Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1882-11-02

4
who slept quietly under the small
mounds and headstones, held to life
with tenacity unexpected, but, on the
whole. welcome, and at four stood on q
| "cricket" to wash dishes and pound
clothes; at five made a bed-quilt, and
! at SIX could knit her fathers stockings
Plnched and preternaturally old, she
followed her mother about like some
gray, uncanny elf or gnome, born in
mine or mountain, and hid always from
sun and air. She knew the market value
OF every egg, the possibilities of every
drop of cream. and at seven had made
a bargain with her father-a bargain
which drew from him chuckle of ad-
mlratlon-to exchange the maple sugar
of her crust coffee or occasional cake or
doughnut for its full equivalent in
money.
Schooling was had only that Peter
Higgins might secure his share of the
tax, grudgingly paid. and grumbled
over from one collecting time to anoth-
er, and Huldah learned quickly and we'll,
taking especially to figures, and casting
up interest with something almost en-
thusiasm. The sugar fund grew year
by year in the Claremont Savings Bank,
and Peter shook his head over the bar
| gain which he was too honest to evade
or end. For honesty ruled and was the
| one saving grace. Mean, misery, mar
row almost beyond belief. he never lied
and never cheated, and Huldah grew to
womanhood-girlhood being left out al
together-so true copy of him that the
neighbors who at long intervals pene-
trated the mysterious region of the best
room said:
It's pity she hadn't been boy, to
keep up the farm after old Higgins
died"
Old Higgins died at last, followed
quickly by his wife, who had lived too
long under the direction of his file-like
| voice to find independent action posi-
BILE, and who closed her eyes, as he had
| done, with no sign of what picture
either past or future held in that last
moment of pause between the two.
Huldah reigned alone, and contented to
be alone; and, when the long winter
ended, hired silent and wiry little
Frenchman from the Hollow and ran
the farm on shares. Whatever thought
Antoine Duprez may have had as to
possible money to be made out of her
ignorance or oversight was quickly dis
missed, and the farm, where long ago
every loose stone had taken its place in
the well-built walls, came to be regarded
as one of the best pieces of property in
that region.
In time Miss Huldah, as she came to
be called, owned her shay and drove
into town with her own butter and eggs,
and on Sundays to the old church on
the green, the faces in which she had
known from childhood, but with no in
serest or attempt at other knowledge.
Then, to the CONSERVATION of every one,
she had married, without warning or in
timation that even the most indefatiga-
BILE news purveyor could CLEAN, man
who had appeared from ''the West"
otherwise Central New York, and
bought farm in the same district.
There was no change in life or look.
The same routine went on from hour to
hour and day to day. The bank ac-
count swelled slowly and surely, and
the Jennisons came to be looked upon
as one of the rich families. Then slowly
,jennison himself sickened and died, and
his wife, who gave but this one token of
bereavement or loneliness, cast about
for some one to, in degree, fill the emp
ty place, and found it in waif and
stray, born in the poor-house and hav-
ing grown up in its shadow. Silent and
shrinking, people wondered that Huldah
Jennison chose this child from stronger
and holder ones; but the end justified
her choice, and Mary Nichols grew into
a housewife as practical and busy as
Mrs. Jennison herself.
How she bore the unending nagging
of her daily life it was hard to tell, for
as Mrs. JeDnisOn came to middle age
her tongue moved as steadily and with
as cutting a quality as her fathers, and
she ordered every inch of her hand
maiden's goings out and comings in.
Hardship and often abuse having filled
the first twelve years of the girls life,
home and enough to eat seemed at first
all that was necessary, and as she grew
older custom did the rest, and she heard
with unhearing ears sharp command or
rasping and unceasing run of comment.
One pleasure was always sure, and Mrs.
JennisOn's one weakness secured it to
her, very grudgingly and with many
plan for its cessation, till Mary proved
so valuable helper that she could not
be dispensed with.
Hens and chickens were Mrs. Jenni-
sons passion, and the only softness ever
discOverable in her tone was when she
counted the downy heads of new brood
or coddled a setting mother. There was
no attempt at Il hennery or any modern
method. The hens laid where they
would, and being nomadic beyond the
common run gave Mary moments out of
doors that would otherwise have been
denied. Instinct seemed to lead her to
the last hiding-place of the most secre-
tive hen, and there were conveniences
for such in strange hooks in the ram
bling old barn built by a man of ampler
notions than old Peter Higgins.
In one of these hooks, from which the
hay was never fully removed, the new
crop piling in on the remnants of the
old, Mary kept the few treasures her
mistress's prying eye would long ago
have rooted out from chest or drawer
book or two, the property of her I'M
known mother; shell some one had
given, and in time, as she grew into
delicate, even graceful GIRL. a little min.