The Abbeville messenger. (Abbeville, S.C.) 1884-1887, 1886-04-06
ALLOWANCE.
By ISA DARLINGTON CABELL.

81 Bf lSA X CABEI.L.
The ladies Of st. Philips Sewing
Circle always spoke of Mrs. Fullcr's six
daughters rs if they were an cxtravu-
gancc in which she had wilfully in
dulged, and by good management
could have avoided. ''lf they had only
been boys, now" Mrs. Archdcnconess
as Polly Fuller called her behind her
hugpst back) Ncvins would say. 'tBut
six good for nothing. useless girls! :"
the reason Mrs. Ncvins OBJ
6cc9cd so strcnuously to Mrs. Fullcr's
preference for the female sex was that
ma had had boys; that is, she had had
Ping boy, college. bred, European toured,
with Il fortune in his own right, to say
hothing Of his prospective hcirship
through jeremiah Nevins. Sen, the
i4hcSt vcstry-mnn in st. Philips
ltHch. And this adorcd, petted, and
~ boy was vcr, fond of the Fuller
is. md SO attentive to Polly, the
stticst Of the lot. that Bloomingdale
sagog with excitement on the sub
II So she would repeat: eff they
8,only been boys--stalwart, hard
Erking boys! But six girls!"
Now it was hard to bclicve-for the
chdeaconcss was tall. grizzlcd, bony,
d h might have left Jericho at any
fur "for her beard was fully grown"
chat she, too, must at one time have
"a 81 girl, as Mr.. Bardcll was once a
gy.c~gcntleman; but this fact did not
ten her toward her sex. If jerry
Al we arc anticipating.
Thsre certainly were six Fullers-
Efgaret, Jen, Julie, Polly, Lillian,
Jsctf They lived in a little cramped-
,Eectory that belonged to st. Philips,
poor little church on the outskirts of
loomingdale. Their papa was a dear,
Tong-headed, clever, impractical
Ecrgyman, who could never sec his way
orthodoxy, and yet was not sufficient
ihetrodox for his bishops dismissal.
he put HIM where his scientific ser
kons could do least harm and his holy
fc most good. Their mamma was
My a shade better, us she proved by
aying six girls instead of boys. Her
(ght bread was apt to refuse to rise,
Ind her preserves ;d n way Of working
after the second week.
If the Archdcncoucss could have
broken off the engagement between
the Rev. Alphonso Fuller and Susan his
wife, which had existed for twenty
seven years, and sent the six offending
back to chaos or to paradise,
and married them both 10 more suitable
and more practical people. | suppose it
would have beer better. Providence is
4 poor manager, compared to Mrs.
Nevins; but she couldn't. So
st. Philips had to put up with a thou
sand dollar n year rector, his shiftless
wife, and his half n dozen daughters.
: The Fullers were generally absurdly,
tprovokingly happy. AS long as one has
''objects of bigotry and virtue" it
makes little difference if the cat does
jump on the parlor table. If the car
pct is worn to rags, the tears of the
maid -of-all work may be dried with the
that u cindcr or two dropped
from the ash-pan will do little damage.
But about six months previous it was
borne on the minds Of these six females
that if they had an allowance they
would all present much better appear
ances, and spend less money in doing
1t. And when the sx Fuller girls
made up their minds, there was an end
of it. They interviewed their mamma,
they bullied their papa, they built such
splendid air castles of what they would
do if they only could be allowed to
Judge for themselves, that the long-suf-
fcring martyr consented, and promised
to let them have their way. Now a
promise in the Fuller family was rs
good as n bond-bcttcr, for / have
heard many a man besides St. Paul de-
clare himself happy, especially after a
panic in the street, except these bonds.
But the difficulty about the allowance
this: the day these girls got their
money they felt so enormously rich that
they could not contain themselves and
it. They forgot it must last six months,
and represented boots, gloves, gowns,
bonnets-a thousand necessarics. They
tho waste the lack of n parasol
makes in the life of the American girl
they only saw the beautiful 3 (no,
will not hold them up t ridiculc), and
they longed to spcnd it: and it burned
IN their pockets, till, alas! sometimes
they lived like prodigals for three
wccks. and starved and were almost
innked the rest OF the t~wcnty-six.
On this. particular morning The whole
family wcrc assembled in the sitting
room. 1t was a June day, a dewy, rosy,
dimPlo1 day, and call the trees or ali
tho hills had oI,cned their thousand
leaves; the air itself was as fresh and
:swcet as the first day that cver broke
IN paradise. Even the orphans chool
children had como out the Sunday be.
torA In little pink-sprigged ~calicoes. AL
she Fullefs but one had gone to church