New Ulm weekly review. [volume] (New Ulm, Minn.) 1878-1892, 1889-01-02
Miss Plckerell's Window

Miss PlCkerell's Window
"If can ever afford to do it I'm
going to have q nice big bay window
just in there where them two nasty
little windows are"
Miss Clarinda Pickerell's friends
had heard her make this remark over
and over again. Often she added:
& do think a bay window is one Of
the incest things in the world
They 'reso nice to setin. Youcan seeso
much from EN-. And how nice they
are for plants. I've planned it all
out time and ag'in jest how I'd fit
my bay window up fever the Lord
Net me have one.
Id have my geranium ms and callas
andheliotrope and oxalis and beg onia
and fuschias and my wand rim Jew
and ivy all in that window. Then
I'd have my bird-cage hanging fir ON
the center, and mebby some day I
could get me a gold fish in one Of
them glass pots to set on little
stand in the middle. And if ever ]
could afford it I'd have lace curtains
'hangin from a pole cross the front
of the window. / think it would be
perfectly lovely.
No one butpoor Miss Pickerell knew
how dear the vision of unattained
Happiness was to her heart. She,
aoved to talk about it, she dreame d
about it; and sometimes, in the soil
6ude OF her chamber, aW ay from the
eyes of the world, she cried softly be-
cause she felt that this sweet ideal
would never become splendid reali-
'ty.
She had a habit of talking to her
self, and giving herself some severe
sgoings over" as she called them.
On such occasions as she assumed q
very severe aspect and said sternly:
eNoW you dry right up, Rindy
Pick'rell. Don't you carry your on
gratefulness mite further. Here
you are already enj Dying blessins'
without number and fretin' cause
you can thave more. You've good
lungs and sound liver and don't
sknoW what it is to lang'ish
on a sick bed. You've enough
TO eat and wear, and you've church
and prayer-meeting privileges and
here you might o been one Of those
dreadful heathens and notever known
what it was to be half descent.
You're too ongrateful and rebell'-
ayous to live, Rindy Pick rel. .
And then her thin, cracked voice
would penitently sing:
And air we wretches yit alive,
And do westillrebel.
lis wondrous, It's amizin' grace
That we are out of hell
Miss 'Rindy was a very conscien-
Gious woman, and could not help
thinking that it was very sinful to set
her heart on anything thatwas the
earth earthly. She made no allow
:ance for the limitations Of her poor
thurman nature, but, thought she
ought to lead liDg Of impossible 4
sgoodness. and made a virtue of DENY
ing herself many things quite limo
cent in ! themselves.
She was q spinster of 40 years.
Her home was d snug little home of
-four incredibly tidy rooms on q little
sfarHins Western state. This home
had ah t her by her parents, and
Il for years she had lived alone in
J" Meshouse stood within the linn
asmall village and Miss sRindy
to her small income by plain
for the villagers.
were but ten acres in her little
md five of these were pasture
or her cow On the other five
had a small field of corn for her
COWS feed in winter.
She lived very comfortably, as she.
said, but there was little left for un-
necessary expenditure when all her
bills were paid and something laid
aside fol-. her srainy days" that Miss
'Rindy felt must come to her when
she was too old and feeble to sew any
longer,
ssThat bay window would cost me
$69.7S," Miss 'Rindy often said
ssI've had it figgered out more than
once, and reckon I'll have to take
it out in fggers,"
Everybody knew and liked Miss
Rindy, and sympathizing friends
.often said:
1T a pity the poor soul can't have
that bay wind ow she bankers afterso.
Its the only thing on earth she
,seems to want that she hasn't got.