The Superior times. [volume] (Superior, Wis.) 1870-1912, 1878-03-30
From Harper's Bazaar.
Miss Bertha's Valentine.

Everybody said that Miss Bertha was
very much alone in the world, wondered
what on earth she would do if her eyes
and health should fail her, and pitied her
in that easy going way which subtracts
nothing from the pocket, but leaves a
residue of dissatisfaction in the con-
science, while they paied as little for her
services as they could help. But Miss
Bertha never grumbled; she put as many
stitches and as much eye-sight into the
fine sewing as if she had been paid ducat
for every stitch. 1t was her way never
to slight anything. But sewing was not
the only occupation in which she excelled
1T any poor struggling mother with little
children toddling about her fell i'll, Miss
Bertha quilted her needle into her cush-
ion and stepped into the breach; when
watchers failed, Miss Bertha came to the
front; and when the small-po visited the
title seaport OF Great Harrington, it
was she who went about from house to
house, giving draughts and doses, COM
forting the dying, and making the last
CHASTITY toilet for the dead.
What does it matter to me?" she said,
when some one eXpostulated at the risk
There's nobody in the wide world to
mind whether | live or die. Pm the
light of nobody's eyes, and as for disfg-
urement-law | left off caring for my
good looks, such as they were, twenty
years ago. Time was when | should have
been as scared as any OF you about being
marked and losing my complexion, but it
doesn't signify in the least now. If |
were ugly as nightmare, folks would
give me their sewing to do inst the same,
| suppose"
ooh, but l should hate. to be so disfg-
ured that Sam wouldn't like to look at
me! said Sue Blair, all pink and white,
and eighteen, with the world before her.
dare say; but there's no Sam to care
whether Pm fright or not" and Miss
Bertha drew in her breath with a quick
gasp, as if the fact hurt her.
You don't know, Miss Bertha"
laughed giddy Sue; your Sam may be
on the road to you"
"A precious long road"
Why, Aunt Janet was old as the hills
before she married Uncle ARENAS, and
Parson ChapelPs second wife was no
chicken. Everybody has chances, they
say.
g Yes, Isuppose every body has chances;
but some of them are mighty small
hardly worth calculating" she returned.
Mis- Bertha, to be sure, never accepted
anything but thanks for these services
in the sick room; indeed, few dreamt of
offering any remuneration. One might
have supposed that the universe had pro-
vided her for their benefit, along with
sced-time and harvest, the common air,
and other common blessings for which
nobody was expected to render any return
other than to make use of them. Her
neighbors stayed at home, sitting with
burned birthstone and camphOrated at
mosphere, and yet caught the infection,
while she walked abroad in the thick of
it, Sinking nothing, and came out, like
those holy men from the fiery furnace,
unscathed, yet more or less reduced in
finances. She was a cheerful body, and
doubtless sent to carry warmth and heal
ing into the sick-room. But poor Miss
Bertha had not always been old and
useful and thoughtful for others.
You must have been pretty once"
that needless chatterer Sue Blair had said
to her oue day.
What makes you think so?" asked
Bertha lifting her faded eyes to the mir.
ror . 1t is like tracing the existence of
the extinct megatherium from foot
print in the rock"
But Sue spoke truly. Bertha had been
fair in her day; the hair that was white
rs new-fallen snow had once been brown
and bonny; the eyes, which to-day were
sunken and pale, had looked out like
lucent beryls from under dark lashes
time and toll and trouble had robbed the
satin skin of its fine texture, and scanned it
with many line; little of youth remain
ed to her but heart alive to generous
impulses, and the color that still burned
in her cheeks in spite of the frosts of her
forty-odd winters. Yes, Miss Bertha had
had her hey day. Miss johnson, the
squlre's daughter, who lived In the finesU
house IN Great Harrington, and wore silks
that could stand alone and sable cloaks
reaching to her heels, who ate off French
china every day, and had never known
what 1t was to suffer from hunger. cold
or fatigue, who had never had a sorrow
or lover-even she might have enyied
poor Miss Bertha those halcyon DAYS
when Angus Aiken loved her, when they
walked together in the moonlit gardens
In their English home, and sat beside the
fountains, and listened to the silver mon.
otone, like some sad and gentle voice
complaining. No doubt Miss johnson
would have bartered all her dry-goods and
imported tinery for an experience as rich
as this of her elderly seamstress, about
whom no romance seemed to Hnper To
be sure, everybody il Great Herrinoton
knew that after the visitation of the small
pox Parson Chapel had invited Miss
Bertha to share his temporal blessings,
which consisted of small salary and
four mischievous boys with torn jackets
and dirty faces.
"The parson wanted a housekeeper,"
the neighbors agreed. "Of course man
of his age don't fall in love like a boy
with an old maid, too. Seems as though
she must have thought he'd ask again
with house all carpeted from garnet to
cellar, and the gentry in his gates, so to
speak! | wonder what Miss Bertha
expects-at her time of life too-when
offers of marriage aren't as plenty as
wrinkles"
But Miss Bertha expected nothing.
There was that in her history which she
would not exchange for the kingdoms of
the earth and the glory thereof: the dust
Of twenty years had in no wise furnished |
the brightness af IL Che hod hor aoci |