The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1876-02-24
VOLUME 46.
Amy RosselIs Bargain.

pretty, but poor Not poor IN the sense
of wanting for food OF raiment. The Ros-
sci farm was horn OF plenty which had
poured its abundance into the laps OF SIX
generations of Rossels The larde rwas
always full, and everybody, down to the
boy who was taken from the poor-house
to do chores, was comfortably clothed.
Moreover. in the old Hartford Savings
bank there was the sum of $4,000 credited
to Eli Rossell, which his neighbors mag
nified into twice that amount when eX-
planning to strangers that young MIR. Eli
was pretty comfortably OFF,
Young Mr.. Eli was grlzzled and gray
and sixty, but he was called young to dis
tinguish him from old MI Eli, who was
dead, but who had dwelt so long among
the good people of Tunxis, that they could
hardly realize the fact. or realizing it,
they did not care to change their habit OF
speech.
Amy was poor in sense familiar to
many girls in the Connecticut Valley
perhaps in other valleys also. When the
tobacco crop promised (and her Shy, deep
brown, poetical eyes could take in the
value of crop with the shrewd eXactness
OF practical Yankee tarmer) she used
her pretty arts OF persuasion to secure
from her father the conditional promise
Of a new black silk, provided the hope OF
the early summer was fulfilled. and the
price of tobacco did not fall in the mar
ket How she watched the deep green
leaves as the plant grew and broadened,
taking on first the shape of an overgrown
cabbage, and then of stunted palm !.
And how quickly she laid aside her we'll
worn Tennyson when the New Y ork pa
per came bringing this cheering weekly
report. under the unteminine head OF To-
bacco The market is tirmer, with an
upward tendency Seed leaf is in active
demand at higher rates The sales i'll
clude 80 cases Connecticut, crop 1871, at
40 to 45cn
But, alas. a July hal-storm pelted mer
cilessly against the tender leaves one day
and destroyed them. And Amy from the
window watched the storm with tearwet
eyes, thinking how the cruel shower was
falling not on the tobacco alone, but on
her new silk dress and on the pleasant
possibilities which such an enviable pos
session inspires. The next year the crop
was abundant, but the price fell, and
young Mr.. Eli was in no humor to crafty
the desire of his daughters heart Then
after that Congress did something; what
it was Amy does not know to this day
but it related to the internal revenue and
to tobacco, and it interfered somehow with
her fathers profits, and there was another
rude awakening from the dream Of Il new
silk. SO | repeat that Amy was pretty,
out poor.
Amy's mother died long ago, She was
Il gentleWoman, clergymanS daughter,
| born in the South, and unaccustOmed to
that endless round of work which is en-
| braced under the general head of house
keeping in New England She faded
away in the rigorous Northern winter,
and young Mr.. Eli grieved for her as only
strong men who are taught from earliest
boyhood to suppress their feelings can
grieye After her death his maiden sis
ter, known to all the neighbors as Miss
Car'line, became his housekeeper. She
was good woman, kind hearted and
faithful, but seldom demonstrative, and
always economical.
| Young Mr. Ellis only brother. Amy s
uncle Charles, was Il prosperous New
| Y ork merchant, who had remained a
bachelor and true to memory up to the
age of tifty-Gve. Then the memory ma
terialized itself in the shape of the widow
Graham, fair and fat and only u triile
over forty, who seemed as attractive in
his eyes as in the old days when he loved
and lost her ere she became Mrs Gra-
ham. Some rumor of this disappont-
ment had tloated up to TunXis at the
time of its occurrence; but it was not
thought that one of the Rossells would
heed a wound of the heart inflicted by a
seveuteen-yearold girl after lapse of
| nd f. months
before our story opens when it was
known that Charles had married the rich
widow, who as a poor maiden, was his
first love, there was Il gentle tlutter Of
surprise, in which Amy, who had never
seen her new relations shared.
"Oh, auntle," said Amy, rushing into the
kitchen, where Miss Carline was peeling
specked apples for pies one bright October
morning, guess whom its from
She held up a letter as she spoke. She
had lust returned from her morning walk
to the post-oflice, a mile away, and the
fresh wind had heightened her color and
blown her silky brown hair into beautiful
disorder. She was evidently the recipi-
ent of an important message.
| Miss Car'line made no effort to guess
1t is not the way Of the Connecticut peo
pie, former chronclers to the contrary,
Notwithstanding They draw interences
pretty freely, but they do nothing by
| guess work.
'.Oh, you never could guess" said
Amy, pausing only long enough to catch
her breath, $50 | shall have to tell you.
1t is from my new cousin, Gabrielle Gra-
ham; and she wants me to visit her and
spend the whole month of November in
New York. Isn't that splendid?" Then
her countenance suddenly fell. "Auntie,
| nlust have a new silk
Don't be foolish, child" said Miss
Carline. You can have your old dress
made over, and you've got that new cash
mere. Besides, tain't at ali likely your
father will let you go.'
Now, auntie, it is you who are fool
ish," said Amy, earnestly. Il have turn
ed that old silk, and trimmed it and
patched it and made it over, till it is ut
terly beyond redemption, and there is no
health in it,"
"Child," said Miss Car'line, solemnly,
"when | was of your age, girls thought
of something besides dresses. They were
satisfied to wear plain clothes, and inn
prove their minds, and help their parents
to get rich"
'Oh, dear" sad Amy, and with that
she hurried out of the room, stamping
her little feet as she went, and going just
in time to save herself from saying some
thing saucy against those impossible
) Young women whose existence has al
ways dated current history by fifty
| years, and who cared nothing tor their
personal adornment She sought her
. room and pondered solemnly on the stu
alton 10 go to New York without a
) new dress was olt of the question. To
l give up the idea Of the journey was
equally out of the question. To coax the
money from her father. after that un-
b. known crime which Congress had COM
" mitted, was impossible. She tried to re-
member how the heroines Of novels had
, possessed themselves of money in great
emergencies. Some of them had knit
socks and sold them, and others had writ
ten poems and sold them; but there was