Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1876-12-28

eight others.
"That's good. Do any of you happen
to have any fine cutabout you?''
A full pouch was handed out, and
he lifted half the contents into his vest
pocket and went on: 2a.
Eyes want to send them five dol
lars, land want some of you to take the
money, and scoot it across the ocean
in regular bushes style. I will now
60 out and borrow the five.''
There was grand rush for him, but
he was twenty-five feet ahead and
gaining as he turned into Filth street.
Little MINI.
The only point on which Joe Paulby
and I could ever bring ourselves to
agree was that his cousin Min was
the only young lady in the world who
was worth falling in love with. Joe
Paulby was eight, 1 was seven, and
his cousin Min was six. Joe was a
strong, rough, troublesome, rude boy,
and I was small ana weak and delicate;
and if it had not been that we were
both deeply in love with the same
young lady, 1 believe 1 should have
hated him. That solitary bond of
sympathy served to bind us more or
less firmly to each other, and seldom
Quarreled with him, except when his
regard for her showed signs of cooling
down.
She was pretty, fragile little lady,
with quaint ways of her own, and a
gentle, frightened manner of dealing
with her boisterous playmate which
seldom failed to bring him to a sense
of order. She loved us both very dear.
~, but l think Joe was her favorite,
He was rude, unpleasant boy to others,
but to her he was quiet and gentle
enough; and perhaps this palpable
evidence of submission appealed more
directly to the little lady than my de.
monstrative and colorless affection.
But she was very fond of me, for all
that.
Neither Joe nor I had any parents,
and we lived with Minis papa in a
great, gaunt, draughty house in Blooms.
bury square. Capt. Paulby was oul
gaurdian-a tall, bony, unsympathetic
Widower, who governed his house as
IT it had been regiment of soldiers.
A scale OF dietary was hung up in the
nursery, and from it one learned how
many quarter ounces of cocoa, how
many half pounds of bread, and how
many tablespoonful of arrowroot we
consumed in one week. An order. book
was brought into the nursery every
morning, in which the detail of me
day s duties was carefully set out, and
to the instructions it contained, i'm.
plicit and unmurmuring obedience
was exacted. It regulated the hours
OF rising and going to bed, the school
hours, and the hours of relaxation,
when and where to walk, and what we
were to wear.
We were placed in charge of a nurse
Nurse Stark, a tall, muscular, hard
ened woman Of 40. She had a stern,
unrelenting face. close lips, hard gray
eyes, and certain smooth roundness
of figure which, on looking back, sug-
gests the idea of it having cen turned
in a lathe. never see the old woman
who lets lodgings in pantomime
without thinking of Nurse Stark.
am bound to say, however, that she
was scrupulously--indeed, aggrava-
tingly,--clean and neat, and in that re-
spect, of course, the analogy falls to
the ground.
Nurse Stark was not actively unkind
to us indeed, believe she had cheat
ed herself into a belief that she was
rather weak.minded and indulgent
than otherwise, but in this she was in
error. l believe she was fond of us in
hard, unyielding way, but she was
sudden and impulsive in her move.
ments, and never handled us without
hurting us. There was housemaid-
Jane COtter-who occasionally helped
to put us to bed, and sometimes Nurse
Stark undressed us while Jane put our
hair into curl-papers, and sometimes
Nurse Stark did the curling while Jane
undressed us. And the manner in
which these duties were to he divided
became a matter Of no light specnla.
ton to us as evening approached; for
it was Nurse Stark's custom to pull
the locks of hair out to their full
length, and then roll them around a
piece of paper, twisting the ends to.
gether when the curl had been rolled
well home, whereas Jane COtter first
made the curl up flat with her fingers,
and then encased it gently in q trian.
gular paper, which she pinched with
the tongs. Jane Cotter's flat curls
were pleasant to sleep upon, but Nurse
Stark's corkscrews placed a comfort.
able nights rest out of the question.
1t is impossible to sleep in peace with
a double row of balls, each as big rs a
large chestnut, round your head. You
can't move without giving four or five
of them wrench.
think we must have been sufficient.
ly happy as rule, or Sunday would
not have stood out in such gaunt and
des0late contrast to the other days of
the week. There reigned in our nursery
an nnaccountable fiction that Sunday
was a holiday, and in Difference to this
tradition we endeavored to cheat our
selves into belief that we were glad
when that day arrived. Sunday began
very early in Bloomsbury. It began
to ring itself in at half-past 7, when
we got up, and continued to ring itself
through the day at short intervals,
until it finally rang itself out and us
into bed, att half.past in the evening.
There were drawbacks, however, to
our enjoyment of the day. I think
we were required to tackle more col.
lect than is good for a child of six or
seven, and perhaps we did not quite
understand the bearing of that shorter
catechism which a bench of thought
full bishops had prepared for the ex-
press use of very young children.
Even Nurse Stark, a high authority on
all points of church controversy, never
succeeded in placing its meaning quite
beyond all question. But Nurse Stark
had a special Sunday frame of mind
which discouraged close questioning,
and on that day of the week she was
exceptionally short and sharp in her
replies. She baff1ed our interrogato.
ries by pointing out to us that there
was nothing SO unbecoming as tend.
ency to ask questions, which seemed
to us little inconsistent when we con.
sidered the inquisitive character of
her share in the catechism.
believe I liked going to church.