The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1885-08-28

ana not Diame nef-no, not a Wllt, ana
yet it was tough all the same. | sat there
and thought it over, alone in my room, for
my chum had gone home to spend Sunday.
The wind was bowling away outside, like
a Pawnee on the w~ar-path, and the snow
the first of the season-was clustering
about the corners and whirling against the
windows. 1t was a beastly night, and |
thanked my lucky stars for a jolly open
fire, and a pipe, and a lounging-chair. |
was very easy, so far as bodily comfort
went, but my mind was anything but at
rest, as | sat there putting away and think
ing-of all things in the world for college
man to think of seriously-of a woman,
Kitty Dorrance. That is. | was thinking
in the first place of boating, and boating
always set me to thinking of her. TO
begin with, you see, it was a boat that
first brought us together, and it came
about in this way.
We fellows had all been down to Salt
Island Light for rock-cod. There's an
ancient mariner down there, named Elias
Goblet, who is a sort Of queer character,
an old sailor with a wooden leg and no end
of yarns to spin. He will take you out in
his boat, let you catch your own fish, and
afterwards allow you to cut the vegetables
for a chowder and make your wi coffee,
and he doesn't charge you much more for
the whole affair than you'd pay for a fish
and game dinner at Taft's. So it is quite
the thing for the fellows to go down Of a
Saturday and spend the day. As | said,
We had gone down and along in the after
noon | happened to stroll away down to
the off side of the island to see a crows
nest in an old pine tree. saw the crows
nest, but when | got back to Elias's house,
| found the boys gone, and the old man
sitting outside the door on a key, whiting
a bit of single. He looked up as | came
along. and rolled the tobacco from one side
of his mouth to the other.
Yer mates pear t. hey went said he.
That's so. now, young fellow, they're
went 'athout We, that's the fact ont.
Mebbe they rally furgot We, but fur my
part | thinks more'n likely they done it
for a joke"
Inasmuch as it was only the week be-
fore that | had locked Waterman into the
wood-closets for a grind, and left him
there two hours, | was inclined to agree
with Elias that they done it for a joke
OF course the next thing was to devise
some way of getting even with the fellows,
and the first thing to be done was to find
some way of reaching the mainland. Elias
seemed to be rather doubtful as to whether
he ..could raise a boat or not, but having
been gone quite long enough to raise one
from the seed, he at last came back with
the cheering news that he had ''found me
a chance
"Dorrents' little gal is goin' right over
to the Centre for the mail, F." he explained,
''and says she'd jest as lives take We as not.
My dingy's stove in, or I'd a sot We over
myself; l ~cal'late to patch her up long
next week some time
Giving Elias his expected quarter for
this service, | made all haste across to the
landing, and found waiting me a pretty
proved to be a pretty young woman of
sixteen or seventeen, with an uncommonly
stunning pair of dark eyes. She wore a
trig blue yachting dress, and held the
painter of her boat in a coil in her left
hand. As | came up she looked first puz-
zled, and then openly amused.
81 beg your PARDON said |, Il was
looking for-you mo be 'Dorrents'
little gal?'"
That is hat Elias calls me, she re-
piled, smiling. "Are you the 'youngster
whose mates left him stranded that Elias
just told me OFF,
II suppose | am" said |. "Of course |
thought yon were some little aborigine, in
a shaker bonnet, who would pull me over
to land in a leaky punt"
"And of course she reioined, gayly,
Il thought that you were some little school
boy who was bird-nesting, and got left
behind"
Upon this We both laughed, and in a
minute more we were in her trim little
lapstreak, pulling across TO the "Centre. p
1t seemed that she was a daughter OF
Judge Dorrance, of Burnham. Judge
Dorrance is a queer old dutfer, with a face
like a walnut dolls. He is about as lively
in appearance as an Egyptian mummy,
but they say he is so fond of fairy stories
that he has IA long shelf of them i'll the
very middle of his law library. When
ever he has a hard case to think out he
takes his daughter and leaves for a week
at Salt Island, where he has fitted him.
self a den in an old house on the seward
shore. The daughter herself told me all
this, except the description of her father.
She was a nice, frank sort of girl, without
any silly airs, and a fellow could talk with
her as easily as he would to his own sister.
She insisted upon rowing herself, and she
pulled ~cross-handed with the regular fish
erman's stroke that Elias had taught her.
| coached her n bit, and we grew very
jolly and friendly. | told her about the
trick the fellows had played on me.
'Ill tell You a way to be even with
Them said she, with her eyes flashing and
the dimples in her checks playing away like