The Wellington enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 1867-188?, 1883-05-30

Shaping the wondrous thing.
Twas only common dOWer-pOt,
But perfect in fashioning.
Slowly he raised his patient eyes, '
With homely truth inspired:
The one that stands gets tredT
Alice Wellington Rollins, IN the Continent.
MR.. BRASSEY'S CHANGE OF BASE.
Jenny and Lucy Bagley were the two
prettiest girls in Balky Bottom. Their
mother was very proud of them; and
though a widow, in straitened circum-
stances, she strained her narrow means
to put them at the new seminary, for she
was determined that her girls should hold
their heads as high as Farmer Prindle's
showy daughters, at whatever cost of
pinching and saving.
The ambitious mother might have
found it difficult to carry through her
plans, if an only brother, several years
her senior, who had run away when q
boy, and who had long ago been given
up for dead, hadn't come back one day,
as suddenly as he had disappeared, with
no end of money in his pocket, and still
a bachelor.
Uncle Jacob Ransower, in spite of his
grotesque dialect and old-fashioned man
ners, soon became q great favorite with
Jenny and Lucy. By sort of tacit un-
derstanding he took up his home in his
sisters house; and from that time the
latter was relieved from all anxiety on
the score of her daughters education.
Uncle Jacob thenceforward cheerfully
paying their bills, including all the
'extras"
The girls came home finished at last,
and Uncle Jacob was teased into buying
,--,AA Lolf lrcl <1f
fashionable music.
The sisters would have had focks of
beaux, for they were not only remarks
bly, pretty, but, as everybody knew, they
would one day come into Uncle Jacobs
high that there wasn't a youth in Balky
Bottom adventurouspenough to spunk up
to them. Even Hiram Hoppick, who
used to be rather spry in his attentions to
Jenny in the ante-seminary days, and
Reuben Ruckman, who used to bask in
an occasional smile of Lucy's in the same
blissful period, hung back now like q
brace of bashful schoolboys with their
fingers in their mouths.
At last a star of the first magnitude set
the armament of Balky Bottom sll ablaze.
1t was no less a luminary than Mr..
Cleophas Brassey. Uncle Jacob, who
had caught from his nieces touch of
the seminarian idiom, pronounced him
amooch too quote" But the young
ladies nonconcurred. Mr.. Brassey, in their
eyes, was q perfect Prince Charming
and when they came to know him, and
heard him sing: "Me hawht is fawh,
fawh awayP-a statement with proba-
bly, more truth than poetry in it-Jenny
declared he was nicer than a-a-, and
Lucy quite agreed with her.
For the first time in their lives was
there any jealousy between the sisters.
For time Mr. Brassey distributed his
attentions impartially between the two.
1t would have puzzled him, indeed, to
give a reason for preference. In point
of looks, neither sister had the advan-
tage, and Uncle Jacobs money, it was
understood, was to 90 to them in equal
portions.
But Cleophas Brassey was of more
practical turn of mind than the meta
physical donkey that starved to death
between two haystacks, for want of phil
osophic reason for choosing the one rather
than the other. Uncle Jacob was COM
planning good deal lately of "puzzin' in
his he" and had put himself on double
rations of blackstrap as a remedy. Feel
ing there was no time to lose, Mr. Bras
sey, in the privacy of his chamber,
christened his meerschaum Jenny, and
his tobacco-stopper Lucy, and went over
the old juvenile rigmarole by which
schoolboys decide who's first to be hare.
The last word fell to Lucy-so Lucy il
was.
From that time forth it ceased to be q
question where Mr.. Brassey's predilec-
tions lay. 1t was nothing but Lucy with
him now. Poor Jenney felt herself ut
terly ignored; and, when from her obscu {
corner, she listened to the cruel chanting
of the old story of his truant ''hawt,n
she felt there was q melancholy reality
in the words she had never recognized
before.
Mr.. Brassey would have proposed to
Lucy without delay, but he was little
dubious on the score of Uncle Jacob. II
would be Just like that obstinate old
Dutchman, if he didn't like the match,
b express his disapproval by q disin-
leriting clause in his will.
But at last a circumstance occurred
hat couldn't fail to give Mr.. Brassey q
considerable lift in Uncle Jacobs opin-
ion. Lawyer Hacker, with whom Mr..
B. seemed to have a good deal of business
lately, came in hot haste in search of
that gentleman, whom he found on the
widows back porch making himself
quite one of the family-Uncle Jacob,
with his corncob pipe and pitcher of
blackstrap, fanking the party.
81 have Just received" said the law
yer, breaking in on the company with
the air of one on pressing business, can
offer of two hundred thousand dollars for
your Florida plantation. What answer
shall 1 give?"
"Say I've changed my mind and don't
wish to sell" !" carelessly replied the other,
turning to resume his tete-d-tete with
Lucy, and Hacker left.
Uncle Jacobs ears had not been idle;
and when, in the evening, it was dis.
closed in family council that Mr.. Bras
sey had that afternoon proposed to Lucy,
the old. gentleman, instead of exploding
as had been feared, smoked his pipe in
silence, and when that and the blackstrap
were finished, betook himself quietly to
bed.
Next morning Uncle Jacob was off be-
times to town. Going straight to LAWYER
Hackers Office, he sought and obtained
q private interview.
How mooch you sharch to wride my
| villF' he asked.
Twenty-Five dollars" replied the
lawyer, blandly.
"Doo mooch," objected Uncle Jacob.
"Shoost shdrike off der twenty und it's
a pargain."
Mr.. Hacker expostulated little, but
finally accepted the amendment.
"How do you wish to leave your prop
erty, Mr.. Ransowerl" he inquired, dip
ping his pen in the ink and drawing
toward him a sheet of paper.
"Vell, 1 vas qoin' to leafe it to der dHo