Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1875-06-16

come and lecture her by the hour for
weeks, assisted by mother. When she
was well, mother very calmly and i'm
pressively told that girl what her duties
were under the painful circumstances,
and how from henceforward she was to
be dependent on us. We were to
teach her, and she was to work for us.
1t was the fairest kind of bargain.
That girls mother died when she was
born, Not single relative turned up,
though we advertised for them. For
tunately, the butcher did not owe any
thing, and the sale of the lease of his
shop paid for his funeral and some
mourning for that girl. Wilkins
butcher shop was taken by another
butcher, Bladders by name, and a
more impertinent, vindictive, defiant
creature do not think could be found
in the whole city of New York. It
seems he knew the departed Wilkins,
and, why we could never find out, took
the most unheard of and savage
dislike to smother. When my mother
went to the butcher shop, when he
opened feas Wilkins establishment, and
priced pair of fowls, expressing some
natural hesitancy at paying their cost,
and an elegantly worded suspicion as
to their tenderness, the mans manners
were abrupt and brutal to degree, If I
can remember rightly he said:
"They are good enough and tender
enough for schoolmissus who had hall
anated Chat was his expression, for he
was an Englishman like Wilkins, hall
anated daughters feelings from her
father, and had 'elped to kill the old
man, and that as long as his name was
Aaron Bladders he would never forget
how poor Tobias Wilkins had been
treated, and that if she (mother) didn't
like the chickens, she might leave 'um,
and that he had son and daughter,
and his gal, thank God, was going to a
public school, and that he didn't intend
swapping off their affections for porter
house steaks, and not wanting to be i'm.
perlite, hadn't she (mother) better not
be blocking up his shop, (mother is tall
and thin), and stopping trade and abus-
ing him ?"
Such was the first humiliation we
received from doing good action.
Mother, with her interiors, was always
calm and placid, and could do nothing
more than majestically sweep out of the
shambles. She complained to police
man at the time, believe, but without
redress.
OF course we had no idea of changing
Winnifred's name, only she was called
Winnifred Anna. It struck mother,
and quite rightly, that Winnifred was q
preposterous name for girl in her
situation, and that Anna was much bet
ter adapted to her condition. We all
made the kindest efforts, sublime ones,
ones, in fact, to effect the
substitution. We wrote in her books
and marked her clothes W. Anna Will
kins, but just then the peculiarly OBJ
stinate character of that girl showed
itself. When we called her Anna, she
would no more bulge than had we
aposthrophized stone wall. [ regret
to say, though not defeat to mother,
we were forced to compromise matters
by either calling her nothing at oil or
Miss Wilkins. Our pupils-girls are
always wayward-though against our
express wishes, would call that girl
Winnifred. In time our school increas-
ed wonderfully. Mothers administra-
tive powers are immense, and under
her generalship am no inefficient lieut.
enant. When it was as much as the
French, or German Or italian masters
could do to attend to their classes, to
pay the pupils, if that girl did not keep
up with her opportunities, it was not,
of course, any fault of ours. She had
no aptitude for languages. She had
no imaginativ powers. If mother is
practical, am only SO to degree. I
love to wander in the wild-woods of
poesy and tilt down the violet-cups and
drink from them-that is, within reason
only when I do tread the dew-be-
decked fields in the season of flowers I
like to go with thick -soled shoes on.
Our Master of Bellies Iettres always
said my compositions were quite good
enough for the Atlantic, and, indeed,
tells me that really onght to take my
position. That girl, [ must say. had
two or three fair qualities; they were
not talents, no, not by any means. She
had plain voice, no compass, no tech
,aaQue, no power Of vocalization, but
sang ballads fairly we'll. At least
our former piano teacher, German,
said SO. We were forced to dis
charge him ten years ago, be-
cause he quarreled with the
French singing master, poor M. Maui,
striking him a fearful blow across
the nose, and making bis poor head
hang in the most heart-rending way on
the sounding BOARD Of our Chickering
grand, because M. Maui had called
Wanger IN scznapi,a maelodique. I
must catalogue that girls excellences,
and give them all they are worth. She
was good housekeeper. How could
she be otherwise, when mother, with
the utmost confidence, placed every
thing in her charge? never had any
talent that way. Oh yes something
else; she was a capital nurse; and at
times that girl had her hands full at
tending the Ill ones. The girls all
loved her, they admired me, but to be
truthful, they adored that girl. Of
course it was nothing but physical
kind of affection on their part. I am
sure my devotion in reading excellent
booLc 70 Tho rr;rlc uhon thav uora c11f