The Superior times. [volume] (Superior, Wis.) 1870-1912, 1880-01-03
From the n. Y. Gun.
SALLY Wages.

by all accounts it was more than q
century ago that Miss Sally Wages so
astonished the people of Danbury, Conn,
that they made the remark then, and
were given to frequent repetitions of it
afterward, that Sally Wages would have
made q great stir in the world had been
a man. Whether it was in 1879 or few
years earlier is not so certain as that it
was just as the pumpkin pie of Thanks
giving dinner had been eaten, and the
hickory nuts and hard cider were brought
from the pantry. 1t was while all the
company was at this dinner that Miss
Sally Wages said 8 thing to the people
that made the grandfather look very
stern, and the son go for his gun, and
the others, a dozen of them old and
young, forget the heaYiness thas followed
their eating.
What Sally Wages then said, and
what she did for an hour or two there
after, is a story that has been told in the
old Scribner mansion on the Litchfeld
turnpike over the nuts and cider at
every Thanksgiving night since, and the
freshness and delight of it are always the
same. 1t was told tonight again, and
the faded coat that Sally Wages wore
was held up and reverentially touched,
as 1t has been on hundred or more an
nlyersaries.
Now the wonder of it all seems to
have been that such damsel as this
young Sally Wages should have turned
such corner in her manner of life of q
sudden. For her character, or rather
her disposition, like her name, appears
to have been, up to the time she was
twenty years old, very fiat. Moreover,
her father, old Timothy Wages, was of
no more account in the community than
to be regarded as Just the man to dig
the graves for the dead, and toll the bell
for their funerals, and to touch off the
swivel at Kick Hill at suspicious mo-
ments. When he did not do these
things, he seemed to make business of
partaking of rum and hard cider, and it
Is said of him that there never was a
time that he did not have his falling
because it appears in the old records of
the town that about the time when the
capture of Louisburg was celebrated he
Went so much further than his COM
panions as to make merry on the Lord
day. This was more serious by far than
% Dc little merry on any other day,
ana they sent him to the common jail
lhree weeks therefore
20, by reason of her fathers business
ana position, and perhaps because Of his
name, Miss Sally Wages had nothing to
commend her to anybody. And yet of
aii the girls of that day, there WAS none
VINO could milk q cow with her, nor
sooner find one that had strayed into
the woods. This doubtless led Squire
Scrlbner to take her into his family as
help to his wife, and Mrs. Scribner used
70 say that she was past dispute stupid
IN her speech and brisk about her work
beyond comparison with sny damsel
thereabouts.
There happened to be at the Thanks
giving dinner at which Sally made the
revelation of herself, young gentleman
who was regarded as man of parts, and
especially worthy of consideration,
because his father sent brigantine to
the West Indies from New Haven once
in while laden with goods and brought
her back laden with sugar and rum.
This young fellow was thought to have
addressed more than one missive to
Squire Scribner's daughter Jerusha. At
all events, he was friendly to the family,
and had tried his wit at a Jest with
Sally, and came off sadly worsted,
because she said nothing to him, but
only looked at him with q vacant stare
10 her brown eyes.
de did not like being laughed at, for
re had vowed, as jest, as he was COM
ing nome from the Thanksgiving sermon,