The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1878-02-07
LOVE AND FROST,

There was beauty enough TO be found
in Mataska valley, what with the river
and the lake and the forest-crowned
hills, at least in summer time and even
the dry, cold r'gor of Minnesota win
ter could not take il all away. Never
theless, there was nothing else there
bali so beautiful as Norma Ericsson.
Her withered, old Norwegian father
had settled himself on good enough
piece of land, away up above the head of
the lake, miles away from Mataska vii
lage, and no one could say he had SO
much as one friend more, at the end Of
a five-years' residence, than the day the
first timber was cut for his house.
A thoroughgoing miser was old Jan,
and his crusty selfishness included not
only his earthly goods, and the gift OF
use thereof, and his own not very desir-
able company, but also his one Jewel of
q daughter.
Rarely was Norma seen in the village
almost never at all at any merry-making
OF the neighborly country folk and old
Jan seemed TO take an ogreish sort of
pleasure in preventing her from enter
tanning visitors-young men especially
at his own house.
And SO, the more Norna's beauty
grew and became known among them
the more unpopular was old Jan Ericsson
among the free.hearted settlers of the
Mataska valley.
Aud yet there were those who had
succeeded in breaking through or climb
ing over the odd old miser's wall of re-
serve.
John Pinner had done it, by his
fathers advice for Judge Pinner was
Jan Ericson's lawyer, and he had more
than once limited to his son and heir
that Norma had other and more solid at
fractions than her beauty.
II, therefore, any fair occasion offered
TO send message to the Ericsson farm,
John Pinner had been generally quite
ready to oblige his father by carrying it,
and more than once he had even ventur-
ed on Il brief call without any special
eIrand.
AS fur Paul Wood, on the other hand,
either he had not sufficient cunning to
invent errands, OF his pride forbade any
subterfuge, for he had positively and
openly braved, more than once, even the
harsh discourtesy of old Jan, in his un-
invited, unabashed intrusions.
If Paul did not pretend to vie with
John Pinner in dress, wealth or apparent
prospects, he was certainlya fine, manly
specimen OF young Western farmer,
and his dark curls and almost swarthy
features wore pleasant contrast to even
the ripe blonde Morse loveliness of Norma
herself.
One bit of strategy it seemed that Paul
had stopped to, for more than once
Norma had been surprised that he had
been &c out a-hunting in that neighbor-
hood on the very days which old Jan
had chosen for bit of teaming on the
furthest edge of his possessions, or a
trip to the store at the village.
Nobody ever knows how such things
come to be common property; but. some
how or other, Judge Pinner and his son
were made aware that they had reasons
for distrusting Paul Wood, and he had
been made to feel the fact very sensibly,
more than once.
There had been an added bitterness
the past autumn, in the fact that John
Pinner's nomination to the State legis-
lature had only resulted in showing the
folly of the Mataska valley people, for
the stupid fellows had known no more
than to choose Paul Wood instead and
even Norma Ericsson had said she was
glad of it.
There came day, however, in the
early winter, when Paul would have
given his political honors and his best
horse, perhaps even his farm to boot, to
have known why it was that Norma sud-
denly became as distant and repelling as
old Jan himself.
Not word would she vouchsafe him,
though he met her full half-mile from
the house, and walked to the very door
by her side.
He did not give the matter mp, even
then, half SO much for the volly of Bit
ter abuse with which the old miser
greeted him, as for the icy look of indif-
ference with which Norma marched
straight on into the house, and closed
the door.
There was really very little ''give up"
in Paul's composition; but he met John
Pinner, before he had left the farm
mile hehind him, and there was a look
ON Johns face that suggested good
many ugly thoughts to the sore heart of
the discounted youth.