Iowa voter. [volume] (Knoxville, Iowa) 1867-1874, 1873-07-17
WHAT CAME OF A SEASIDE TRIP.

WHAT CAME OF A SEASIDE TRIP.
"Um," clicked Aunt Mary Child, in a
displeased tone, as she emerged from the
tent door and glanced down toward the
beach.
"What did you say, Auntie ~ :,
Nothing, Grace But Grace had
glanced also, and what she saw brought
shadow over her gentle features. Surely
that bundle-shaped mass among the rocks
below was Molly Pomfret, all rolled up in
a big shawl, with somebody else, and
surely that somebody else was-yes it
was-Jim!
But if Grace turned pale, Aunt Mary
made up the equipoise of color by be-
coming proportionally red. Her soul was
hot within as she gazed. To her the salt
ing party" was not merely pleasure ex-
cursion, as to the rest; or a possible para
disc, as to poor Grace; but a tournament,
a battlefield, in which Molly Pomfret
represented one knight, herself another,
and Jim was the precious prize to be
awarded to superior skill and valor.
Her first move was to "borrow" Grace
Goodenow, the girl whom, with that in
fallible instinct which leads us to see the
rights and wrongs of other peoples love
affairs more clearly than they do them
selves, she had long ago selected as the
wife Jim ought to want. But to borrow"
Grace was not an easy matter, DR.. Goode-
now being strongly opposed to par
ties of pleasure, and all that savored of
frivolity and philandering," against
which vague and anomalous iniquity he
was wont to frequently and strongly in
weigh. A long morning OF argument was
the price paid for this concession. Aunt
Mary had to face much discussion and
reprObation; had to hear that the longing
for salt water which she had incautiously
alluded to as natural" was an instinct
shared with brute beasts, prairie wolves,
savage bisons, who gallop miles to reach
a lick" and satisfy their appetltes; had
to listen to a vast and erudite body of
objection drawn from natural history and
"Scripter," and finally, only carried her
point by stringent references to Grace's
thinness, paleness, want of appetite, and
an adroit allusion to an Aunt Esther, dead
some twenty years before of consumption,
and rather hypothetical "Uncle lack"
who "kind of wasted away, and went out
like the snuff Of a candle" When the
dominic, on mention of this worthy, be-
gan to hitch uncasily in his chair, she
knew her cause was won; for, in spite of
his big bow-wow manner, the good man
was exceedingly sensitive and anxious
about his only girl. So, Selling the mo-
ment with wOman's quickness, Aunt
Mary began to dilate on the exceeding
steadiness of the party, which she made
out to be sort of cross between water
cure and camp-meeting. "I'm sure If
you'd have been with us last year, doctor,
you would have felt gratified, as did
really gratifed-at all that went on. None
of the boys ever went fishing or anything
until after prayers, which we had every
morning regularly, with the reading of
Scriptures. 1t did really seem like an in
fluence for good over the young, and for
one considered it privilege to be there"
swell, WE'LL" said the convinced domi-
ME, "the child shall go. Perhaps she is
not looking altogether as well as usual,
and, as you say, the saline breezes may be
beneficial to her health. Grace, you will
be discreet and obedient, am sure!'
''I'll see that she is" cried Miss Child,
elate with victory. "I'll keep as sharp an
eye on her as if she were my own. Hey,
Oracle, you'll behave yourself, and not
fret even if do speak severely at times?"
Grace laughed. The prospect did not
seem very formidable to her. Every one
knew "Aunt Mary" so-called by half the
girls in Dusenburry, and all young people,
at least, loved her.
The munitions of unselfish and genuine
affection may generally be trusted. Grace
was really the wife Jim Child needed, the
heaven meant woman, the complement to
his nature. But though his aunt OWNED
this, though Grace, half unconscious,
responded already to the instructive at
traction, the idea had not yet dawned upon
Jim himself. The delicate, fower-l like,
struck him as dim and colorless. Molly
POmfret, with her shallow prettiness and
Eighty airs and graces, caught his eye and
immature fancy a thousand times more.
Not that he was in love with her; but he
had begun to think himself so-a most
dangerous first step Now, for the first
time the two girls were to be contrasted
side by side, and Aunt Mary's hopeful
spirits prophesied good results. men are
blind enough" she thought; "but nothing
less than born idiot could see my Grace
and that Pomfret girl together for ten days
and not find out the difference. If Jim
really is such goose, he deserves his
fate"
So now this long desired sailing party"
was really begun. There were the white
tents, two for sleeping and one for cook
ing; there was the long broad dining
table, rooted with boughs; and the bough
hut which sheltered the wagons; there,
below the little knoll, crowned with pine
and cedar, loveliest Of spots for encamp-
ment, lay the smooth beach, with its fringe
OF yeastwhite foam, from which far away