Knoxville journal. [volume] (Knoxville, Iowa) 1874-1986, 1875-02-25

weekly prayer-meeting after awhile as
regularly as Friday came round. If we
are rather hurrying our relation of a
matter which seemed to Melindy as grad
ual and as natural as the course of the
seasons, 1t is to demonstrate that she did
have some small consultations and allevi-
atoms in her new life, before we relate
its disagreeable features-for there were
plenty Of these. Mr.. Griffin was scarce
established in his new quarters before he
began to find out-what many others
have found before him--that housekeep-
ing is more expensive for small family
than cheap boarding. Little expenses
crept upon his purse daily that wrung
his small soul bitterly. He could not
well afford the time to enter into the de-
tails himself; but he felt forced to do it,
and after a series of exhaustive calcula-
tions and the experiment of two of the
longest months he had ever passed, he
established a schedule of quantities and
prices for Melindy's guidance, one that
she both scolded and laughed over, but
all in vain.
!" / should like to know, Mr.. Griffin,
how ever you're to have molasses cake
once week for your Sunday tea, and
sweetnin' in the pies, and sass to YOUR
griddles" (dear reader, she meant cakes
fried on a griddle. 1t is an abstruse
figure of speech, " on pint of molasses
a week"
Leave off the cake, then, Melindy.n
responded the stern guardian of cents.
And pound of butter week! NY
goodness gracious! Your mother and me
used three
We'll. you won't here. 1t is strange
enough how little it cost you two to live
in Peterstown, and what you spend
here"
LAND alivel We jest about lived on
garden sass, md eggs, nd old hens, nd
garden ourselves md the chickens picked
up liven' round the lots. We killed
off all but two hens md a rooster long in
the fall"
"Well, well, wellp' growled Mr. Griffin
" We've got to live; but won't have cx-
travagance."
"And won't starve, neither" stoutly
answered Melindy. 81 can get places
enough where I'll get good vittles and
good wages, Mr.. Griffin. But | calculate
to stay with you for spell, if you treat
me halfway decent; cause | liked your
mother real well, and l come here pur-
pose. But -"
Mr. Griffin stopped the incipient threat
Melindy had cowed him. He looked
with horror at the loss of time and
money that would follow on another
overturning of his household goods.
Well, well, MeIindy, you sha'n't
starve; only do your best to save what
you can. Living is awful in New York.
I'm not rich man, Melindy, but i de-
pend on you to stay. You promised for
year, you know"
Mr.. Griffin told two lies in this brief
speech; one was that he was not rich;
the other was about Melindy's promise.
He had said: ~ expect you to stay with
me one year, on trial" and, being busted
about some imminent matter, Melindy
made no answer. Silence gives con-
sent" must be Mr. Griffin's excuse for
this lie.
So Melindy stayed and economical
and grew thin but happy; for after the
five o'clock dinner was done her en-
ployer retired to the small parlor and
studied the newspaper, made his plans
for the next days campaign, summed mp
his gains and losses, gave that which he
called his soul to the utter contemplation
of stocks and bonds, lowered like very
busy and anxious bee over the respective
morning glory flowers of Harlem, Erie,
Pacific, New York Central, Airline, and
so on, ad ,sa,seum. betaking himself to
the deafness of an over-wrought brain
which took the place of sleep with him
about ten o'clock, leaving Melindy free
for prayer-meeting or for housekeeping
the days one rest for her-when some
times good book John Perkins lent
her, sometimes the weekly paper from
Peterstown, not unfrequently the pres
ence of John Perkins himself, come for
"a dish of talk" as Melindy said, satisfied
her honest, unexacting soul and kept her
content For it cannot be denied that at
first Melindy was bitterly homesick.
"York," as place of residence, had lost
all the fair aspect distance lent it.
Broadway and its tabled glories were
two good miles away from Melindy. She
had neither time nor money to explore
its magnlficence; she had not even been
to Barnum's Museum. The ways of
housekeeping in city fiat were entirely
new to her and very hard. Her outdoors
was gone, and every country house
keeper knows what refreshing margin
" outdoors" is. Melindy grew pale,
sometimes listless. She began TO save
her money, to turn and twist her dresses,
old and plain now, into some vague at
tempt at fashion She would have been
spoiled, washed out and pressed down
into drudge of the merest routine but
for John Perkins.
And there was something in Melindy
that charmed John nightly. The
rough old proverb that every Jack has
his Jill expresses, like many another
proverb, radical truth-that in every
human being there is something at
tractiye to some other of its kind-some
grain of beauty that all eyes do not see,
some inward loneliness unveiled only for
the true worshiper, some awakening tor
the right prince, some tiny spark from
the great God shining that called us all
out of dust and quickened us to living
souls. II was rare to John Perkins as an
orchis on the pavement would have been
TO ind fresh nature like Melindy's,
woman of nearly his own age who
had never seen a theater, did not
know the inside Of a museum, was not
even aware what valentine was I'LL
John, one January evening, was telling
of his last years experience in sending a
valentine to little crippled girl with
whose mother he boarded. 1t was new
-. t:.l. :laa 20 Nalindy Her life