St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1885-10-24
AN UNDESlGNING WIDOW
Beguiled bv the Vaccinations Of Her
Thirteen-Ycar-Old Daughter.

Beguiled bv the Vaccinations of Her
Thirteen-Year Old Daughter.
The evidences of design in the hu.
man widow have been 80 much dwelt
upon, in fiction and satire, that it is q
relief 10 turn to tale in which her es-
sentially simple and trustful nature is
set forth. Such tale was told touch
ing widow in Easton, Penn. who was
beguiled, by the Vaccinations. not Of
man, but of her own female child, aged
thirteen.
The child. as our readers have noted.
was in the habit of visiting a widower's
large brick house. presumably to play
with the widower's children, when it
occurred to her to extract money from
her own mother, under pretense Of
making love to her in the ostensible be-
half of the widower, in letters written
with lead pencil by herself The
inventions she employed for this pur-
pose were such as would naturally
occur to person of her years and in
experience. She wrote, in the name of
the widower, for fifteen dollars to help
pay the men in the widower's employ,
for money to buy the widower tur-
key. to pay the widower's gas bill, and
to pay for the keep of the widower's
horse. These crude demands for money
were accompanied by professions of at
tachment not less crude, such as the
childlike device of addressing the widow
as 'Aiy Dear Wife"
These are the devices which a child
of thirteen would naturally adopt. The
wonder is not that the child adopted
them, but that the mother was taken in
by them. Her first husband must have
been a prosaic and literal soul whose
speech was the transparent vesture of
his thought, and she must have rashly
generalized from him to his sex. But
what fund of simple faith in mankind
must this undesigning widow have ac-
cumulated when it could be drawn upon
with success and without limit by such
artihces as these.
Her daughter did not take after the
widow. She was the confidence child
of a confiding mother. We should not
even criticise the cruiity of her applica-
tions for money since they were sue
cessful. Like authors whose produc-
tions are sneered at by the critics and
devoured by readers. it must be ad-
m.tted in her favor that she knew her
public and adjusted her means to her
ends. Of the principle of fraudulent
finance she had precocious mastery.
1t is the same principle employed by
Ferdinand Ward and Mrs. Howe. of
Boston, and is involved in the familiar
process of ''priming pump" or adj
ministering a driblet in order that
copious stream may flow. She ac-
knowledged in the name of the wild
over in the form of casual clocks and
occasional vases the widows bounty,
and upon one occasion, as an unim-
pcachable guarantee of good faith, pro-
duced plain gold ring. which, it may
be assumed. was the ultimate object of
the widows investment. In this man.
ner she gradually extracted from her
mother $500. and without doubt rejoices
in larger collection of pink ribbons
and cheap jewelry than any other child
in Easton. The simple faith of the
mothers character shines the more by
contrast with the guile of her daughter.
So free is she from the subtle and
scheming character falsely ascribed by
literary persons to the estate of widow
hood that she is plainly an easier prey
for male deceivers than her precociously
accomplished child.-N. Y. Times.