The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1877-01-04
81 CAME TO ASK"

Two pretty, old-fashioned cottages
standing near each other on secluded
tree-shaded country road, separated by
a,little meadow, which from the birth
Of spring to the death Of autumn re-
joiced in waving green grasses and white
daisies and yellow dandelions, and after
that wore robe woven of snowfakes
as fair and pure as when they fell from
the skies, until old winter, to whom the
robe belonged, hearing the returning
birds ask for the violets, gathered It
about him and vanished again.
In one of them, the larger, in front
of which was a neatly kept lawn,
and at the back small hot house and
miniature vegetable garden, lived Miles
Guernsey and his man Mike, the one an
old bachelor, the other, as he described
himself, ga wildly man, thanks be- to
the Lord that STINT her rest"
In the Other-Rose Cottage as they
called it, for in rose time it was COM
pleteIy surrounded by roses; they filed
the space in front and clambered over
the porch and up the sides of the house
had lived quiet, elderly couple for
many years, until about month before
my story Gf it may be dignifed by that
titIe) begins, when they went to heaven
on the very same day, as they had often
prayed to, loving old souls, and left
Rose Cottage waiting for new tenants.
s. just as Id got comfortably settled, :"
grumbled Miles Guernsey, 'sto be all
upset again Other old men and women
live till they're hundred. Why couldn't
these have done so, instead of dying at
the early age of eighty? And there's
no knowing whon take the cottage.
Somebody with cats, dogs, and babies,
I've no doubt-three kinds of animals I
~datPst"
ThrUc fur ye, boss" said Mike,
wlth an ominous shake of the head.
There was something else Mr.. Guern-
sey insisted he detested, and that was an
old maid. ga man," he used to say,
A." don't need smiles and kisses and pet
names and children hanging around him
TO keep him sweet, but woman does.
OF course some of the poor things can't
help their forlorn state the men don't
propose, Or they do and run away, or
theiF PARENTS cut up rough, or they have
Invalid relations to take care of. I'm
very sorry for them ; they have Law
heartiest sympathy but, all the same,
don't like EN-"
Ard SO when Mike came one lovely
June morning to tell his master the cot
tage was rented, adding with SLY grin,
An shure it's ovid maid an her
mother" Mr.. Guernsey said something
OF which he ought to have been
ashamed, and which, for that reason,
shan't set down, and then went on, sar-
c0stlcally, "and now We'll have all sorts
OF 'Sweet, cunning pets [ suppose
but if any of them come near MAJ prem.
ses"-furiously-"I 'l poison 'em,
drown 'em, wiring their necks. DO you
hear, Mike2"
" Faith, 1 do, " said Mike, grimly.
Give lived here ten years." resumed
the master, :" in peace and quiet, driven
here by an old maid in the first place
and it will be hard indeed if am driver
away by another, With piano OF
guitar, no doubt?"
"Aither that last or a fiddle, sur,
said Mike. CT sor the gurril a. carryin
1t IN Yesterday in it's own nate LITTLE
coffin"
She'll play and sing from morning
Till night, out Of time and tune, and
shall be obliged to close all the doors
and sufocate."
Anyhow" suggested Mike, "there
can't be no babies"
"Thank heaven for that /" said Mr..
Guernsey, fervently; g though I don't
know but what the guitars worse. You
can scare young children by making
faces at 'em. When do they move in,
Mikes"