Millheim Journal. [volume] (Millheim, Pa.) 1876-1984, 1881-08-04
LITTLE KATE AND L.

We didn't wait for an income to marry
on, little Kate and l. We had no rich
relations to leave us legacies or to send
pearl necklaces, diamond ornaments, or
thousand dollar bonds for wedding pres
ents. was simply brakeman on the
Eastern Michigan Railway, long and
| lonely stretch of rails over desolate
marshes, steep mountain grades, and
solitary sweeps of prairie land; she was
tho -hright-eyed waitress in one of the
restaurants along the hne. But when
fell from the platform when the great
accident happened-you've heard OF the
Great Accident, suppose, when there
was such shocking loss of life--it was
Kates care, and nothing else, that
brought me back into the world had
so nearly quilted for good and all !
Twould have done it for anybody,
Mark p said she, when 1 tried to thank
| her.
"Would you?" said I. "But it isn't
everybody that would have done it for
me, Kate ~
So l asked her to marry me, and she
said yes. And took little cottage on
the edge of the Swampscot woods, and
furnished it as well as / could, with
red carpet, cheese-cloth curtains at the
windows, q real Connecticut clock, and
set of walnut chairs that made myself,
with seats of rushes, woven in by old
Billy, the Indian, who carried his bas-
kets and mats around the country, and
Mrs. Perkins, the parsons wife, made
us a wedding cake, and so we were mar
ried. Pretty soon found out that Kate
was pining little.
''What is it, sweetheart ?"said L. IKE
member, it was a contract between us
that we were to have no secrets from each
other Are you not perfectly happy ?"
"Oh, yes, yes - cried Kate, hiding
her face on my shoulder. "But it's my
mother, Mark. She's getting old, and
if could only go East to see her, just
once, before the Lord takes her away /!
1t was then that I felt the sting of my
poverty most If I had only been a rich
man to have handed her out check and
said $50 at once !" think could have
been quite happy.
"Never mind, sweetheart" said L,
stroking down her hair. "Well manage
it after little. Well lay up few dol
lars from month to month, and you shall
90 out and see her before she dies !"
And with that little Kate was forced
to be content. But there was hungry
homesick look upon her face which it
went to my heart to see.
eff I was rich !' kept saying to my
self "Oh, if was only rich !"
One stormy autumn night we were be-
lated on the road, for the wind was ter
rible, shaking the century old pines and
oaks, as if they were nothing more than
tall swamp grasses, and driving
through the ravines with shrek
and howl like o whole pack of hungry
wolvesr And the heavy rains had raised
the streams so that we were compelled
to go carefully and slowly over the
bridges, and keep long look ahead for
fear of accidents.
was standing at my post, in front OF
the second passenger car, stamping my
feet on the platform to keep them warm,
and hoping little Kate would not be per-
turbed at my prolonged absence, when
the news agent came chuckling out:
"We're to stop at Stumpville Station, !"
said he.
Nonsense, said I, 81 know better.
This train never stops short of Wauken-
sha City, least of all when we are rum
ming to make up for lost time, as we are
tonight.
"Oh, but this is an exceptional occa-
sion" said Johnny Mills (Which was the
news agents name. "We're going to
put an old woman off, She has lost her
ticket, she says. More likely she never
had one. Goes on as though she'd had
her pocket picked"
'.Its most a pity, isn't it, to put one
off tonight ?''said 1. Least of all at such
lonely place as stumpville Station,
where there are only two houses and a
blacksmith shop"
.'Yes, I know" said Mills, adjusting
the newspapers that he carried in rub
ber case under his arm. ''But the Sup
erintendent of the road has got out a
new set of instructions, and he's that
particular that Jones wouldn't dare to
overlook case like this. There's been