The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1876-09-15
Only a Partition.

"Hark I hear wheels, mother"
cried a young girl, laying down her
work and leaning forward to listen.
"Well, they may roll up as fast as
they like, child. Tea is all ready, and
the chambers as sweet as a rose, though
I'm dreadful sorry I hadn't put the
spare room in order for him; it seems
so mean to give a stranger the unfin-
ished room. 1 most wish you'd have
put bunch of dahias in to cheer it up
a little," said the kind mother.
"Humph pll see him first before l
waste my compliments on him." re-
piled the girl.
"Father says he's quite gentleman"
suggested the mother.
''Perhaps he is one of fathers kind of
gentlemen. If he does not swear, nor
spit on the carpet, nor put his feet on
the mantle-piece, father will think he's
\ gentleman. But pve no doubt he'll
be a rusty, fusty old fellow, with red
hair and a plaid shawl around his
shoulders. There's the stage"
The young man who had come to
teach the winter school at Bell Haven
was no ''rusty, fusty fellow with plaid
shawl on" but a spry young junior
from Harvard, with great sOle-leather
trunk, large valise, a writing-desk,
travelling blanket in a wrought shawl
strap, and great black dog.
He shouted to Enocb, the farm boy,
who sat astride the fence admiring the
horses, to take in the small articles,
while the driver unstrapped the trunk;
and then he whistled to "Nero," and
entered the house with him.
Before he was seated the young girl
fraoE from n hno rflit,nr cobOnT Il
cided he was a gentleman" although
his hair was red.
Royal Winter (he called the name
"ROy") proved a most genial yonng
fellow, and the school children, who
the season before had been snapped at,
and twitched, and tautalized by a coarse
man fit only to drive cattle, thought an
angel had come down to them. Maria,
the squire's daughter, was equally
charmed with him as an agreeable
companion in her quiet home, and al
most regretted, after all, that she had
not encouraged her mother to give him
the best chamber.
But Roy, who had a mania for fresh
air, was delighted with the unfinished
room, with its bright pine boards,
golden in the sunlight and odorous of
the forest, and it's view of wood, and
hill, and vale, so far exceeding that
from the other windows.
Everybody in the house was agree
able. He soon felt that he was favor
ite, and, boy-like, was jubilant over his
success in the house and at school.
He talked, he whistled, he sang, he
showed off his dog, and he played
checkers with grandpa" whose time
hung rather heavily on his hands. He
was only twenty-one, but he felt that
he was brilliant youth, and he let the
other folks see that he felt it.
He told the sensible old squire how
he had entered Harvard without condi-
tions, kept ahead of everybody, and
was the favOTite of the faculty. He
told what a popular preacher his father
was in one of the suburbs of Boston,
how lovely his mother was, how beau
tiful and accomplished his sisters were,
and bow important every one thought
it was that he should keep horse at
Cambridge.
But, for all this weakness, be was a
nice, kind fellow, and had in him "the
making of a splendid man." when, as
grandpa said, he should have "cut his
wisdom teeth"
Roy had fancied himself quite a
ladies' man; and so he was, in a small
way. He had taken great pains to get
introduced to all the pretty girls he
met, and had bowed to others-when he
dared to-in the street. He thought he
had been in love half-dozen times al
ready, but, before he had been a month
at Squire Fishers, he looked with con-
tempt on all those silly fancies, and
was really in love with Maria.
Her face, her voice, her simplicity of
l-s
ents and to her grandfather, who al
most adored "the child" as he called
her, perfectly charmed him, and his
letters home were full of descriptions of
her, and of the splendid cake and pies
she could make.
1t was not long before he told Maria
all this; but it took him longer to tell
her father, for be stood just a little in
awe of the strong, sensible man, who
had never given him one word of fiat
terry. Still, Roy believed the Fisher
family would hold jubilee over it
when it became a fixed fact-it would
be such a grand thing for a plain
country gentleman to have a Harvard
man for a son-in-law, even in the
dimmest future.
The squire had a rough little room
adjoining our hero's big one, and sepa-
ted from it by only a board partition.
In this he kept old account books,
papers, and other things for which
there was not room in the secretary in
the sitting-room.
The large barn had been burned by
lightning the summer before this, and
the squire was making arrangements
this autumn to rebuild it.
: One sunny afternoon our hero had
seated himself at his window In the gay
gown aud slippers which had called