Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1881-10-27
Select Story.
HOW THE SHIP CAME IN.
CHAPTER |.

He'll be along by afternoon some ume,
expect"
"Who is it, father?"
"Oh, one Of these painter chaps. Imet
him down at the shore, and he told Inc that
he had taken a fancy TO our place because
il was perched up high. A civil enough
fellow, and plenty of money in his pocket
I'll warrant"
"Then he'll be very badly off here
there's nothing like what he's used to-
said the girl.
"Never you mind ABOUT that. He's got
notion of coming, and l mean to have
him; it'll pay. So get the room ready, dye
hear?"
She nodded half sullen assent, and the
man strobe briskly out of the door of the
little cottage, near which he had been
standing while they talked, and soon disap
peared below the brow of the hill on which
the house stood. They had just breakfast
ed, and the meal, as were most of theiI
meals, had been eaten in silence, almost
gloomily. Ithad only been at the very end
of it that he had chosen to make the brief
announcement that has just been recorded
That was all he thought needful to say
that he had agreed to take lodger, and
that he might be looked for before night
fall. No word of consultation, no pleasant
commonplace phrase about her extra work
or trouble. Why should he do more than
he had always done9
His daughter had never been to him
while little anything but burden and nui
sance; since she had been old enough,
mere drudge. He was not brutal to her in
the Coarser and more material ways. He
never struck her, or stinted her of food
he was, even in his grutf way, liberal tc
her, and had she chosen she could have
had as good clothes as any girl in the
neighboring village of Kempton. But she
did not seem to care for fine clothes, or in
deed for anything. They lived few miles
from the village, and almost directly on the
sea, in little cottage perched upon bleak
cliff, isolated rather by its position than dis.
tance. Jacob Anderson combined a sort OF
rough farming with the occupations OF
fisherman and boatman, and between them
managed to make his living. He and his
daughter were not popular among theiI
neighbors When his wife had died, soon
after his settlement there, and left this little
girl toddling about, the women folk of the
vicinity had made kindly offers of help tc
the lonely man in rearing his little one:
but he was gruff and ungracious, and the
child seemed even then to partake of his
unsociable nature. So the luke-warm, me
chanical interest that motherless child
had naturally awakened died away, and
Anderson and his little girl were left tc
themselves.
When little Meg grew up into woman.
hood, and took charge of the house, her
duties as purchaser and provider occasion.
ally led her into the little village. Some
of the older women, who remembered hel
mothers pale face and had daughters Of
their own, sought TO draw her into their lit
tie circle, and in their way would have
been kind to her; but she had in no way
responded to their advances. but rather re
buffed them, which was not hard to do.
She was neither pretty nor attractive, not
the sort OF Creature to whom the world nat
urally pays court, so they let her drop
again.
"a disagreeable girl, )" the neighbors said;
"she might go her own way if she liked"
So she did.
There was nothing very strange about
Meg Anderson, nothing very original; and
had she been born to different lot, no one
would have called her remarkable, per-
haps, but some one would have loved
her, and she would certainly not have been
called disagreeable. She was only very
sensitive, reserved woman, with capacity
for deep feeling; with quick delicate per-
ceptions and fine ways of feeling things,
that would have made very pretty femi-
nine critic OF her had she been cultivated; /;
with an innate love of refinement and sus.
ceptibility to sensuous impressions, such as
we often see combined in the upper class of
society, and which make woman attract
i've and lovable, but in no way remarkable.
But Meg's life had been negative in its edu-
cation, and for the most part had consisted
of suppression rather than development;
so that the germs that would have blossom
ed into the delicate, fragrant flowers of re-
fnement and quick, sensitive appreciation,
were stunted and dwarfed into a sort of sui.
len reserve and brooding, halfconscious
discomfort 1t was only that most common
OF all stories, the wrong person in the
wrong place; SO common that one scarcely
notes the instances of it save when these
gifts cry out and make the pity of it evi.
dent and vivid to us as we pass by.
Poor little Meg! She had never known
any one better than, or indeed any one so
good as herself in any way; and the two
men, her father and one other, with whom
she had come into as close a contact as her
nature permitted, were not only her in.
feriors, but of different kind. Their
thoughts were not her thoughts, nor their
feelings her feelings. To say that she lived
in world apart would scarcely be true;
it would be nearer the truth to say that she
lived dimly conscious that there was
world somewhere in which she would be
more at home than in the one which seemed
to contain all she was likely to know of
human nature; for this other man, Bill
Foster, was likely to marry her. In his
rough way, coarsely and soullessly, he
liked her well; had said as much to her
father; and her father had signified to her
once or twice that some day or other Bill
Foster would ask her to be his wife, and
he, Jacob Anderson, expected her to say
Yes" And she, why should she not!
She was habitually and mechanically obe.
dient to her father; and then, too, Bills
clumsy kindness and uncouth liking for
her were the best things she had ever had
the only gifts of any Kind she had received
from any other human being; and in what
does life's sweetness lie save In giving and
receiving giftsp She was indeed of that
better stuff that finds its dearest Joy in
spending and being spent, rather than in
accepting and adding together sums Of
love. But no one had ever made her love
him or even drawn her toward him. She
was unconsciously fastidious and sensitive,
as 1 have said before, and this protected
her from the superficial likings she might
have otherwise have felt for the rosy-faced
girls who met her on the roadside with
pleasant greeting or the stOut voi1np o. fellowa