Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1881-11-10
MRS. PENNY'S MISTAKES.

Just on the brow of gently sloping
hill, commanding a rich and varied
view, on one side of a road cut into the
solid hill, stood Elmholt Church.
Growing the opposite bank was an ivy
clad, gray stone wall, behind which two
solemn, slumberous yews kept sleepy
watch on their theological brothers in
the churchyard; and behind the yews,
also solidly built of the gray stone, with
its mullioned windows, was Elmholt
House, the residence of no less per-
sonage than Mrs. Penny, who now sits
with sort of blue wooden antimacassar
over her plentiful frowsy iron-gray ring
lets, deeply immersed in political
pamphlet. The room is barely and
somewhat anonymously furnished. An
-old-fashioned grand piano, of which the
legs and rather rich carvings had at
one time been guilt, occupies one cor
ner of the room; in another stands a
harp, whose better days belonged to
the years when George the Third was
King; and other articles of furniture
bear the same impress of faded gentili-
ty. Mixed with these are homely, un-
cushioned Windsor chairs; a plain deal
table, scantily covered by threadbare,
common cloth; and other furniture not
too far gone to be rejected from the
kitchen of house where the exchequer
is very limited.
Mrs. Penny's studies were interrupted
BY a loud but not unkindly voice out
side.
Put it down, tell zee. I won't ha'e
thee do it,
With snort, Mrs. Penny tossed down
her politics and strobe out with mascu-
line tread.
ssLet the boy alone, Penny said
she, :" won't have you interfere with
him.
81 tell 'ee," said Mr.. Penny, for it
was he, "he shan't fling stones at the
jenny-wrens. They be Godamoighty' s
birds.''
MIR. Penny was a hale-lookng old
man, rather florid, with wiry-gray beard
and mustache, and somewhat bowed in
figure. He wore CATERS, corduroy
breeches, and drab coat with brass
buttons, which looked as though it had
formed part of some discarded livery.
The boy who was the subject of the
threatened alteration stood irresolute,
with the stone in his hand, and his eye
on the bush where the jenny-wren had
disappeared. just in the nick OF time
d UIdChUlTu StdTtcu OuC, stuOs tuS1G tHC
stone might not be wasted, he hurled it
at the golden-billed lover of cherries,
and then ran off laughing.
cay, ay," said Mr. Penny. ''Dang the
blackbirds. Hull at they if thee likes. -
Mrs. Penny pushed her blue antima-
CAESAR little more on one side, hitched
up her dress in nautical fashion, and re-
tired to pursue the interrupted consid-
Grafton of woman's rights.
She was lady of good birth, respec-
table education and fairly well endowed
with those s'good gifts'' of which Sir
Hugh Evans had so high an apprecia-
ton. She had been left an orphan be-
fore she was out of her teens, and hav-
ing always very strong opinions as to
woman's ability to do anything that men
could do-and do it better, too-with a
marked partiality for country life and
for independence it was notlong after she
became her own mistress that she took
into her own hands the farm on which
Elmholt House stood, and began to
manage it onstrictly original principles,
although she condescended to dip into