The Toledo chronicle. [volume] (Toledo, Tama County, Iowa) 1873-1924, 1877-03-15
AFTER THE FIRE.


The IRE, from which we date in the
family-it being the great event therein
for years-seemed at the time it occurred
the climax of series of misfortunes thai
had been falling for five years upon oul
devoted heads.
First, we lost dear father, who left
the family already entioned-namely,
mamma, Meta, Freddie and myself.
Meta was but fourteen when father died,
/ twelve, and Freddie but three years OF
age There was no money for us after
the business was closed, and mamma
thankfully accepted an offer of her Uncle
Gordon's tOs.be his housekeeper and sc
secure home for all of us.
Such home! Uncle Gordon Crofts
( was a. man nearly seventy, strong and
vigorous, with most ungovernable tenn.
per, misery and suspicious, who had
lived alone for about forty years What
sudden spasm of generosity made him
open the doors of his wretched, tumble
down old house to us we never knew, but
certainly he repented the arrangement as
soon as his proposal was accepted.
Not one meal passed our lips that we
were not reminded of its cost; not an
article Of our poor clothing was renewed
without deep groafis over our extrava-
gance, and we were put out at once
Meta and myself-to learn trades-I being
apprenticed to a milliner, Meta to book
binder.
know now that, scanty as our wages
were, they really covered the expenses OF
our poor food and worse lodging. As for
poor mamma, with all the housework,
sewing, washing and cooking upon her
hands, surely she earned the little she
spent.
When Brent Ellis discovered Metals at.
fractions she was eighteen, still working
as book binder in place of business
which Brent's father. owned Old John
Ellis, after storming and raging like a
maniac al the presumption of one of the
hands, daring to be sufficiently attract
i've to win the love Of the son and heir OF
his magnificence, dismissed Meta at an
hours notice. es
3 As he owned the only book binding es-
Enlistment in the town, and Meta knew
no other trade, affairs looked black for US
Brent himself was true as steel, and
wanted Meta to marry him at once. But,
in spite. of her gentleness, Meta had some
pride, and refused to enter family where
she was not welcome. Mother. to5, at
this crisis, informed Brent that his visits
had better cease, and Meta did not speak
one word of dissent.
81 stormed, Of course. / always do
storm when am angry. But nobody ever
came round to my opinion, no matter how
Iraved-and John Ellis certainly did not.
To be sure, he did not hear me, or that
might have made some difference.
Midwinter found us in this strait Meta
out OF employment, helping mother about
the house, and patiently bearing Uncle
Gordon's protests against her idleness and
fine lady airs; l trimming hats, and
lneekly handing over my wages to our
uncle; Freddie still at the town school,
but with an apprenticeship booming in the
spring.
In January Uncle Gordon was taken i'll
the first serious sickness of his life. He
would have no doctor until absolutely
forced to call one In by increasing pain
and weakness, and when the long-de-
layed examination was over it proved to
have been made too late.
In just che month from his first pain
our uncle died, leaving brief will, con-
1errlng all his property, the house in
cluded, upon our mother, his well-be-
loved niece, Sarah Morton
But where was the property? Not o
shilling was deposited in the bank, not an
inch OF real estate was held in his name.
save the miserable piece of land upon
which the house stood, and which barely
yielded vegetables for the table.
We turned the housl- upside down and
search.
FINALLY we sadly concluded that the
: misery we had seen, the lamentations we
had beard were the result of real, down
right poverty, and not the mere pretenses
Of miser.
And we struggled along somehow
mother sewing a little, Meta doing hovse.
work, and still at the milliner's. We
did not starve. That is the record of the
next tour months-a struggle for mere
bread, and the saving OF actual existence,
nothing more. And, to cap the climax,
came the flre.
1t was night in June-a clear, star
light highland |, though weary enough,
was sleepless.-- Meta lay by my side,
wakeful as myself, and told me, in soft
whispers, that she had met her lover that
day, when on some household errand, and
he had urged her sorely to marry him,
though his father had not relented.
\" don't know but would,'' l said.
AFTER all, he is man, and must be able
TO care for you somehow. This life is
killing ypu.
ana as spoke, Meta cried, ~ smell
smoker
smell RI l cried, starting up.
see aP' a
mere It was, coming in at the cracks
OF tne worn-out door, little threads al
nrst, put ming the room rapidly.
Me caught up some ciothlngand rushed
10 tne door, AS we opened 1t, the flames
purst out on the landing and staircase,
forcing us 70 retreat
Mother and Freddie slept in rooms be-
yeno ours on the other side, and we
rusned across 70 them. II took but mo-
ment TO rouse them, and we all four
lleciampled, haif dressed, from Freddie's
WINDOW TO shed, and SO to the yard.
by uls time the neighbors were
wakenco' ana the houses about us were
glowing IN the flames shooting up from
our old house to the sky.
Faicy, It you can, the group we formed
Is we stood haddled together in the yard,
sna sta}cned everything we owned upon
eartn being licked up by the greedy
tongues OF hame, swallowed in clouds of
s smoke ss. meta aa a9 a. could see see cur bed
ins there and count the dear Iv1 =, I, ssad
articles az a thew wars eau uu pulchaseo
INV nor arI b,. "s'e a Suasa, ~
s...as. po2 e c.a GS @pacas Aeta said,
sx sTs ~ sasI lu.lo Isienling creeping up
~ e ~ NJ. Y Magns nave 'snasched mat.
= ncEs ~ ~, Is - uVv IT,,
LA =. TSa 1.onnss wi ss1p ss. oves, II