The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1873-01-31
% CONFIDENCE.
A story OF the Rebellion.

Dear little Janet And you want me
to tell her story? Why, she would say
there was no story to tell.
say, Dear little Janet y For all
that, she is woman grown now and
the last time / saw her there was great
bouncing Donald III her lap. For a
that, and for a that, she will always be
" little Janet" TO me.
There never was n child who showed SO
fully what the woman was TO prove. The
first time / ever saw her was one day
when her father had fallen in with me
on cross-road in the Piscataquis valley
that is far away, forty miles above Ban
gOr in Maine. He was on his hay-cart /;
| was sitting on log. We nodded to
each other and he, seeing my KNAPP
sack and stick, asked if | would not
mount with him, which / did and so,
before long, we came up to his cheerful,
rambling, great Single palaceo house,
where l had already promised to pass
the night with him. We brought up in
front of the barn, from which we had al
ready shouts OF Scoop coop - Who
should appear at little three-cornered
window in the gable but little Janet,
faxen curls flying wild about her head
"Hurrah y said Miss Janet. "Hurrah -
said her father Jump, birdie y and,
before poor cockney L well understood
the order, the child flew out of the win
dow down into his arms and they both
rolled over and over III the hay. | have
seen many Jump into hay-carts-nay,
such flight rs that And even then it
i "A, Il,
surprising it was the absolute prompt
ness, so perfectly fearless:
" Hers not to make reply
Hers not to question why"
He said Jump" and she jumped,
not because she calculated the height or
had done it before, but because he told
her to, and she loved and trusted him.
That was little Janet all over.
Now, steadiness like that and readi-
ness like that breed steadiness and readi-
ness. 1t seems queer to me that | had
never seen Janet before, | have seen her
50 much and 50 often since. had not
seen her long, before | found that |
trusted her as implicitly as she did me
indeed, there was not man who worked
on the farm who had not absolute con-
fidence in the child, or was not sure of
her promptness, punctuality and affec
ton. Nor was II men and women alone
who felt SO. The horses and the cows
nay, the pigs and the hens-all knew her
cheerful voice and her ready attendance
and her steady hand. lothian said she
could collar and harness that cross brute,
Mad March :" that she would climb
into the manager and put the wretch's
collar on and put the bit in his mouth
because she was such a lady. | know
she could do it and of course Mad
March let her do it, for he could have
eaten her, had he been carnivorous, and
hardly know he had tasted food. But IL
was not because she was lady, but be-
cause her easy confidence, as i say,
created the same confidence in all.
Do you remember Miss Yonges pretty
story of Miss Keble? The little wrens
trusted her so entirely that they came to
pick the red berries which were printed
on her muslin dress and, when they
found they could not get any of them of,
they flew down and crep up under the
skirt, thinking they could get at the Der
ries on the other side. / have seen the
little birds do that with Janet--not such
wrens as those, because there are none
in Maine, but some little witches not so
much bigger than an English wren,
whose name / do not know. Wren or
no wren, they knew Janet, even If she
did not know their name, nor they hers.
The pretty picture Mr.. Billings has
made of her just represents both sides.
| mean she trusted the birds, and the
birds trusted her. In the picture you
see Just how it was. This little whistler
has fascinated her, and she has fascin-
ated him. He knows she will not hurt
him and it almost seems as if she were
listening to him, and learning from him,
as in the Arabian Nights" and in the