Reporter and farmer. [volume] (Webster, Day County, Dakota [S.D.]) 188?-1946, 1886-02-11
WINNY.

said? First visit to Ontario? Well,
you're heartily welcome 20 Indian
Creek. Take a chair on the riazzatin
dinners ready-we dine early in these
new-world parts.
Fine farm? Well, yes; indian Creek
is a nice place, if do own il, All, as
far as you can see-grass-Iands, corn
fields, woods and Creeks-an belonsto
it. Stock too-they call it the best
stocked farm in Ontario, / believe, and
dare say they're right. All mine,
nd yet cametoC Canada twelve years
ago, without ven ,hetraditional BALI
crown in MY trousers pocket You
.Jok surprised Would you like to
ar the stury2 There . :. good ..2aif-
hour to Ginner-time yet, and it's p
story | never tire of telling somehow.
began life as the son of d carpen-
ter in the South OF England. You know
that classpretty well, / dare say, and
what a gull was fixed between me and
the vicar of the parish. And yet-and
yet-from the timeshe was seven years
old and | eleven, and she fell down in
the dusty road outside the carpenters
shop, and cried, and l picked her up,
and smoothed the little crumpled
pinafore, and kissed the dust out of
her golden 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 a man is but a man, and
a woman q 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. Ii Miss Winny had had a
mother, no doubt things would have
been very different; but we were alike
in neverhaving knowna 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. !
had tried my best to study and work,
and make myself more like the men
she would meet; but what can a lad
in an English village do? | Just had
enough education to make every 9th
er LAD in the place hate me; and be-
side the men OF her world / suppose
| 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, saw,
and had to watch for q chance-I
told her the ~wholestory, and waited
for her answer. She grew scarlet-a
rush of colorthat dyed her fair sweet
face-then deathly white.
Dick she said, and she was trem-
bling from head to foot, you know it
never, never be; you know you
are wrong even to dream of such a
thing. Some girls would think it an
insult; j 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
SOuI LiiiiiScS' Anu siiC ran mum
ME.
let her GO. / had seen the blush
and the tremor, and / guessed that If |
had been Mr.. Lotus, the young squire,
instead of Dick Hawtry, the carpen-
ter's son, her answer might have been
different. A great resolve sprangupin
my soul and took a solemn vow in
those June woods. That very night /
sold the old shop (my father was dead
and | had taken to the business and
with the money bought an outfit and
started straight for Canada. 1t was
pretty tough work at first, but Work
ed like n OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES and
pinched and saved, and never spent a
penny on myself except for the books
| sat up half the night to read and
study! Well, in this country the man
who works and doesn't drink is sure
to get on; and had II mighty purpose
in my head. By-and. by thought some
land dirt-cheap and sold it for three
times what ] gave for it-then | began
TO make money fast. / should call
my luck wonderful if believed inlucia,,
and didn't prefer to think | was
+ I'd by a power far ADLER than my
AT last, ten years TO the very
day after / set foot on Canadian soil,
j bought Indian Creek farm and be-
gan to build this house. All the
neighbours thought my good fortune
had turned my brain, for | fitted it
no and furnished it for a lady, down
to "a 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 a city over here.
II doesn't make much change in a
Devonshire village. The ve,y gates
were still hall off their hinges, ~ | left
them, only the people were i .|ttte
older, ana a trife nor stuJ.d, and
there was anew vicar, Old Mr.. Brans-
come had been dead six months; died
very poor, they told me: there was
nothing left for Miss Winny. My
heart gave one great leapwhen Iheard
that. And Miss Winny? Oh, she had
gone governessing with some people
who were Just off to Canada, and the
ship sailed tomorrow from Liverpool.
The Liverpool express never seemed
to crawl so slowly before. got there
20 find every berth taken on boardthe
Antartic, and the Captain raging at
the non-appearance OF two OF the crew.
Without seconds pause ] Z offered for
one Of the vacant places. | was as
strong as a horse, and active enough,