The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1880-03-25
THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE.

"Oh yes" said Phoebe Ann; ''that is
what 1 thought. .
She looked back over her shoulder as
she spoke and then trotted on with a
water-paIl in her hand and pink calico
''log-cabin" on her head, down along
the worn foot-path, where blue asters
nodded to stately shafts Of golden rod
that seemed to dip with sunshine, and
where crickets made merry among the
clover leaves and fringed gentian.
Overhead the poplar leaves stirred and
rustled to each other. though all the
other trees were still. Something was
going on in the air that none but they
knew about. None, unless it might be
] Phoebe Ann. Little enough went on
abve or below that she didn't know of or
at least guess at
Eyes, this is what thought and what
7 expected and what said, she repeat
ed, as she stopped to fill her pail at the
| spring.
! 1t never made any difference to Phoebe
Ann whether she had listener any more
than it did to the poplar leaves, for she
was always sure of one sensible hearer.
! However, when she came back with
the pail dripping and spilling on the
knot grass and plantain leaves all the
way. she found Eugene Mosscroft sitting
on the hen-coop shaping a spoon out of
slender stick of boxwood.
"Swhat l said," remarked Phoebe
Ann, nodding Hospitality when she saw
| him.
Ten years before there. was no such
boy as Eugene Mosscroft, for all he
looked as though he had been in the
world always and always would be, look
ing just SO ont of his cat-shaped eyes.
But here he was now fast enough, come
to live with his aunt, Mrs. Prudence
Mosscroft, in low, Quaker-colored cot
tage behind the meeting house.
Mrs. Mosscroft was a small woman
with slender nose, and bunch Of silver
gray curls on each side of her face that
looked like clusters of Malaga grapes
She ought, herself, to have been born
Quaker, but her mother didn't know it,
50 she was born q Methodist She had
had husband and many children, but
they had long been III green row in the
graveyard on the hill and she lived alone
with a Quaker colored cat, flock of
Quaker colored hens and some Quaker
colored knitting work till Eugene came
and went so softly that he added not
much more to the noise of the house than
the tick of the old eight-day clock and
the purring of the o,d cat.
And now here he was sitting on Phoebe
AIMS hen coop, looking as much at home
and in his place as though he grew there,
like the lichens and moss on the great
rock by the spring.
''Said whatl' said he, nodding back
to Phoebe without looking up from his
work.
".Said! Why, | said that sooner or
later we should have Perrin's girls on
our hands, whether or no. Tell me
Well, / knew all the time, as well ss |
know now, that in the end Perrin would
get uneasy for salt water and off he'd go
again. Not but that we'd rather have
the children to ourselves, mother and |;
'tisn't that. Only do hate to see folks
so simple. What did he want to go and
lay out good money to 6Uy that place for
when he was sure to want to sell out just
when prices are all down That is what
I always said and always shall say. And
so The fools amt all dead yet con-
tinued Phoebe Ann with violent shake
of the head, walking away into the house
and paying no more attention to Eugene
than if he were bit of lichen, sure en-
ough, and she had only been talking TO
herself all the while. Eugene looked
after her with little mild wonder, and
then at a cat bird in the cherry tree over
| his head. But the cat bird had her eye
on honey-bee that she proposed break
fasting upon, and paid no more attention
to Eugene than Phoebe had done; and as
! Phoebe Ann did not appear again, Eu
gene turned back to his whiting and
whiting till the meeting house bell
rang for noon, and then went home to
dinner.
He found ont about Perrin's girls very
soon, however 1t seemed that Perrin
was Phoebe AIMS brother, sea captain
who lived in little house III Haverill,
when he didn't live on the ocean. But
his wife died, and after trying for year
or so to keep on with a housekeeper, he
had given up trying, and had sold his
house and was bringing his little girls to
I live with their grandmother and aunt at
Plumridge, while he started off to go
around the world on merchantmen.
! The little girls had brown eyes and brown
curls aud pretty pink cheeks, and they
always smiled when people spoke to them
and said, "if you please" and 'thank
You" Amy was 10 and Katy was years
old, and they looked as much alike as
two birds on a bough.
But Eugene saw difference. katy
is mine" he said to himself, when he
first looked at her.
The other hoys had each 'his girl, "
and Eugene had been thinking for some
time that he ought TO have one; but be-
fore that morning he had never been
able to make up his mind. Now his mind
did not need making up. He knew Katy
was ''his" without thinking of it when
he first saw her digging sweet-hag root
down by the brook the next day after
she came to Plumridge.