The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1872-02-23

cal FEMININE regard. lie might nave
been a young viking (f the ordinary
notion of a viking was true one) with
the
"Knotted column OF his throat
The massive square Of his heroic breast
He was like Saul among other men,
taller by head, and looked taller than
he was, by reason of great mop OF
chestnut hair, which could not have
curled tighter if he had wound it up in
papers every night Of his life. 1t actu.
ally made one feel warm on q frosty
morning, to look at Shirley's hair as he
went to "prayers." He had suffered
agonies with it in trying to take out
the curl,-it looked so womanish,-
till there came that welcome fashion
of cropping tho manly head into the
semblance Of baboon's; then his soul
had rest.
He had never been disappointed"
as the phrase is, and yet there was a
woman at the bottom of his cynicism, as
there is at the bottom of most mischief.
The blame lay at the door Of Miss Tenn
perance Strong, the only woman with
whom Shirley had any acquaintance (;
yet she was that one good woman OF
thousand whom Solomon might have
found counting one by one," if she
had lived in his day, and he had not
shut his eyes to all but giddy Egyptians
and the fair Moabitish woman. Her
price was far above rubies; so far, in
deed, that no man had ever offered
anything approaching to it; and she
had continued Miss Strong for more
than threescore years. She always told
her age at the first interview, so as to
guard against the suspicion of wishing to
hide it.
But to begin at the beginning. Bonn
bay Shirley was born at sea-, and cost
his mother her life; but being lusty,
hard-fsted baby from the first, bound
to thrive on hard bread and water if
nothing else served, he came to the
turning-point Of jacket and trousers on
shipboard.
Capt. Shirley professed to scorn all
learning that could not be at once APP
piled to practical use; and the most
contemptuous thing he could say of
botched piece of work was, that it
looked as if it had been done by
" collegian." No one familiar with
sailor-nature (which does not entirely
come under the head Of human nature,
but
suffers sea-change.
Into something rich and stranger
felt any surprise that he had set his
heart on his sons going to college. In
selecting preparatory school, he passed
over all those academies formerly az
plenty as blackberries in New England,
where boys and girls were educated
together y" courting-schools," he called
them), and settled him in the family of
a solemn old minister.
Two or three motherless boys and
Miss Temperance made up the family.
don't know whether she liked Bonn
bay any better for having taken his
first step off Madagascar, and spoken
his first word near Cape Horn but he
seemed to bring into her life the fresh
ness of the trade-winds,- breezy flavor
that she had never felt before. He had
known no other woman and his affcc-
ton, slightly tempered with awe, was
deeply grateful to her.
AS for Miss temperance she reminded
him of ships figure head, carved out
of heart of oak, that had breasted all
weather till its first good looks are bat
tered out of all shape of comeliness.
She had bowels of compassion for all
the weaknesses that boy flesh is heir to,
her heart would have held the fifty
sons Of Priam; but all women were
faithless as Helen in her eyes, or would
be if they had opportunity. She looked
upon young girls, and their ways, with
eyes of such fierce condemnation, that
not one had ever darkened her doors in
Shirley's time. In the nature of things,
Miss Temperance must once have been
a girl herself but she could never have
been "of girls, grlish."
Shirley cherished certain bashful
worship for all women in his boyhood.
He had lived among sailors in cabin and
forecastle; he had touched pitch, but he
had not been defled; the most aban-
doned wretch among them had held up
10 the boy only the true sailor-ideal of
womanhood, which never fails him,
though he may not have seen the SEM
blance Of it since he left his mothers
knee.
1t was Miss Temperance who set in
order before him the depths of deceit Of
which the girish mind is capable. The
shortest way to the manly heart may or
may not lie through the stomach: Miss
Temperance certainly commanded that
avenue. She tended her kitchen fire
like vestal virgin and the marvellous
products of genius which came from it
were things to remem Der, and to aggra-
vate ones wife with, through life.
Shirley's last vestige Of unbelief in the
general worthlessness of young and
pretty women vanished when his faith
er's death brought out all the tender.
ness of Miss Tempy's heart. Her
sympathy and her preserves did for him
what her logic would never have
accomplished and he went to college
confirmed woman. hater. He avoided
boarding in any house where there were
daughters, and had serious thoughts Of
taking room and providing for him
self, when he was placed opposite to his
landlady's niece, but the neice proving
only a temporary, as Susan Nipper
would say, he staid. He passed by the
windows of two boarding.schools, many
times day, as if he were walking an
invisible tight rope and his philippics