Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1884-04-11
A STRANGE COINCIDENCE.

A STRANGE COINCIDENCE.
''It's amazin' what a few flowers will
| do" said old Philo Burton, as he sal
smoking his pipe under the morning glory
vines at the back door. MY cabins the
best lookin' on the whole mountain-an6
! yet the logs nor the underpinnin' nor vel
the windows amt no different from the
rest. But it IS them marigoids, and four
o'clocks, and those blue double asters thai
| does the business
tits because you've got woman about
the place." said Tom Phillips enviously.
II reckon ~ was Philo's reply, as hi
crowded the coarse shag tobacco down into
his pipe with his thumb.
And old Philo sat smoking at his front
door, and basked in the sun like larger
growth of lizard.
Philo Burton had come, like many an
other, to the Silver Land, to make his for
tune, ten years ago. But like many an
other one, his life had proved failure
and at sixty he was broken-down man
glad to earn little money here and there
when his rheumatic back would allow him
to make the effort.
There was something still left in the
bank at Salt Lake City, but Philo re.
tanned too much of his New England
bringing up to trench upon that little
fund.
II may need it more than I do now,''
he reasoned. "We amt suffering now
me and 10. It's pretty tight calculating
now and then, but we don't 60 hungry
nor cold. Guess we won't draw out that
hundred dollars till we need it I! But it's
queer the way luck runs. 1 laid out my
all in this 'ere tract of land, because /
reckoned it was the right spot. But it
wasn't. If I'd bought fifty rods to the
left, I'D struck that there ''Blue Beau
ty'' mine, as David Dorsey is snovellin
his fortune out of. But didn't. I don It
know why. There amt no accountin
for luck !! Dave Dorsey's CROWN rlch,
and Pm CROWN poor. I wouldn't care
for myself, but it's hard on 10. She's out
under the grape vine, washing now.
Washing's pretty tough work for slim
creature like 10. We always Kept hired
gal when Mrs. Burton was alive. But
things is different now. I don't know
why"
For in his dim way, old Philo recogniz-
ed the mystery of daily life.
In this world some people try to fight
against fate. Philo Burton was wise
enough to accept his destiny as it came.
In the meantime, his daughter-Joce.
lind she had been christened. but every
one called her Jo-stood singing under the
shadow of the grape-vines, where the
green clusters were just turning to anne
thyst. Her sleeves were rolled up, the
wind blew her short fantastic curls to and
fro, and an apron of striped red and white
bed ticking engulfed her slender form. She
was rosy and sun-burned, with big black
eyes, and she was rubbing away at old
Philo's blue-checked shirts, with muscle
which many an athlete might have en-
Wed.
And why should not "Jo'' have musclel
She groomed the shaggy little mustang
pony herself, she drove the cows home at
night-she settled any difference of opin-
ion with the bull with stick that re-
sounded over his horny plate like the
blows of blacksmith; she split the wood
in order to save her fathers weak back,
and dug the potatoes and brought in the
vegetables, and then, when she had time
she trimmed the branchy marigolds, and
watered the blooming pink and purple
asters, and sat at her stocking darning,
looking down into the empurpled shadows
of the valley below, where the pinnacles
of Salt Lake City and the egg shaped dome
of the Great Tabernacle of Zion rose up
like the uncertain mists of dream.
That, with trifling variations, constitu.
ted the daily life of 10.
She grew up like wild flower in the
wilderness. Even the rough miners sup
| pressed their oaths and became gentlel
when she passed by.
''She has tough time, 10 has," ole
Burton said slowly, shaking mis- head; "but
she don't mind it, 10 don't! She loves bel
old father, 10 does!"
! AS for washing, what did 10 care fol
that? She had washed ever since she wal
fourteen years old, and had caught Mossie
the Indian squaw, stealing pocket hand
kerchiefs out of the tub.
"You're not doing right" she said t,
old Mossie. ''See how streaky the clothe
are2 You don't rub 'em enough. Ant
see |" jerking the handkerchief out of th,
old hag's tattered pocket. "What bust
ness have you with these 20
missy find fault, Mossie no stay" sale
the old Wahsatch squaw, 'Mossie q
way"
go then,'' said 10, with cheeks flushed
with righteous indignation; 81 can vast
better than that myself. And won
have thief about the premises. -
So 10 herself had taken the helm, an6
conquered Fate.
l AS she rubbed and rinsed away in tht
checkered shadow Of the leaves, a stu.