The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1873-05-09
MISS DOLLY CoRNERED.

"I shouldn't be surprised any day
Dolly, to see David Wiggin tying his
horse at yoar gate" said Mr.. Blount
roguishly, gathering up the reins.
Nonsense, brother any thing the
matter with his own hitching post p
retorted Miss Dolly, turning in the door
way.
Mr.. BIount laughed. Everybody
felt bound to laugh at Miss DolIy's crisp
sayings. She had kept her friends in
good humor these forty years.
''And when David does call on yon, -
pursued Mr.. BIount, more seriously,
81 do hope, Dolly, you'll give him a
chance to do his errand. That'l be no
mOre'n fair, and the man won't be easy
till he has freed his mind"
"What mischief are you the forerun-
ner of now, James Blount ?" cried Miss
Dolly, facing about like a soldier on
drill ''What upon earth have I to do
with David's errands ?"
''WeII, his wife's been dead a year
or so, said Mr.. Blount, suggestively,
shutting one eye, and squirting with
the other down the length of his whip
stock, and lately he's been asking
about you. You can put that and that
together to suit yourself"
Fiddle-sticks r' said Miss Dolly,
energetically.
"I shan't say have him, or don't have
him-though thereisn'ta a alikelierman liv-
ing than David-but do say, Dolly, you
ought to give him a hearing" And
having convinced himself beyond a reas-
enable doubt that the whip was all right,
Mr.. Blount tickled his sleepy horse
with it, and drove away.
"Oh my sorrows !" calculated Miss
Dolly, closing the door with an afflicted
countenance, and sitting down so quiet
Iy for once that a photographer might
have copied her then and there.
Not that he could have done her JUS
tice, for her expression was too qHick and
varied to be caught by any trick of chem
icals, and without it Miss Dolly's physi-
ognomy would have been rather charac-
terless but for her prominent Roman
nose. This organ gave tone to her
face. By which I would not be under
stood literally, as saying that she talk
ed through it in a nasal whine. I mean
simply that in a metaphorical sense this
bold feature spoke loudly of energy.
And Miss Dolly had always had abund-
ant need of energy-else why the nose
Every two years during her childhood
she had been tiptoed into the east bed
room to see a new baby, till, at her
mothers death, five little brothers fell
to her charge to be coaxed and scolded
into manhood.
You can't bring mp them boys,
croaked doIorous aunt. ''They'u run
square over you, Dorothy Almeda." -
Dorothy AImeda was Miss Dolly
baptismal name, but it was so manifest
Iy too big for her that most of her
friends would as soon have thought of
labelling a tiny homeopathic vial with a
quacb medicine advertisement as of
calling her by it.
Let 'em run over me as long as it
doesen't hurt 'em r' laughed Miss Dol
ly, skewering her faxen hair with a
goose quill, aud tying tow apron over
her CALICO long-short, preparatory to
g bringing VI" said youths.
From that day forward she went
cheerIy on, making the best of every
thing, though it must be confessed she
often had odds and ends to work with,
as people usually do have who are born
with q faculty. Somehow she found
time for all her duties excepting matri-
mony. If that were a duty, it was ons
hat she couldn't and wouldn't attend to
while her father and the children need
ed her. Divers young men thought
this great pity, among them David
Wiggin.
Don't be silly, Davidl' said Dolly,
when he limited as much to her. where
upon David went off straightway and
married Olive Searle, the plainest girl
in the parish. This happened thirty
years ago, and now David was again
wifeless, and again the current Of his
thoughts again turned toward Miss Dol
", who still lived at the old homestead
near the foot Of Bryant's falls, Hel