Little Falls transcript. [volume] (Little Falls, Morrison County, Minn.) 1876-1894, 1883-09-28
My Love He Went A-Sailing.

My Love He Went A-Sailing.
1T was a lonely little house, and Aunt
Prim lived in tia lonely little house
tucked under the pines. with its green
eyed palinus staring down the road, and
its back yard jammed against the noun
tain. :s*5 .=.. ].
| Some women have a talent for grow
ing old. Aunt Pr;m looked as if she had
been born so-as if, some way, nature
had varied her usual routine and quar-
ried her out, or dug her up, or rained
her down, Or = .-r.::s s...~
Long and narrow, like Barbara AKen's
grave, was Aunt Prim, with frost-bitten
hair and face that looked like the
| brown, withered kernel of a nut. Her
cheeks were ditched with wrinkles that
crawled in and across each other like
tangled threads, and there were lines
about her mouth that Time could never
have drawn thre without calling Trouble
to its aid.
Trouble! If Miss Pamela Burton could
have carried her woes to market and
sold them her wealth could have rivalled
that of the diamond-crested Princess of
Bagdad, who ordered fried angels for
tea! Jack alone, as q salable affection,
was worth its weight in nuggets. And
as to Jacks dear friends
Not that she would for one inhuman
minute have dreamed of trading of her
scapegrace, for all ~he came home reg
ularly irregular with twist in his ankles
and ungodly words that ought TO have
but did not, blister his tongue; for was
he not the only son of that only sister
churchyard, and did he not bear the
name of that other Jack at the bottom of
the everlasting seas?
There comes Jack of some sort into
most women's lives, and Aunt Prim had
never forgotten the blue flannel clad
lover who had gone down to the sea in
ship that in its turn had gone down
under it in storm. He was the one
had loved it. Poor Aunt Prim!
Then after many drab colored years,
Jack had come into her life, lad when
he scamperd off to spade up fortune in
these Western hills, she found him lad
| still, for all he lowered above her like
the pines and his hair was as gray as
granite.
Found him half dead and wholly dis
gusted, with his fortune still under the
ground and himself so very nearly so
that being white and womanish with
fever, he had chung to her like a child
fears the dark; and she, having nothing
better to do with her life, had carried
him away from the little mob of town
huddled up on the hillside and took
him home and adored him.
II in this progressive world there
breathes woman strong-minded
enough to overcome her weakness for
prodigals, Aunt Prim had yet to profit
by her illustrious example-and prodi-
gal with a dimple in his chin!
Aunt Prim," he said, one wintry
night, as he watched Der whisking about
the fire with her steak and rotattofes and
tea-for Jack NAs always friendly with
tile teapot when he wasn't wild with
whisky-"it must be no end of dreary
here when am on the tear; why don't
you get married?
The eyes that Miss Pamela Burton
| turned on her nephew looked like the
taste of sassafras tea.
Eff it wasn't for them gray hairs of
| yours I'D answer that question with my
slipper-marry indeed! Ii it wasn't for
| the likes of you no"
She had said something rash-she
| guessed it by the way the red came
| swimming up in her cheeks; she was
| sure of 1t by the suspicious conduct of
| that demoralizine dimple.
| Seems as if your mind was made up
handy enough without my pltchforking
! the idea into your head. I don't say q
| nice girl wouldn't be a Gods blessing to
| me--for it is dreary-but such trash as
| blows about Shantyville, miners girls
| and dancing jacks and the like
''She isn't q miners girl" persisted
! the prodigal, Indignantly.
| "Then she's dancing jack, which is
| worse!
"Draw it mild, old lady," he said,
planting himself at the table and patron
!:ingly pattlng her on the head, "you
&re samping the best brand ever bot
| sings like-Well, | just wish you could
hear sing!"
| Jack Burton?' exclaimed his ancient
brown relative, in the most uncompro-
| misingly virtuOus tones, when I broke
up the old home in Kentucky and toll
| lowed you here to-to-t!is, [ allowed
20 suffer and maybe to die with red
skins Ratchet in my brain, but Il did not
calculate to disgrace my old age kicking
| up shines in dance houseW
! AS if he had even limited at such a
| thing! But that was just like Aunt Prim
and Aunt Prim Was just like every other
woman in the world!
$50 you won't call on Polly" demand
ed the prodigal, anxiously.
"No, I won't call on Polly, and if she
dares to call on me just let her-that's
allv
Lonely! There was the black world
| all around her, and the big, solemn
mountain, with its hushed cries and ech-
oes of the night. There wore the dis
NAL pines shooting up towards the star
less sky, and there was Jack-at least
| that WAS where jack ought to have been
but Aunt Frim, being resigned to these
nightly excursions to the giddy metropo-
lis of Sbantyville, was just setting her
self to dream comfortably Of wildcats
and Indians. when there came a sudden
and terrible knocking at the lonely lit
tie door.
Wildcats and Indians! Miss Pamela
Burton had never pictured, anything
quiet 80 blood-curdling as that knock,
knock, knocking at the door.
But there it was, and there it kept up
until, white and qulvering. she crept to
the key-hole and called in the faintest oil
voices, "Whose there?"
| "a woman"
A woman? Aunt Prim was match
for woman any day; but this was night
"a dark night on a desolate road-and,
as discretion is really better than valol
taken all around, Miss Burton resorted
to the key-hole and cried out in trife
more valorous tone:
$50 away-didn't see your coat tails
through chink IN the door,.
And then something fell outside, and
n Ia IN, ,,,nor ornrf into Amt D ~ MIC p