Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1876-06-09
THE OLD BoARDING.mOUsE.

ELTzABETH, stop flattening your nose
against that window-pane, and listen to
me.n
What terrible shrill tone there was in
Miss Jemima' S voice thatchilly November
morning!
Elizabeth turned her head slowly half
way round, and then back went the eager
little face to the window again. There
was goat outside, and he had Just ex-
tracted huge piece of brown paper from
an opposite area, under which he had
taken refuge TO escape the rain, and was
apparently making a comfortable break
fast off it. Now Elizabeth felt an interest
in the goat, and she felt none whatever in
what Miss Jemima had to say. Helooked
very dreary and desolate out there in the
rain, and she wondered how he felt
whether he had ever lived in the country
and had things to his taste and if it was
very disagreeable to him to be confined to
the city, to breakfast off brown paper, and
be compelled to hunt through the cutters
for morsel for his dinner. He looked as
if he were miserable-so very shaggy and
dirty and wretched, with the rain trickling
down his sides and dripping from his
nose. She felt very forlorn and miserable
too, and misery loves company; so she
watched the goat, and forgot 10 listen to
Miss Jemima,
But Miss Jemima's demands for atten-
ton were not to be lightly put aside.
Elizabeth" 0his time in louder tone
and higher key), "you are making
spot ON that window with your nose,
and want to talk to you about the
butter"
My nose has nothing TO do with the
butter, and l don't listen with it, either.
What is the matterY"
The goat was nearly out of sight now.
He had consumed the brown paper, but
not satisfied his appetite, and was COM
PEELED TO forage again. AT that moment
there was nothing left of him within
Elizabeth's range of vision but the end of
his tail. He had stopped, and she was
anxious to know if he had found ANYTHING
she didn't want his breakfast to be all
brown paper, poor thingl--so she iammed
her nose more persistently against the
window-pane. He was desOlate, like her
self, and she sympathized with him, for
she thought lite used them both badly.
When she saw him lift his head with
disappointed air, she was sorry for him,
and ii was not until he had quite passed
beyond her view that she brought herself
back with jerk TO Miss Jemima.
&" What has the butter doneY" she in
quired, with the bewildered air of an in.
dividual who has let his attention wander
from conversation, and finds it difficult
TO bring his mind back to the subject un-
der consideration.
" Dene, you goosep walled Miss Jemi-
ma, in tone in which wrath was strange
ly mingled with despair. Its all
gone"
"Gone?-gone where?" asked Eliza.
beth, who was even more dreamily stupid
than usual this morning.
Poor Miss Jemimal Elizabeth was
terrible trial to her, and she had so many
trials. Miss Jemima belonged to that
class of unfortunate women who have had
fierce struggle with the world, and in
the course of the battle she had received
many wounds. The world yields the lv-
ing it owes us all very grudgingly to many
men, but to the women who undertake
the fight single handed 1t presents so sc.
we're and discouraging front that the
wonder is they ever succeed at all. Miss
Jemima was a veteran now. She had
fought great many years for the means
TO support the life she had never enjoyed,
and she was in the midst of the strife yet.
She was worried and distressed, and
greatly disposed to think she was in pos
session of the monopoly of all wretched-
ness. There was something very pathetic
in the anxious expression of her light
gray eyes and the downward curves at the
corners of her hopelessly homely mouth,
but there was also something very ridicu-
lous in the daily catalogue of Miss Je-
mima's woes, and the terrible eagerness
with which she anticipated all sorts of
miseries that never happened. Elizabeth
thought she was the most aggravatingly
Il IL \ Al.
ever any one was forced TO live with.
But then Miss Jemima held quite as un-
favorable an opinion of Elizabeth; for of
all the thorns, and there had been a great
many, that ever pierced Miss Jemima's
flesh, Elizabeth was the sharpest
This same Elizabeth, commonly called
Bess, was Miss Jemima's sister, fifteen
years younger than herself, and, accord
ing TO Jemima's simple theology, an all
convincing argument in favor of the doc
trine of total depravity,
No one passes through this vale of
tears without many trials, whether they
be great or small but surely to the lot of
n0 other human being falls so large an ac-
cumulation of petty cares and annoyances
as the mistress of secOnd-class boarding
house in large city is called upon to en-
d ure. And the position of mistress of a
large establishment for dodgers, in one of
the most toriuous streets of the crooked
city of Boston, was the state of life in
which poor, pathetic, worried Miss Je-
nina was called upon to do her wearing
AMI difficult duty.
Bess' busy brain was perplexing itself
over difficult problem this morning,
while she tammed her nose against the
window-pane, and forgotto pay attention
TO Jemima's tale OF woe. She was VOL
dering where her place was In this dis
NAL, rainy world, and however she could
gel into il. -.-e
II was eight years ago now since Bess
and Miss Jemima left the old farm house
New England, where their presence
had been barely tolerated by hard.fsted
relative, who gave them grudging shell
ter.. Mrs. Brown, former mistress of the
old boarding house, knew of Miss Jemi-
mas hard lot on the poverty stricken farm
among the granite hills, and, needing as
sibtance with her large family and nu-
merous cares, had sent for poor Jemima
TO come to Boston, and given her permis
sion 10 bring Bess.
II was a happy change for the two un'
fonunates. Mrs. Brown was a good ma
tured old lady, and on the day when she
expected the two wanderers 10 arrive she
told .theirsad story TO John, and concluded
il with the request that he would meet
them at the station and bring them safely
10 the house.
John WAS the young man who lodged
IN the fourth story back He was book