Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1886-03-25


And I am SO dead tired Of this one room,
and old Mrs. Beeps weak tea, and that
Tommy folsom incoming at Us from
his side of the table"
';But where could we go? and what
could we do when we got there2''
Anything anything Teach, sew Z
Miss Matilda wriggled convulseively
from head to foot.
"And, if necessary scrub.n
Miss Matilda screamed.
Berta laughed out in fashion slightly
boyish, but wholly delightful, because
she enjoyed it to the last echo, and
sprang to her feet with suddenness cal
culated at the very least to drive Miss
Matilda wild.
eff 7 arrange everything everything, F"
she cried, breathlessly, twill you let me
have my way this time, Teddy? Say,
will you?-will youa"
And because Miss Matilda was totally
demoralized and weak from her emotion,
she helplessly answered yes.
1t could be proved-if only some one
would take the trouble to do it-that
there exists no one quite so hopelessly ir-
responsible as woman newly dismissed
from governmental office ce-unless it be a
mani
When Miss Darrell had cried herself
sick enough for a prescription, she sank
into state Of apathetic despair-and staid
there-until Berta came home one even
ing after weeks busy planning, with
two yellow tickets in her hands.
'They cost exactly sixty dollars" she
cried, joyously ssAnd I decided on
Goldville for two splendid reasons-you
see, we shall have thirty dollars and fifty
two-cents to astonish the natives with,
and there is such spice of comfort in
the first syllable, don'tyou thinl?"
"What's in a namep quoted Miss Ma
tilda, dismally.
But Bertha only laughed.
Miss Matilda almost wanted to laugh
herself, two days afterward, when she
found herself flashing through State after
State, for all her life had only meant 50
many red and blue splashes on the map.
There was no longer need to reprove
Berta for the reckless handling of their
future The money was spent now-and,
after all, there was a flavor of dangerous
pleasure in daring fate to do her worst
All her life she had walked without
stumbling in the beaten path that lay
before her as prim as a Dutch flower gar
den, and now that there had come sud
den and appalling end to her road, all
the comfort she had got from Berta was
reference to "ruts, . that wasn't sisterly,
and another to ssJack," that was scarcely
genteeI.
Very well! there was no longer the
despised rut to plod in. They had desc
late amount Of freedom now to rvewhere
they pleased, and OF course, if it suited
Berta best to have their bones bleach on
the boundless prairies of the West,
why
And then she did laugh at her own
amazing stock Of self pity, and it brought
such sparkle in Berta's warm gray eyes,
that it was worth being hopeful just to
see them.
And, indeed, the girl was so cheerily
familiar with things she never saw before
and knew nothing about, so worldly
wise in the matter of checks and so
equal to the baggagemen. that Miss Dar-
ril, in spite of her thirty and something
over years, was beginning by the second
night to feel childishly, irresponsibly
happy, when-their journey came to an
end.
Came to such sudden and disastrous
end, that she had been lying in an ugly
heap under the stars quite twenty min
utes before she realized that there had
been an accident, and that like as not
she was dead.
Wounded she certainly was, for her
arm lay under her as stiff and cold as a
wooden thing, and there was something
trickling down her face, in thick, slow
drops. that she knew even in the awful
darkness was nothing less than blood
and then she tainted again.
The accident had happened in an out
of-the-way part Of the country, with no
one to blame but sleepy aagman. There
was an inch or SO Of paragraph in the
nearest paper, and two-line telegram
notice in the press allover the State but
it takes more than a handful of bruised
and battered passengers to make head
lines in these progressive days, so that
when Miss Darrell opened her eyes on the
world again it had quite forgotten all
about her.
twas rather strange world for pair
Of civilized eyes to open upon-four walls
of round logs chinked with mud Of deli
cate yellow, with a small, square open
ing for window, and long panel slit
for door.
Outside the window there were FROST
coated mountains shooting up, up above
the sky line, and on the other side Of
the door there came swift, irregular
sounds of-what was it? What was that
soundl And where in the name of sense
was RebertaS
Why, there she stood right beside her,
and as her watchful eyes caught sight
of Miss Matilda's wide, wondering ones,
there came pink wave of gladness into
her face, as with womanly sob she leaned