News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1885-09-03
MVLittle Winny

Stranger to Canada, think you said
First visit to Ontario2 Well, you're
heartily welcome to Indian Creek. Take
a chair on the piazza till dinners ready
we dine early in these new-world
parts.
Fine farm3 Well, yes; Indian Greek
is a nice place, if 1 do own it. All, as
far as you can see-grass-land, corn
fields, woods, and creeks-all belong to
stocked farm in Ontario. l believe, and
/ dare say their right All mine; and
yet came to Canada twelve years ago
without the traditional half-crown in my
trousers pocket. You look surprised.
Would you like to hear the story? There's
a good half hour to dinner time yet,
and it's a story l never tire of telling,
somehow.
/ began life as the son of village
carpenter in the South of England. You
know that class pretty well, l dare say,
and what gulf was fixed between me
and the vicar of the parish. And yet
years old and l eleven, and she fell down
in the dusty road outside the carpenters
shop, and cried, and picked her up,
and smoothed the little crumpled pima
fore, and kissed the dust out of her gold
en- curls, loved but one girl in the world,
and that was the wears daughter, Winny
Branscome.
Madness, you'll say. Well, perhaps
so, and yet man is but man, and a
woman woman; and love comes, what
ever one may do. There's no class dis
tinction recognized by childhood, and
we were playmates and friends till she
went to boarding-scho If Miss Winny
had had mother, no doubt things would
have been very different; but we were
alike in never having known a woman's
care, and the old vicar was blind to
everything but his theological treatises.
But when she came back from her
London boarding school, a beautiful
young lady, all smiles and laces and lit
tie lovely way-then l knew. l had
tried my best to study and work, and
make myself more like the men she
would meet; but what can lad in an
English village do? 1 just had enough
education to make every other lad in the
place hate me; and beside the men of her
world l suppose I cut rather an astonish-
ing figure. Yet the love of her was so
beyond all else in me, that mad, hope
less as l felt it, l had no power over
myself and the first time caught her
alone in the woods-she avoided me, l
saw, and had to watch for chance-I
told the whole story, and waited for her
answer. She grew scarlet-a rush of
color that dyed her fair sweet face-then
deathly white.
''Dick," " she said, and she was trem-
bling from head to foot, ''you know it
can never, never be; you know you are
wrong even to dream of such thing.
Some girls would think it an INSULT
know you better; but if my father heard
of this, he would say you had abused his
kindness to you; he would never forgive
you. Forget your madness" And she
ran from me.
I let her go. Ihad seen the blush and
the tremor, and l guessed that if had
been Mr.. Lotus, the young squire, in
stead of Dick Hawtry, the carpenters
son, her answer might have been differ
ent. A great resolve sprang up in my
soul, and took solemn VOW in those
June woods. That very night sold the
old shop (my father was dead, and 1 had
taken to the business), and with the
money l bought an outfit, and started
straight for Canada. 1t was pretty tough
work at first but worked like a galley
slave-starved, and pinched and saved,
and never spent penny on myself ex-
cept for the books sat up half the night
to read and study. WE'LL in this coun-
try the man who works and doesn't drink
is sure to get on; and | had a mighty
purpose in my head. By-and-by l
bought some land dirt-cheap, and sold
it for three times what gave for it
then l began to make money fast.
should call my luck wonderful if / be-
lieved in luck, and didn't prefer to think
was helped by Power far abler than
my own. At last, ten years to the very
day after | set foot on Canadian soil, |
bought Indian Creek Farm, and began
to build this house. All the ne1ghbors
thought my good fortune had turned my
brain, for fitted it up and furnished it
for lady, down to little rocking chair
by my study table, and a work basket
with a tiny gold thimble in it. And when
all that was finished, took the first ship
for Liverpool.
Ten years builds city over here. It
doesn't make much change in Devon
shire village. The very gates were still
half off their hinges, as I left them,
only the people were little older, and
a trifle more stupid; and there was
new vicar. Old Mr.. Branscome had
been dead six months; died very DOOR
they told me; there was nothing left for
Miss Winny. My heart gave one great
leap when l heard that. And Miss
Winny2 Oh, she had gone governess-
ing with some people who were just off
to Canada, and the ship sailed to-mor-
row from Liverpool
The Liverpool express never seemed
to crawl so slowly before. l got there
in time to find every berth taken on
board the Antarctic, and the captain
raging at the non-appearance of two of
the crew. Without a seconds pause |
offered for one of the vacant places. l
was as strong as a horse, and active
enough, and though the captain eyed
me rather askance-I had been to a
West End tailor on my way through
London-he was too glad to get me to
ask any questions. So / sailed On the