The Manitowoc tribune. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1866-1878, 1876-05-18

knitting sheath TO her waist
"Why, I was telling Uncle Charlie
what Il cold, hard man he is. You've
| always known known him, Grandma
| Deane, and now did he ever do good
| thing, or ever love anybody i'll his life g.
eyes, he loved girl once, L think I
remember"
''Farmer Keep loved a girl once ?" re
peated Cora, with half contemptuous
and wholly slzeptical curl of her red lips.
''She's forgotten" she added in an
undertone, to Uncle Charlie and me, for
Grandma Deane was slightly deaf.
"No, 1 haven't forgotten, neither, :"
she said, placing her hand ON Cora's
hair. 'I have held Lucy Reid on my
lap too often, and rocked her cradle
poor little motherless thing too many
times to have forgotten"
Cora's look of incredulity was giving
way to one of curiosity.
Grandma Deane, won't you tell us
/ all about it? Jennie and I will sit down
on the stool, and I know by that look in
Uncle Charities eye, he wants to hear it
too. Come, let the flowers go Jennie ;"
and my vivacious cousin established her
self at the Old lady's feet
Grandma Deane slipped the yarn
around her little finger, and commenced:
''Let me see--it cannot be more than
forty-two or three years this SIMMER
since Justin Keep came up to Farmer
Reid's to let himself out for the harvest
boy through harvesting.
The Reid house stood q little this side
of Stony Creek. There is nothing left
of it now except the chimney, and it
looks ont gray and cold from the grass
all about it; but forty years ago it was
q fine old place, with hlacs and hop vines
running all around the back.
Lucy was hardly three weeks old
when she lost her mother. Her father
never married again, and the child grew
up there in the old home as fair and
sweet as the flowers about her.
She was turning into fifteen when
Justin came that summer. He was a
shy, strange sort of q lad, and the neigh
bors said Farmer Reid would never get
the salt for his po1ridge out of him.
He'd been bound out until>he was
eighteen to some man down in Maine,
and he hadn't relation in the world he
knew of, nor q decent suit of clothes,
when he came to Farmer Reid's house.
But for all that, Justin proved smart,
likely boy, and the farmer, who some
how was never very beforehanded-I
always thought his wife's sudden death
| hurt him-found that Justin was a real
prize.
At first he was gloomy and silent. do
ing his work and taking little notice of
anybody. But he couldn't stand it long
before Lucy. I wouldn't like to have
the heart that that girls smile wouldn't
have thawed out
She was just like bird around the
old place, singing from morn till night,
and her blue eyes that were like her
mothers, seemed to be sending out one
laugh and her lips another. I never
wondered her father dotted on her as he
| did, and of course Justin wasn't long in
| the house before she tried to make
friends with him.
| Poor fellow it must have seemed
very strange to him at first, for I don't
believe anybody had given him kind
| word 1,nfil ba oaD,a 70 Meadow RrooL
But he made ladders for her flower
ing vines to run on, and got shells for
the borders, and propped up the dah
lias, and did thousand other things
which took them out into the gardon
after supper, and made them the best of
| friends.
Lucy had playful, childish way
| about her, that made her seem much
younger than she was then she was
| small of her age, so that at fifteen she
| did not seem bit older than you are,
! Cora.
Well, she rode on top of Justin's hay
cart, and helped him husk corn in the
barn, and pretty soon the farmer MOTTO
ed change in Justin.
He got him a new suit of clothes, and
his face lost its down look, and after
harvesting Farmer Reid made him an
offer to tarry all winter.
So Justin stayed, taking Lucy's ad-
vice, and went to the district school, and
though he had no education before, he
went ahead of many an older scholar that
winter.
So Justin stayed with the farmer four
years ; then he had a good offer some
where in New York State, and conclud-
ed to stop for the winter only.
Lucy Reid had grown into young
woman by this time, and handsomer
one, children, these dim eyes never look
ed upon I don't know how it happen
ed, for Lucy might have had her pick
among the boys for miles around, but
somehow she took to Justin and when
he left, they were engaged to be mar
ried one year from that time
"Why, Grandma Deanel you ain t
going to stop now!' cried Cora in alarm !:
for the old lady had laid down her knit
ting.
''No, my child, she said. moving her
speetacles and wiping her eyes; 'sbut
the rest is a sad story, and 1 must hur-
ry over it.
don't exactly know how it happened,
but that winter Lucy's father got into a