The Warner sun. (Warner, Brown Co., Dakota [S.D.]) 1885-1???, 1885-11-13
WINNY.

Stranger to Canada, l think you
said? First visit to Ontario? 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 farm? Well, yes; Indian Creek
is a nice place, if l do own it. All, as
Ear as you can see-grass-lands, corn
fields, woods and Creeks-all belongto
it. Stock too-they call it the best
stocked farm in Ontario, l believe, and
Idare say they're right. All mine,
and yet l cameto Canada twelve years
ago, without even 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 / never tire of telling somehow.
began life as the son of a carpen-
ter in the South of England. You know
that class pretty well, | dare say, and
what q gulf vas fixed between me and
the vicar of the parish. And yet-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 crumpled
pinafore, and kissed the dust out of
her golden curls, Iloved but n girl
in the world, and that was the wears
daughter Winny Branscome.
Madness, you'll say. Well, perhaps
so, and yet a man is but a man, and
a woman a woman; and love comes,
whatever one may do. There's no
class distinction recognized by child
hood, and we were playmates and
friends till she went to boarding
school. IL Miss Winny had had a
mother, no doubt things would have
been very different; but we were alike
in neverhaving known a woman's care,
and the old vicar was blind to every
thing but his theological treatises.
But when she came back from her
London boarding-school, a beautiful
young lady, all smiles and laces and
little lovely ~ways-then | knew. I
had tried my best to study and work,
and make myself more like the men
she would meet; but what can q lad
in an English village do? | just had
enough education TO make every 9TH
or lad in the place hate me; and be-
side the men of her world / suppose
i cut rather an astonishing figure.
Yet the love of her was so beyond all
else In me, that mad, hopeless as /
felt it, / had no power over myself;
and the first time | caught her alone
IN the woods-she avoided me, Isaw,
and | had to watch for a chance-I
told her the whole story, and waited
for her answer, She grew scarlet-a
rush of colort that dyed her fair sweet
face-then deathly white.
sDick," she said, andsh was trem-
bling from head to foot, ayouknow it
can never, be; you know you
are wrong ven to dream of such q
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 forgive you. Forget
your madness" And she a from
me.
! let her 60. / had seer the blush
and the tremor, ardI guessed that il 1
had been Mr.. LOTUS, the young squire,
instead Of Dick Hawtry, the carpen-
tors son, her answer might have been
different. A great resolve sprang up In
my soul and | took a solemn vow in
those June woods. That very night !
sold the old shoplmy father was dead
and | had taken TO the business). and
with the money thought an outfit and
STARTED straight for Canada. II was
pretty tough work at first, but Iwork-
Cd like q galley slave-starved and
pinched and saved, and never spent q
penny on myself except for the books
I sat up half the night 30 read and
study Well, in this country the mar
who works and doesn't drink is sure
10 get on; and had q mighty purpose
IN my head. By-and-by thought som,
land dirt-cheap and sold It for thre'
Zines what ! gaye for it--then I begai
TO make money fast. I should cal
my luck wonderful If / believed in luck
and didn't prefer to think I wa
helped by q power far ADLER than IA,
OWE AN last, ten years to the yer,
day afterI sst foot on Canadian soil
E