The Eaton Democrat. (Eaton, Ohio) 1875-1903, 1880-06-10
DOLLY AND DAM


Miss Lorinda Cross {" cross by name
and cross by nature, the children-yes,
and many of the grown-ups-of the
neighborhood declare her) as she
pounced upon the huge loaf of bread
which she had taken from the oven and
put into the big stone crock only half an
hour ago, just before she turned her
straightup- p-and-dow back on the
kitchen, to stalk to the garret after "that
idle hussy, Molly the maid-of-all-
work-"who had been twice as long as
she ought to have been making the beds
there"
I said the huge loaf. I should have
said half the huge loaf, for only that
proportion of the newly baked bread re-
manned
Dorothy Wal-dol" again screamed
Miss Cross, In an ascending scale, with
an ominous tremolo on the last note.
eyes, aunt" replied sweet, fresh
young voice; and a pretty young girl
came In from the garden, with basket
of cherry-red cu1rants in her hand
A tiny thing she was, with round dim
pied, rosy face, innocent child-like blue
gray eyes, and -fair-hair-some short
tresses of which had escaped from the
braid into which they had been bound,
and were making delightful use of their
freedom by curling in the most charming
manner about the low frank brow and
little pink-ipped ears.
About !" sweet sixteen" q stranger
would have pronounced her; but Dolly,
as her youthful companions, much to the
disgust of her aunt Lorinda, called her,
was older than that by year and
half.
An orphan at the age of twelve, she
had been left to the care of the only re-
lative she knew, her motner's elder sister
"A woman hard of speech and manners,
and anything but soft in heart This
maiden lady soured nreyocably ON her
twenty-fourth birthday, which should
have also been her wedding. day; but at
the very moment she was fastening the
orange blossoms In her hair, had come
the news that her betrothed had eloped
with the girl-friend she had chosen for
her bridesmaid. Lorinda tore the bridal
wreath into fragments, and scattered il
to the winds; never mentioned the false
pair from that hour, banished forever all
the womanly grace and tenderness she
had ever possessed (truth to tell, she had
never possessed much, and became the
hardest worker of her sex that ever
IL. Is
coat, and hat, early and late, hot or cold,
wet or dry, with set mouth, lowering
brow, and silent lips, she toiled side by
ide with her sturdy old father, until the
day he was struck down by the pitiless
sun, and died a few hours after-died
just In time to be saved the pang of hear
ing that his youngest and fayorite daugh-
ter was lying at the point of death,
Gov
city. fLorinda buried her father-if she
wept for him, none saw her-promoted a
man who had been long in his employ
ment to the position she used herself to
occupy, and started for her sisters bed
side. When she returned to Fernville
again, she brought dear little far-haired,
soft-eyed Dorothy with her, and some
of her neighbors fancied that since that
time she had been shade less stern /;
but if she had been, it was 30 slight
shade that it was almost impossible to
perceive it. True, she did less ,out-of-
thus saved to teaching her niece to sew
and cook and churn, and other Like ac-
complishments but never were the les
sons accompanied by 81 approving smile
or kindly word, much less a loving kiss.
Even to the gentle, winning child, Lorinda
Gross remained cold stern woman. But
Dorothy was SO sunny in disposition that
the stern ways and dark face of her aunt
could not cloud her young life. And
though shut out from that inhenble
woman's heart, she found the doors of
all other hearts wide open to her. The
dogs, the cats, the hens, the chickens,
the horses, the COWS, the calves, the
very geese regarded her with alteration
The farm laborers blessed her pretty
face whenever she came among them ;
and as for Molly-poor hard-woEked
Molly i-she would have kissed the
ground the little feet trod upon.
What wonder, then, that Dan Howell,
the young surveyor, who lived half q
mile away, in the old stone cottage, and
whom she had known from the very first
day of her arrival in Fernville (when he,
then tall, bright-faced boy of fifteen
passing her aunt's gate, and seeing tht
sad-looking little girl, IN her black dress
standing by it, silently offered her the
prettiest white rabbit she had ever seer
"a rabbit he had been coaxing Abne
Brown for month past to sell him, ant
which now he parted with, without an
other thought, at sight of those lovel,
fearful eyes and that sweet wistful face
what wonder, I say, that he though
of her by day, and dreamed of her b.
night?"
But to go back. Dorothy came smil
ing into the kitchen, her lips and cheek
as red as the currants she carried; bu
the smile faded away when she met he
aunt's ixats eAna.