Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1885-01-09
clear and free! Nov, I remember. it

clear and frcei Now, I remember. 1t
was just five years ago that MI M,
girls were away at boarding-school.
Your papa needed a little ready
money, and thought he would get it
off this out-of-the-way property. So
he asked me to sign away my third,
and I did it. / never did know much
about business you see, and I'm sure L
never supposed that putting down my
name to that bit of paper would make
any difference. Mr.. Grumbledon dined
with us. L remember him very well.
A tall, bony man, with thin lips and
a nose like a hawks. Very ill-bred-
ate with his knife. A miserly fellow, l
should Judge, and not the kind of a
man to be a bit yielding in money
matters. But, my dears, what shall we
do?' helplessly,
We We're all too bewildered to sug-
gest any plan just then. 1t did seem
very hard, now that we were just get
ting on, to have this new trouble. At
last Ruth said, in a voice which she
strove hard to make cheerful:
"Come, don't let us look so blue!
Well pull through somehow"
But four hundred dollars!" l
groaned.
cit isn't so great a sum, after all.
The mean part of it is to have to pay it
out when we thought we didn't have a
debt in the world!"
"Well, we have a hundred and thirty
three dollars to start towards it," said
Agnes. "And then this terms salary
will be fifty more"
"And Mrs. Rogers owes for that
twenty-pound crock of BUTTER" Aunt
Betsey observed.
"Well, the long and short of it is that
we shall have to make about two hun.
dred dollars in six months. We've got
to do it," solemnly. "We must cut
down every expense"
And SO the summer wore away in
hard work and %self-denial, for, on
counting the bills and coins in the old
gray stocking, we found that we had
at last the requisite sum. Andin three
days the mortgage would be due, and
on the morning Of the day Ruth was
going Down to the city to pay off the
dreadful burden.
But how we did worry over that
money! For fear it woif1d get stolen,
you know! We were very foolish, for
everybody knew we were poor, and not
at all likely to have so large a sum
about u IS in our humble dwelling. But
our alarm was mainly caused by the
fact that there had been of late several
daring robberies committed in the
neighborhood.
Lawyer Griggs, down at the village,
had his house entered and a large
amount Of money distracted. Mrs.
Peters gold watch and Widow Par
sons earrings were also taken. Anoth-
err night the thieves broke into the
house of Mr.. Elias, the mill proprietor,
while he and his wife were away at a
party, and took a rich silk dress and a
set of furs. Smaller robberies were
constantly taking place, such as spoons,
preserves, poultry, clothing-nothing,
in fact, escaped the hands of the preda-
tory rascals. The universal opinion was
that there was q gang Of them who
came up nightly from the city. There
was talk, too, of their selecting various
houses and making a certain mark on
the door or g%ate-post.
eyes, they do make a mark-regular
tramp style.' said Miss Tabitha Tuck,
er, the village dress-maker, to Ruth
and me, when, one day, we had stopped
in her shop to borrow a pattern. II
seen the mark myself on Miss Perkins
gate-post. 1t was a great big X. 1t
was when l went over to cut out her
new polonay. My dress ketchcd in the
gate-latch when l went in the yard, and
as | stopped downto get it out my eyes
lit on that ere mark, and l says to my
self, says [, i wonder what that's fur?'
but 1 furgot all about it when 1 got up
to the house, cause Miss Perkins little
Tommy was jest took with an awful
nose-bleed, and everything was in a
hubbub fur one while. But that night,
sure enough, Miss Perkins cellar was
broken into and two dozen jars of pre-
serves-best kind of sass, pu, down
pound fur pound-was stolen. And a
quarter of beef taken out of the pickle,
too! Tell you what folks has got to
keep a lookout for marks nowadays.
You'd better take care, Ruth, you live
in sech a lonesome place"
We laughed at her warning; still, 1
think we all felt a little bit timid, and
I'll venture to say that after this there
was not one of us who did not ocoa-
sionally examine the gate-posts.
And at last, sure enough, on the
morning before Christmas jamie came
running in, her black eyes wide with
excitement, as she exclaimed:
"Oh, girls!" she cried, ''there's a
mark on our gate-post-truly there is!
A great white chalk X"
At this we all rushed out of the
house, Aunt Betsey even leaving her
pancake griddle with a batch of cakes
on it, and ran down the frozen path to
view this new and startling discovery.
And there it was, sure enough! "A
big white x, freshly made, too!
"Well," said Ruth, after we had
stared a while at it, ''it's lucky we
have seen it," for now we can be on
our guard. But, for goodness sake,
don'tsa a anything to mamma about it.
She would be Sc frightened that she'd
get one Of her low, nervous SPELLS"
"Shall we have the constable come
over?" asked Aunt Betsey.
"No!' said Ruth, detiantly. "For
you see this mark may be nothing, after
all. q naSsin0 SchOO1-hov NAV bava