Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1885-04-17

VI ODllScu W Scuu OuC u HGTdCcS III
search of our paymaster, but, like so
many other good things of this world,
it was much more cnmmendable than
poetical. Now, if the bare fact could
be idealized so as to--Hello, there
was my ''call"
For almost the first time in my pro-
fessional career l was conscious of a
sensation very much like impotence at
the interruption. Ileave it to you if it
was not provoking to be obliged to dis
mentally from my steaming
Pegasus and physically from the fur
niture upon which [ had comfortably
festooned myself in order to lay my
finger upon the fuctuating pulse of the
corn nRrket.
But l.had always prided myself upon
doing my duty under all circumstances.
SO l swallowed appropriate Scriptural
quotation and ''answePed." 1t wasnot
the corn market this time. Neither
was it the passionate prayer of some
love-sick idiot entreating his best girl
to look for him on the 4:;IO train ''sure,
without fail" 1t was not even the
cheerful intelligence that 1--WE are all
well and baby has cut another TOOTH"
= III VoAiOCy VI OOlLCUIlAS l WUo AAN.
quently the disguised medium.
But after following my uninteresting
fortunes so far l will not keep you in
suspense. 1t was nothing more or less
than that the lynx-eyed management at
lasthad discovered how modestlyI was
blushing unseen and wasting my
sweetness or the desert air of a hamlet
composed mainly of three saloons and
a drugstore, and had made up its
official mind to transfer me to Old
Union Junction, where I would be man.
ager of a 1Ox14 Office and q force con-
sisting of one operator and a messen-
ger boy.
Now. haYing been successfully man
aged myself for ten or a dozen years, 1
no ooner had fully assimilated the
proposition conveyed in the message
than l began to feel the expansion Of
that trait which is inherent in the COM
position of every free-born Yankee I
have ever encountered-a smoldering
desire to be somebody else's boss that is
always ready to burst into a blaze with
the first gust of propitious air. I be-
gan to be conscious Of a latent talent
for administration that I had never
suspected myself of possessing, and sat
for a while lost in pleasant reyeries of
how gently but firmly 1 would order
the %oftice-boy to carry in COAL empty
the ash-pan and clean out the office
spittoon.
Well, l finally telegraphed, accepting
the position with graceful composure,
as if l had always been accustomed to
that sort of thing, and as the vacancy
had been caused by the death of the
former incumbent l took effect at once.
Having packed my belongings and
bearded my landlady in her den I de-
parted from the haunts that would
know me no more, speeded on my jour
ney by a remark. possibly not intended
for my ears, but which was waited
gently upward on a seventy-five-horse-
power aroma of boiled beef and cab
bage from the regions below: '.The
land knows he won't be missed much!
All the time he has roomed in my
house, 1 declare, 1 1 never got more'n a
glimpse of his coat-tails streaking it up
the stairway. He used to leave the
rent in an envelope on the bureau; and
him an old bach getting good pay and
me with three grown girls to marry off |!
do hope to goodness the next
Heavens what a narrow escape! 1t
must be an anwritten law that for every
Scylla there is a Charybdis, for when I
entered my new domain, grip in hand
and a couple of good cigars in the out
side pocket of my ulster, a nicotian in
tluence to be employed in conciliating
my new force, an awful horror seemed
to rivet my reluctant feet to the thresh-
old. Before me stood a woman! Not
that merely, but q young woman ar
rayed in funereal garb and afflicted
with swollen eyes and a bright, pink
nose; but who had an unmistakable ap
pearance of being part of my new office
furniture. Ii I had ever studied the
habits of these creatures I should have
known that this n had been INDUCING
in tears, which knowledge would prob
ably have put me to flight at once and
obviated the difficulties that came up
for consideration later on. But, not
perceiving anything open to me but the
office-door, I advanced to my fate with
the courage of desperation.
.I-I am Edith Floyd" she observed,
in the tone of one making a concession
to politeness.
Ii 1 had given voice to my Utmost
thoughts I should doubtless have re-
marked that I wished Edith Floyd was
in Guinea. Being a prudent man, es-
pecially where prudence was so clearly
Indicated as in the present instance, I
bowed stiffly and announced myself as
LesterD EASTWOOD, rejecting meanwhile.
with a pale CLEAN of satisfaction, that
she evidently had an impeachment in her
speech.
..This is Julius Grub. He has been
m-messenger ever since bro-brother
Charlie first came" and with this piece
of information her lips twitched a little
and she turned around and gazed sol
EMMY out of the window, while a pale
eyed, lankv boy who stood in a distant
corner with his hands in his pockets
evidently a tighter fifty bobbed his head
and shifted. l reflected that his imped-
iment appeared to be located in his
smelling apparatus.
How I ever managed to live through
that first day is a mystery to me yet. I
grew hot and cold by turns, and tho
agonized dew that started out on my
forahaad ono momant coon,od m con.