News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1882-08-17
SELVIDGE'S LITTLE MISTAKE.

Young Selvidge came of a father
who had always looked out for himself
most industriously, but who, having
always lived in a poverty stricken vii
lage, left his son little but good advice
when he died. His advice made up by
repetition what it lacked in quantity; it
was simply this:
sit is easier to marry money than to
earn it.
The young man, like dutiful son,
rolled his fathers fsvorite precept over
and over in his mind, and the more he
thought of it the better he liked it, for
he could not help seeing that in his ma
tive town of Pumpville, at least, money
was SO hard to earn, that no other way
of getting it could be harder. Most of
the currency in circulation came from
the big Perris pump factory, and the
workmen were SO poorly paid that when
they came to spend part of thoir scanty
wages at the storc in whiah yepre Sell
yidge was sole clerk, they bought IN
such small quantities and hesitated so
long over each purchase that young
Selvidge had to work very hard for his
salary.
Selyidge did not wait until after his
fathers death to act on the old gentle
mans injunctions; indeed, he began
long before, with his fathers assistance
to cultivate the acquaintance of young
women who had money or prospects,
and it was by his fathers advice that
Selvidge, instead of learning the paren-
tai trade of blacksmithing, had be-
come clerk in village store, and thus
placing himself where he might see the
young women of the vicinity in great
variety, without subiecting himself to
expense or even loss of time.
As Selvidge was not bad looking and
wore better fitting clothes than any
other young man in the village, the ma
iority of the young ladies liked him
well enough, but as none of them exact
ly answered his purpose, he carefully alb
stained from love-making. Many of the
daughters of farmers and mill hands
were buxom and pretty, and few were
clever, but on the short list in which
Selvidge had included the name of every
girl who had any money, or could hope
to have any, there was not name that
represented five thousand dollars, and
although five thousand dollars is not to
be sneezed at, Selvidge had set his heart
on a much larger sum.
He had almost made up his mind to
change his base of operations and go to
New York, which the two or three thou
sand dollars realized from the sale of
his fathers property would enable him
to do in fair style, when an unexpected
chance fell in his way. Old Perris, the
sole owner of the Punpville pump fac
tory, had an only daughter, who, thanks
to the laziness, luxury and indulgence
peculiar to the families of rich men who
are rather coarse grained and vulgar,
changed in single year from school
girl In short dresses to a full blown
young woman, who scarcely knew what
to make of the change, and had no one
at home to inform her-Mrs. Perris be
ing an invalid whose only treatment for
any unexpected state of affairs was to
fret at it.
So Miss Perris, as people began to
call the young woman who year before
had been merely little Kate, did about
assshe pleased. There was no bad com
pany in the village for her to fall into
for her father did not allow her to as
sociate with the village people excep
at school and in church, and there wal
no tset" of young people who coult
give evening parties for the sole pur
pose of dancing and Irritation. Their,
were no young men in the vicinity
whom her father would have allowed t.
visit her, even had he realized that a
fifteen years girl may be somethin.
more than child.
Miss PERKS was, therefore, throw
upon herself for all her diversions, ant
she sometimes grew desperate over he
inability to use up her time. She req
a great many novels, selected by hel
self, which increased her trouble 1athel
than diminished it che drove her pc
MES furiously about the country roads
set the family servants by the ears 81
frequently that they had to be changed
every month or two, dressed expensively
and in shocking taste, and made of her
self the stock topic of conversation anC
joke among the mill hands and theil
wives.