The Superior times. [volume] (Superior, Wis.) 1870-1912, 1883-03-17
CHANGED HER MIND,

Miss Becky was going to the {" Old
Ladies Home at last. 1t was a sorry
fact, but there was nothing else for her
to do it seemed. Who would think of
offering any other home to a poor. al
most helpless old woman who had ont.
lived her usefulness? Having passed
her days IN other peoples houses, so to
speak, she might not mind it as niue }.
perhaps, as a more fortunate being.
Yes" she said, "there's q vacancy
in the cold Ladies' Home" and the
hundred dollars that Parson Armorv
left me will pay my way in, but 1t
wouldn't last me longifI began to spend
1t, you know, and / shall have a warm
bed and my regular meals without wor-
rylng about where the next ones com
ing from I'm most tired worrying about
ways and means. Seems as though I
had been about it all my life: ever since
father was taken with the heart dis ease
hearing the class in algebra. Now that
the rheumatism has got the better of me,
so that | can't work IN cold weather. and
the doctor says 1t 'llldraw my fingers up
SO that | can't use them soon, it doesn't
seem as If there was anything left for me
III this world but the Homeland /
ought to be thankful for thatl'
Miss Becky had other expectations in
her heyday, when Young Larry Rogers
met her and carried he. basket; when
his strong arm padded her down the
broad river to church on Sunday morn
lngs; when they sang together in the
choir from the same hymn book; when
they loltered hOmeward in the fragrant
summer dusk, and heard the whip-poor-
will complain, and startled the fire fvs
ID the hedges as they brushed by. 1t
sometimes seemed to Miss Becky as if
all this had happened III another planet.
She was young then, with a bloom on
her cheek; but although the rheumatism
had bent her figure and rendered her
more or less helpless at times, vet her
dark, velvety eyes looked out ike soft
stars, and the ghost of dlmple still
t1lckered on cheek and chin in spite Of
her sixty odd years. Miss Becky's IA
Their had been the district schoolteacher
IN those far off days of her eirlhood.
He had taught her the simple lore at his
command, but it was Larry Rogers who
had taught her music, hour after hour
IN the empty old schoolhouse; they had
prachced together, while he wrote the
score on the blackboard. But all this
had not sutficed to enable her to earn a
livelihood. Her education, musical and
otherwise, had stopped short of any
commercial value, In those days she
had never expected to earn her living
by the sweat of her brow. Larry was
going to give her everything. How tri-
vial the little quarrel seemed to-day
which circumvented this fine resolve of
hisl But what magnitude it had as
sumed at the timei On his return from
trip to neighboring city, some busy.
body had whispered to Larry that Miss
Becky had been seen driving with Squire
Eustis son Sam behind his trotters.
Sam was just home from college, a
harum-scarum fellow they said, who
made love right and left and gambled a
bit; and when Larry reproached her with
1t she had not denied; she had simply
said: What then? If you choose to
listen to gossip rather than wait till |
tell you
But yeu didn't tell me, and I've
been home a week"
" | had forgotten all about it till you
IeHIuueu me, SAID BECKY.
It's such an every day affair for you
to drive with Sam Eustis (which in
credulity so stuBg Becky that she would
not condescend to explain that she haQ
carried some needlework up to Squire
Eustis' which she had been doing Tor
his wife, and that as she left to walk
home Sam was Just starting off with his
smart chaise and new dapple-greys, and
the squire had said, "Take Miss Becky
home, Sam, and show her their PAGES; p"
and how she had been ashamed to refuse
the kindness, although prefering to walk
a thousand times; and how once in the
chalse Sam had been the pink OF cour-
tesy, and had begged her to drive with
MN to Parson Amory's, three miles out
OF her way, THAT Lucy Amory may see
that you don't disdain my company. For
yen see" said Sam, who was not as
black as he was painted, as m8ny Liked
TO suppose, Lucy can make me what
she Will; without her l shall he nothing
and nobody; but they've told her all
kinds OF wild things about me; they We
told her she might as well Jump into the
river as marry such a scapeerace. And
perhaps If | made her little Jealous
you know there's no harm IN that, is
there? Ais fair III love; and, perhaps,
II the old folks see me driving about
Miss Becky Thorne, my stock may go
up, and l may be saved from the burn
ing, as Parson Amory says" And
Becky had consented; how could she re-
fuse TO do a service for such a true lover 4?
30 shghta thing, tool She had often since
trayersed the same road on foot, on her
daily rounds of toll and mercy. Sam
Eustls had MARI ed Lucy Amory years
ago, and was the foremost man in the
county to-day. Strange how that
friendly drive had lnterfered with Miss
Becky's prospects; how the simple fact
OF carrying home Mrs. Eustis' needle
work should have determined her fate.
and devoted her to life of hardship and
the "Old Ladies' Home at the end!
Talk of trlttes! Poor Miss Becky she
remembered that once or twice the OPP
portun1ty had offered when she might
have made it up with Larry; but pride,
or sort of reserve had locked her lips
Larry ought to know that she was
above silly fiirtations. Once. when they
met, at Lucy Amory's wedding, when
Iney all went out into the orchard while
The bride planted young tree, and the
guests looked for four leaved clovers,
she had found herself-whether by ac- |
cident or design she could not tell-on |
The grass beside Larry; their fingers met
over the same lucky clover, their eyes
net above 1t, and for an instant she had |
{ on her tongues end to confess all
loout the drive ana its result, to put