The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1885-09-24
MY WINNY.
How I Won a Wife Amid the
Oceans Surges.

Stranger to Canada, think you said?
First visit to Ontario? Well, you're
heartily welcome to Indian Creek. Take
chair on the piazza till dinners ready
I'VE dine early in these new-world
parts
Fine farm? Well, yes; Indian Creek
ba nice place, if do own it. All, as
far as you can see-grass land. corn
fields, woods and creeks--all belong to
It Stock, too-they call it the best
stocked farm in Ontario, l believe, and
dare say they're right. All mine; and
yet came to Canada twelve years ago,
without even the traditional half-crown
in my trousers pocket. You look sur
prised. Would you like to hear the
story? There's a good half-hour to
dinner-time yet, and it's story never
tire of telling, somehow.
began life as the son of a village
carpenter in the South of England. You
know that class pretty well, | dare say
and what gulf was fixed between me
and the vicar of the parish. And vet
and yet-from the time she was seven
years old and | eleven, and she fell
down in the dusty road outside the
carpenters shop, and cried, and
picked her up, and smoothed the little
erumpled pinafore, and kissed the dust
out of her golden curls, / loved but one
glrl in the world, and that was the
wears daughter, Winny Branscome.
Madness, you'll say. Well, perhaps
50, and yet man is but man, and a
woman woman; and love comes,
whatever one may do. There's no class
distinction recognized by childhood, and
we were playmates and friends till she
went to boarding-school. If Miss Win
ny bad had mother, no doubt things
would have been very different; but we
we're alike in never having known a
Wonan's care. and the old vicar was
blind to everything but his theological
treatises.
But when she came back from her
london boarding-school, beautiful
Young lady, all smiles and laces and lit
lie lovely ways-then I knew. [ had
tried my best to study and work. and
make myself more ike the men she
would meet; but what can lad in an
English village dop just had enough
education to make every other lad in
lhe place hate me; and beside the men
q her world | suppose cut rather an
astonishing figure. Yet the love of her
was 50 beyond all else in me, that mad.
hopeless as felt it, | had no power
over myself; and the first time caught
hef alone in the woods-she avoided
me l saw, and | had to watch for a
enance-l told her the whole story, and
waited for her answer. She grew scar
ies--a rush of color that dyed her fair,
sweet lace then deathly white.
Dick, she said, and she was trem-
uhng from head to foot ..you know it
saa never, never be; you know you are
SStong even to dream of such thing.
Sone girls would think it an INSULT
Aaow you better; but if my father heard
2. ms, he would say you had abused
as ms; Alhaness to you; he would never for
slNe sl you Forget your madness" And
sae ran from me.
"a : is1 her go. | had seen the blush
nj ..S sae temor, and guessed that if
inss. me- 1eh AR. LOTUS. the young Squire.
sas sas'eao Of Dick Hawtry, the carpenters
fss son' ner answer might have been diff
nv re.ea1 "A great resolve sprang up in
~ soal and l took solemn VOW in
sa,s a'pse June woods. That very night I
ssa sv1a I1e old shop (my father was dead,
w;ts = siau laken to the business1, and
STU ".sa me money | bought an outfit. and
nras. rsssseu straight for Canada. 1t was
ese'ei Tough work at first, but I worked
as as alley-slave- starved, and pinched
n.sss ,,,,a saFed, and never spent a penny on
h hnssei except for the books sat m
Il ,su ~ ne night to read and study. Well.
dos. a,s country the man who works and
ha6 asink IS sure to get on; and /
asS S { mighty purpose in my head. By
srS g l bought some land dirt-chean.
sas s,.u sofa It for three times what I oaYe
ia, s77then | began to make money
snould call my luck wonderful
Il assea In luck, and didn't prefer
sb,su salnK was helped by a Power far
= s,ss IS anan my own. AT last. ten wears
ls very day after set foot on Cana
and and ss' soll' bought Indian Creek Farm.
ns;sa .s aodgan to build this house. All ths
tn-eas t9ors thought my good fortune had
flra;sL1y fI my Drain, for I fitted it up and
roaL.a rshLasaed 1t for lady, down TO ) littla
vors cnalr by my study-tablc, and 4
"OsS-oasket with : tiny gold thjmbla rI :