The Kimball graphic. (Kimball, Brule County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1905, 1886-12-03
MISS JoE's EXPERIMENT.
A Thanksgiving Story.

Aettu.
"The mercy's sakes! you don't say
So" answered a thin, shrill voice from
the chintz-covered rocker which held
Miss Clorinda Mills lean figure and
faded, chalky face.
Miss Joe put her arms akimbo, and
looked at her with her habitual e1-
preston OF endurance. She was thin,
too, but muscular, strong, energetic.
"Clear grit, the neighbors said, but
she had all her life been oppressed and
depressed by this weakly, ailing, wh,n-
ming, impractical sister. Clorinda
had all the complaints any mortal
frame can entertain-accordin to her
own showing.
"Clorinda isgreatly afflicted" muir
INJURED fat, kinkly Mrs. Potter. the
new minister's wife, when on her tenth
call on the "N1ills girls" as Stafford
people called them.
"Lord, yes!' snapped Joe. "she's
had everything on the face OF the Gre
ated airth, save an except smallpox
and consumption. Them is to come. I"
With a tiny house and garden OF
their own, the interest OF $4,000, and
Miss Joe's tailoring the two women
contrived to live, with no luxuries but
Clorinda's patent medicines, and no
amusements but Methodist meetings
and "posy bed"
Mrs. Hough, well-to-do farmers
wife, who lived near by, had been one
OF their most faithful and considerate
friends. She not only sent them pota-
toes, apples and choke pears, in their
season-with now and then jug OF
buttermilk or hall q dozen egss-but
every Thanksgiving she gave them a
plump chicken for their ceremonial
pie, half q squash for pies, and n
quart OF eranberrias from the, swamp
on the upper farm. 1t was a real ca
lamity to them when severe attack
of typhoid fever took her out of her
ground-floor bedroom-musty for
want of sunshine-to the dry and
sunny graveyard, gay with daisies
asters, golden rod and the blue
gentian.
"Well, I do say it," rejoined Miss
Joe, "she's ben and had the typhoid
bad. And she wasn't real strong.
Land! we shall miss her awl'lly."
"She ought to hev took Rawle's
Red Receipt right along; told her So.
l told her she'd oughter doctor for
them faint SPELLS" moaned Clorinda,
rocking harder than ever.
II don't know about that, Clorin-
da. Sometimes | think them things
haven't done you no great sight O.
good, and you've took about all the
was to take, certain"
"Why, Josephy Mills! You do
know how pad ! should ha' been ef l
hadn't taken 'em. Like enough !
should ha' been lynn in my grave this
ten year ef i hadn't ha' doctored." /"
"Well, that's so; mabbe ye would"
Miss Joe worked for and waited on
Clorinda continually, but she fled into
the shed and clattered the pots when
ever her sister began to moan about
her poor weak back. her feeble diges-
ton, the neurology in her knee, or
the "sciatiky," in her hip. Just now,
however, they We're both absorbed, in
Mrs. Hough's, death.
"We shall feel it dreadful. come
Thanksgiving" sighed Clorinda, whose
infirm digestive organs never quailed
before good dinner.
"Well, ] hadn't thought ont in that
pint OF view exactly" said Miss Joe,
cheerily. "I don't know but what
'twould seem kind OF folksy to hev
our own vittles for once Thanksgivin'
Day. Seems as though I'd just as
lievis be thankful to the Lord as the
neighbors once in n while"
why, how you talk! l never heerd
of the Lords sendin' chicken an
squash an cranberries to folks; 'taint
really what you could call NANNY,
nor there amt no sech miracles. as
NANNY and quails in these days"
"Well, the Lord helps them that
helps themselves, Clorinda, and l do
banker to be a mite more Independent
than we be, a good many times. Eve
got an idee, and Pm going to foller it
up. Isaved them last squash seeds t
Mis- Hough sent us, and I'm, going to
dig up D corner in the garden and hev
a hill O. squashes. L can get road
scraping's enough to manure 'em, and
they do say dish waters fust best to
make things grow; and can peg 'em
along in front of the current bushes,
so'st they won't swamp the beets'n
things in the bed. Ib'lieve can dot
as well as not"
"Wall, s'posin' ye can? Squashes
amt chicken, nor cranbe'ries, ,nuther."
81 hain't got to the end OF my idee
yet; you wait q mint. l dosao but
what spiced currants will be jest as
good with chicken pie as cranb'ry
sass, and we've got plenty to stew up
an spice"
"Taint no ways the same things"
said Clorinda, plaintively.
"Well, it's another thing, and that's
just as good, mebbe better. for a
change. And concernin' chicken
why, we can buy one OF them Bramy
of Mis-: Emerson cheap while its rea
little. l shouldn't wonder et she d
sell it for nlnepence."
81 don't reely see, Joe, why t'won't
be just as hard for you to raise that
one bramy chicken MS It's for Mis-
Emerson to raise hull broods. Seems
as though we was countin' of 'em some
in advance"
"Well, we can't always tell. car
cosset one, where couldn't twenty
l can get 1t, anyway. Ninepeace won't
break us as know OF, and if do my
everlasting best to make ii live an il
don't, why, there It's; it's dispen
sation. But guess it'll live"
So Miss Joe proceeded to the wood
shed, where, with the staves OF an ole
barrel, a broken hoop-skirt, nails anc
a hammer, she proceeded to construc
the most astonishing hen-coop pos
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