Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1883-10-17

eggs, stale bread, and inevitable salt
pork, doughnuGs and pie, and pan OF
cream whose yellow wrinkled surface
bore testimony to the squire's Jersey.
"That mackerel won't be fried, said
Molly, for the course of frying at widow
Jackman's had been severe. The fin
gers that had measured lace and ribbon
so deity made short work of getting
breakfast, and the squire, coming in
from his strawberry bed with pan full
of Wilson's" found it about ready.
But somehow his table had an unfa-
miliar look. The cloth was on straight,
the knives and forks were laid with
mathematical precision, an unwonted air
of trimness pervaded his familiar crock
| cry, and-there was no pie on the table.
But there was mackerel baked in cream,
and mashed potatoes, and nicely Drowned
toast, aud the doughnute.
+" Miss Harlow don't feel able to come
out to the table this morning, and [
guess I'll take her bite before I eat. !"
And SO saying the squire took plate,
and commenced piling things on it in a
promiscuous way.
"Oh," said Molly, "let me do it. I
have had long experience with sick
people. They must be tempted, you
know"
She looked up at him with her bright
smile, and the squire gave in at once,
and watched with wonder while q tray
was brought, clean napkin spread over
it, piece of the mackerel laid on q
plate, with the cream ladled daintily
over it molly had seen too much of
plates where the meat seemed to have
been launched on them by an avalanche
of gravy; then came a little plate of
potato, slice of brown toast, little
plate of butter, cup of coffee, knife,
fork, spoon, etc. Then she whisked into
the pantry, and out again with saucer
of strawberries, and added them to the
contents of the tray.
"Wait minute" she said, as the
squire lifted his burden, and in twink
ling she was out of the door and back
again with spray of white lilac, which,
in tall glass, was given the place of
honor in the middle of the tray.
"ShO!" said the squire, with his slow
smile, "that'll just suit my wife. She's
famous for having things fxy"
Mrs. Harlow had missed the accus-
toned smell of frying, and wondered in
feeble way if Molly couldn't find the
pork.
Why, BethueI," she said, as her
husband sat the tray down beside her,
how pretty! | really believe l am hun
cry"
And the squire went back to his own
breakfast so happy that he entirely for
got the absence of the pie.
no III
though life afterwards was not all cream
and strawberries and white lilacs, and
though bread would sometimes burn,
and pastry fatty refuse to be haky, and
though unused muscles sometimes
aehed with the new work, yet the girl
kept up brave heart. The squire and
his wife were uniformly XIII d, and the
latter, who had suffered as much from
lack of cheerful society as from any ply
steal cause, gradually grew stronger, and
would sit through the long summer fore
Moons in the great airy kitchen, placidly
knitting or pairing apples, and though
she sometimes looked wlstfully after
Molly as she tripped from pantry to eel
lar, and longed for the glrlish figure that
used to fit about in the same wag, her
heart took great comfort in the bright,
cheerful stranger. And the squire, hear
ing the fresh young voice singing about
the house, would give a great sigh for
the lost voice, but somehow the old
house seemed less lonely to him, and
after awhile his first question wouln be,
Where's Molly ?" The plain country
society really took her in and considered
her high authority in the matter of
"looping of overskirts and "doing
up" of hair, and at last no merry-making
was complete without Molly Perry.
Those of you who have followed this
story in expectation of some absent son
or nephew or younger brother of the
family appearing and taking Molly for
wife may as well stop here, for nothing
whatever of the kind happened, for the
squire and his wife had no sons, and
their nephews and brothers were all
married long before Molly's day. It is
true that some of the smart young farm
ers of the region round about tied their
horses occasionally at the squire's gate,
and it is equally true that Molly said no
to some of them, though they one and
all swear by her.
This story is not written to induce all
clerks and shop girls to rush into house
work, for not one in twenty would be
capable of doing as Molly did, and not
one in hundred would find such
home; it is written simply to show what
one girl did.
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