,
or sail, speeding white and full across
the water.
| saw also a good many other unlngs
nearer by; for | didn't put my eyes IN
my pocket along with my short-sighted
glasses and nobody was very likely to
mind a middle-aged woman in hood and
waterproof.
The first thing | saw was young girl,
with dark eyes and brown hair that rippled
itself into taDgle of rough curls when
she took off her net. She was not so very
pretty, nor so very brilliant; but there was
Il piquant charm about her that attracted
half the passengers before the first day
was over. BY the end of the second day,
everybody, from the captain to the ships
surgeon, and from the surgeon to the
cabln-boy, was eager to show her atten-
ton; and everybody wasr ct by the same
genial smile and lively retort
She won her way at once into my heart
by the kindly thought that led her to
bring me little relishes from the table to
tempt my sickly appetite, and to soothe my
forehead with bay water and gentle
touches of her shapeIy brown hands,
where great emerald glittered, encircled
by diamonds. Very soon she got into the
habit of drawing her rug beside my chair,
and sitting on the deck leaning against
me, so that | might "pet her,' as she
said.
This is how it happened that my quiet
corner came to be the centre OF the life
and gayety and romance of the whole
shipboard.
ltseemed this young girl, Rosa Armour,
was an onl y child and an orphan, going
to an uncle In Germany, her nearest of
kin.
Dear heart l hope her uncle will be
wise as well us loving" said | to myself
very often; for she seemed too fragile a
bubble of humanity to drift on through
lie alone.
The tips of her brown curls were light
er thar the rest and here and there were
little bright touches all over her bair. as
though the sun were shining in spots on
it. One morning | sat coiling these
CLEANS of sunshine through my fingers,
and watching flock of Mother Carev's
chickens skim restlessly over the water.
thinking these thoughts about Rosa, AMI
having her soft presence alone to myself a
few moments. Not many, however soon,
up came a New Zealander; of ccurse
there was New Zealander, or an Aus.
tralian, on our beat.
g You are very lowly, Miss Armour"
said be. Let me bring you chair"
"Thank you; prefer to sit here on nv
rug, and have Miss Wells pet mc,D replied
Rosa, turning up her eyes languidly
The deck is my favorite seat, if | can
only have an excuse 10 sit it,
But you need something over you,D
presisted the New Zealander, going away
and coming back directly with his own
heavy grey wrap. Then he seated him
self on a low camp-stool beside her, fold
ing the wrap over the two. Inever saw
SO rough a sea as this all the way from
Honolulu TO San Francisco said he. look
ing out upon the gentle swell Of the iazlly-
mounting waves.
Rough" cried Miss Armour. 81 am
sure the ocean is as smooth as a MILL
pond y
"Oh but not as compared with the
Pacitc-peacetul; it was rightly named.
We have never such gales on that as
sweep on the Atlantic, bur only the gen.
tlest westerly hreezesp la New Zea-
land" he went Oh, 1--WE are never too hot
and never too cold. In fact we never
think of the weather. And the soil is the
most fertile In the world
Pity is such an out-of-t he-way part of
the earth that nobody can live there said
Miss Armour.
Beg your pardon, miss there are
several English towns of thirty thousand
inhabitants each: and we never think of
ourselves as being out-of-the-way, but
rather feel sorry for those who live so far