Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1884-01-17
AN ECCENTRIC GIRL

county of Arkansaw, is situated Ashbury
Mills. The surrounding country is
strangely like some old picture you have
seen, and the mill, with its tall gables
and great wheel, standing out in cour-
ageous, not to say bold relief, is SO con
ventional, and in such tuneful keeping
with old mills you have read about, that
in passing along the winding road, you
would stop more than once to look at so
quaint grouping Of objects. Why the
place was called Ashbury Mills, and why
mills at all, since there is only one, is
something which none of the neighbors
and certainly no grammarian can explain
Old Tobe Potter owns the mills-we
shall conform to the neighborhood Gus
tom and use the plural-and so far as any
one knows, nobody named Ashbury has
ever been in the least identified with the
institution, and in fact, when old Tobe
is asked concerning the origin of the
name, he hes1tates in Characteristic per
plexity and replies: "Blame # know. :"
Tobe's daughter, Gralda, was the hand
soonest girl in the entire country. She
was handsome, not because she tried to
be so, but because she couldn't help it.
When the old man became afflicted with
corpulency and laziness, mainly the lat
ter, Gralda took charge Of the mills
She was thorough business girl, and
was so lenient to customers that once
when Alf Galkins complained that she
handled the toll measure with a reckless
ness leaning triae too much in favor of
the mills, she politely told the old fellow
that if he did not like the methods she
had adopted in her administration, he
could take his favors to some other place.
Nearly every young man in the country
was in love with the girl, but the songs
of their wooing were not music to her
She often declared that she did not in
tend to marry, and many an in
jured heart, beating under homemade
linsey shirts, believed the terrible
declaration. Simon Webliforce, a
good-looking young fellow and the ac-
knowledged wit of the community, did
not escape the thralldom Of Graldas
power. She had smiled at him, he
thought. What more could he ask Of
a girl to whom he had not made known
his feelings2 He finished laying by corn
one evening in June, and, after shaving
himself and brushing up his clothes, a
suit of extra warp jeans that he had not
worn since the last ''protracted meetin', y
he mounted his high-headed horse, the
one he ''swapped FROM Nath Patterson,
and went over to the mills He found
Gralda, dressed in kind Of meal bag
costume, high in the neck and long in
the sleeves, attending to her duties Old
Tobe, her father, sat in an easy chair,
fishing from the back door
'How are you, simonr' said the girl.
"Just in time to help me up with this
sack.
"ATers in time when you are handlin'
anything good to eat replied the wit
of the community.
"Yes," said the old man. batting his
hook, "an' you are all'us aroIn' when
the business Of putin it away is goin'
on
Then they all laughed, and the girl,
Simon thought, smiled at him.
"Miss Gralda, if you amt very busy.
I'd like to talk to you over here by the
window
The girl brushed the meal from her
hands and followed Simon to the win
dow
"I laid by con to-day"
''Did you2"
eyes, an the bottom tief, pap lows,
will knock the spots often any piece o.
CON in this country"
"Your father generally knows what
he is talking about.
sDon't he, though What else do you
.eckin be said 2 Simon, says he, ''all
that cons your'n. That's what he said.
Now, thar amt nuthin stingy bout me,
an when pap tole me that, lowed to
myself, hanged ef | don't git somebody
to sheer all this here extravagantness, an
now, without further attemptin' to thrash
ole Satan round the stump, | want you
to be my wife. Don't say no, fur I'd do
as much fur you any time. Yon couldn't
ask no favor o me wouldn't grant i'm
megiately.