Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1886-07-08
LOVE AND HAIR-DYE.

"It's perfectly ridiculous" said Ketu4
rah. "fhere never was In all this world
a girl with half as ugly hair as mine. If
it hadn't been for that hair might have
had the chance of being married half a
dozen times, instead of drudging on here,
with my father scolding because don't
accomplish more housework, ,and my step
mother deluging me with good advice.
Oh, dearl oh, dear! wish could pluck
it out by the roots if it would do any
goodr'
"But what very silly thing that
would beP' said Barbara Decifer, who
sat on stump of a tree, hulling the rich
garden strawberries which she had just
gathered from the sunny beds under the
stone wall. why on earth don't you
dye it? It's what Mrs. Peller's boarder
did when was help there last summer.
She was as gay as badger, Miss Per-
kins, was, and yet her hair shone like a
crows tail feathers. I saw her putin
on dye once through the crack of dsor,
when 1 was a-scrubbin' the hall oilcloth,
and it was as daisy as you please. Of
course black won't suit you, but there's
plenty Of colors that would.
Keturah's eyes glisteHed.
"Oh, Barbara" said she, "do you think
1 could?"
Just at this moment, however, Mrs.
Hitchings, Keturah's stepmother, was
heard shrilly inquiring from the back
door, whether she was to be kept wait
ing all day long. with the preserving
kettle over the fire, for them strawber+
ries ?"
Barbara jumped and fed. Keturah
stood still, meditating over the disclo
sure that she had just heard.
And in her mental consciousness she
remembered that Harry Boyce, who
went to college with her brother Simeon,
would be there that very week, and that
Harry had once said: "What a pretty
girl that little Kitty wasp
"But, of course, he couldn't have no
ticed my hair" thought Keturah, mourn
fully. at doesn't show SO awfully bad
when 1 sit in a corner where it's pretty
dark. It's the sunshine that brings it
out such an intense carrot color. I'll
dye it,"
So that very evening, in the friendly
indistinctness of the purple twilight,
Keturah crept down to Mill & Tweezer's
and waited patiently for an old farmer
to buy an ounce Of Paris green for pota,
to bugs, and his daughter to select
bottle of cheap perfumery, for two lads
to get physicians prescription made
up, and a plump-faced child to par>
chase cents worth of peppermint
drops before she came up to the counter.
Hair dye, sir, please"
"Dye?" repeated the purblind and par
TALLY deaf old druggist. What kind of
dye?"
81 don't quite know, sirl The usu-
al kind, suppose. Anything but black"
she added, remembering Barbara's re-
mark.
And with "yes, yes" and patron
izing smile, old Mr.. Mills put her up
a bottle of the brightest aniline-red that
be possessed.
"Gals is always partial to bright col
ors," he said to himself.
And Keturah ran all the way home,
as if the whip-poor-wills and rabbits
would know that she had a bottle of
hair dye wrapped up in her pocket hand
Once safe in her own little garret
room she rubbed the mixture well into
the roots of her hair, brushing it out to
the very ends, according to Barbara's
description of the city boarder's' manip-
llations.
She had scarcely finished when she
heard her stepmother's voice calling:
"Keturahl Ke-tu-ra-ahp
"Maam ?" she chirped feebly back.
"Come down stairs quickP said Mrs.
Hitchings, in sort of stage shout up
he back stairs. Heres your brother
Sim, and Harry Boyce, come by the
light stage, and supper to get for 'em,
md nobody knows what ALL Do make