The Northern Pacific farmer. [volume] (Wadena, Minn.) 1878-1885, 1880-09-16
ROMANCE OF HOUSE CLEANING.

ROMANCE OF HOUSE CLEANING.
is she coming to visit YOU said Erie
Hale, with !. slight grimace. THAT
simpering, fine lady, with the useless
white hands, and the shallow little
laugh? Oh, Aunt Della, pack my port
manteau, and let me off on featuring
tour until Flora Lees visit comes to an
end
Mrs. Dove looked little disappoint-
ed. 10 confess the truth, she had es-
pecially arranged this visit with refer
ence to her nephew, Erie.
He's a fine young fellow she said
to herself, with true femme diploma
cy, with an excellent parish, and fine
prospects it's hig h time he was
settled in life with wife, and 1 think
Flora Lee would suit him-exactly.'
And here was the young man HIM
self upsetting this charming little castle
in the air, without the least scruple of
conscience, like modern iconoclast
that he was.
well, Erie, said Mrs. Dove, despair
ingly. I'll write to her to come. OF
course | don't want to put you out, just
when you're so busy, TOO, with that
course of lectures on the Book of Reve-
lation'-but really think Flora would
make the house lively
It's Il deal too artificial to suit me-
said Erie Hale. ASK her to come in
June when l shall be off to Omaha and
Nevada on that conference business.
But as for a visitor, I should much pre-
fer little Polly Peppercorn's big wax
doll, with the silky black hair and the
staring black eyes, that open and shut
by machinery.
So Mrs. Dove, choking back the tears
of disappointment for she had been
nursing this pet scheme for long
while), set down and wrote to her friend
Miss Lee, postponing the proposed So
journ at scarborough Farm until
roses should be in bloom, and straw
berries beginning to ripen.
'Adonijah,' she said to the hired
man take this letter to the post
Office
Yes, 'um,' said Adonijah, and he
put it in his pocket and forgot all about
It was a dismal rainy morning in
April, the yellow jonquills beaten to
the ground, the very wild violets shut
ing up their eyes as if in unmitigated
disgust at the unpromising state of the
weather. Overhead racks of gray
clouds scudded across the heavens, and
the little sheet of silver lakelet under
the hill was dotted and dimpled all
over with the falling rain. as if pierced
with a thousand tiny javelins
It's no use trying, said Mrs. Dove,
plaintively, the fates have conspired
against me-
The carpets were up, the pals of
white-wash stood in the middle of the
parlor floor, and Mrs. Dove herself,
with her grey curls tied up in a yellow
damask pocket handkerchief, which
her great uncle had brought from
China half a century ago, sat crying on
the lower ledge ola step ladder. For
Betsy, her help, had fallen down the
stairs and broken her leg, and Null
roney, the charwoman, had sent a
message that her eldest son had
broken out wild the maisles, sure
speckled all over like shower of red
pepper-sln' sorry a bit of cleanin'
could she undertake until the weeks
over"
and these three days of all Others
sighed Mrs. Dove, when Erie exchang-
ed pulpits with Mr.. Washburn, and he
so Gslikes housekeeping; and
Dear, mo, Mrs. Dove what is the
matter?'
Mrs. Dove started to her feet with a
little startled scream-for there, ex-
actly as if she had rained down out of
the gray, uncompromising zenith, stood
Flora Lee herself, in a trim, brown
travelling dress, with neat little hand
bag, a gossamer waterproof, and a silk
umbrella "Why, Floral cried she,
*how came you here?'
by train, of course said Miss Lee,
and walked from the station
Il wrote to you not to come said
Mrs. Dove, in CONSERVATION.
"But never received any such let
ter said Miss Lee, Shall I go away
again.
NO, you darling, you should do moth
ing of the sort!" said Mrs. Dove, enthu-
siastically. 1T was only because we
were house-cleaning.'
Il am not afraid of house-cleaning,'
said Flora. I see how it u.s. with a
comprehensive glance around the