Little Falls transcript. [volume] (Little Falls, Morrison County, Minn.) 1876-1894, 1886-11-26
MISS = JOE'S EXPERIMENT,
A Thanksgiving Story. ssr

Ntdu.
'The mercy's sakes!. you don't say
So" answered thin, shrill voice from
the chintz-covered rocker which held
Miss Clorinda Mills lean figure and
faded, chalky face. d..
Miss Joe put her arms akimbo, and
looked at her with her habitual ex-
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, wh1n-
ming, impractical sister. Clorinda
had all the complaints any mortal
frame can notwithstanding to her
own showing.
"Clorinda isgreatly atflicted?" muir
INJURED fat, kinkly Mrs, Potter. the
new minister's wife, when on her tenth
call on the mills 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. Themi is to come"
With tiny house and garden OF
their own, the interest of 50, 900, 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 a "posy bed"
Mrs. Hough, a well-to-do farmers
wife, who lived near by, had been one
OF their most faithful and considerable
friends. She not only sent them pota-
toes, apples and choke pears, in their
season-with now and then a jug of
buttermilk or half q dozen egss-but
every Thanksgiving she gave them
plump chicken for their ceremonial
pie, half % squash for pies, and
quart OF cranberries from the swamp
on the upper farm. 1t was real Ca
lamity to them when a severe attack
of typhoid fever took her out OF her
ground-tloor bedroom-musty for
want of sunshine-to the dry and
sunny graveyard, gay with daisies,
asters, golden rod and the heaven blue
gentian.
swell, 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 awi'lly."
"She ought to hev took Rawle's
Red Receipt right along; told her so.
I 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 I 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 cad l should ha' been eff I
hadn't taken 'em. Like enough I
should ha' been lynn in my grave this
ten year eff 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 were both absorbed in
Mrs. Hough's death.
''We shall feel it dreadful, come
Thanksgiving" sighed Clorinda, whose
intirm digestive organs never quailed
before good dinner.
"Well, hadn't thought ont in that
pint OF view exactly" said Miss Joe,
cheeri)y. II 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
Lewis be thankful to the Lord as the
neighbors once in while"
"Why, how you talk! / never heerd
of the Lords sendin' chicken an
squash an Gran berries to folks; faint
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 I do
banker to be a mite more independent
than we be, q good many times. I've
got an idee, and I'm going to foller it
up. saved them last squash seeds't
Mis- Hough sent us, and I'm going to
dig up corner in the garden and hev
a hill o. squashes. / can get road
scrapings enough to manure 'em, and
they do say dish-water's fust best to
make things grow; and / can peg 'em
along in front OF the current bushes,
so'st they won't swamp tho beets'n
things in the bed. b'lieve can dot
as we'll as not"
"We!l, s'posin' We can? squashes
amt chicken, nor cranbe ries, nuther.",
Il hain't got to the end of my idee
yet; you wait q mint. I dono 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 q
change. And concernin' a chicken,
why, we can buy one OF them Bramy
OF Mis-; Emerson cheap while its real
little. l shouldn't wonder ef she'd
sell it for nlnepence.'
~ don't RELY see, Joe, why t'won't
be just as hard for you to raise that
one Dramy chicken as tits for Mis-
Emerson to raise hull broods. Seems
as though we was countin' of 'em some
in advance"
"Well, we can't always tell. I can
cosset one, where / couldn't twenty.
l canget 1t, anyway. Ninepence won't
break US as know of, and if 1 do my
everlasting best to make it live an it
don't, why, there tits; it's a dispen-