Oxford Democrat. [volume] (Paris, Me.) 1833-1933, 1878-01-29
Stletteo Storp.
AMY ROSSELL'S BARGAIN.

Amy Rossell was amazingly pretty
that is 20 say. it was amazing that such
delicate peach bloom beauty should bios
som IN the cool Connecticut Valley among
81 sustsre people who seemed 70 cult
vste an unattractive appearance. Amy
was pretty but poor. Not poor in the
sense of wanting for food or raiment.
The Rossell farm was horn OF plenty
which had poured It's abundance into the
laps OF generations of Rossells. The
Isrder was always full and every body,
down TO the boy who was taken from the
poor-house 10 do chores, was comfortably
clothed. Moreover. in the old Hartford
Savings-bank there was the sum of
$500 credited to Eli Rossell, which bis
ueighbors msgnifed into twice that
amount when explaining to strangers
that young Mr.. Eli was pretty comfort
ably off,"
Young Mr.. Eli was grizzled and gray
and sixty. but he was called young to
distinguish him from old Mr. 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 ii. they did not care to change
their habit of speech.
Amy was poor in sense familiar 10
many girls in the Connecticut Valley
perhaps in other valleys also. When The
tobacco crop promised (snd her shy deep
brown. poetical eyes could take in the
the value of crop with the shrewd eI-
sctness OF practical Yankee farmsr)
she used her pretty arts OF persuasion to
secure from her father the conditional
promise of new black silk, provided
the hope OF the early summer was iul-
filed. and the price of tobacco did not
| tall in the market. How she watched
The deep green leaves as the plant grew
asd brosdened, taking on first the shape
of an oyergrown cabbage, and then OF
stunted palm And how quickly she laid
aside her well-worn Tennyson when the
New York paper cam bringing this
cheering weekly report, under the IN
feminine head of Tobacco: 1.-The market
is frmer, with an upward tendency.
Seed leai is in active demand at higher
rates. The sales include so cases Con-
uecticut, crop 1871. at 40 to 45c."
But, alas July hail-storm pelted
mercilessly against the tender leaves one
day and destroyed them. And Amy from
the window watched the storm with tear
wet eyes. thinking how the cruel shower
was falling not on the tobacco alone, but
on her new silk dress and on the pleas
ami possibilities which such an envisble
possession inspires. The next year the
crop was abundant. but the price fell,
and young MIR. Eli was in no humor to
crafty the desire of his daughters heart.
Then after that Congress did something /;
what il was Amy does not know to this
day, but it related to the internal revenue
and 10 tobacco, and il interfered some
how with her fathers profits, and there
was another rude awakening from the
dream of new silk. So ] repeat that
Amy was pretty. but poor.
Amys mother died long ago. She was
3 gentlewoman, clergy mans daughter,
born in the South, and unaccustomed to
that endless round of work which is en-
braced under the general head oil house
keeping 10 New England. She faded
away in the rigorous Northern winter.
aud young Mr.. Eli gIieyed for her as
only strong men who are taught from
earliest boyhood TO suppress their feel
ings can grieve. After her death his
maiden sister, known to all the neigh