, 1889-08-02
BROTHER FRANCIS.

No sane man, I suppose, ever carried an episto-
Larry filtration on 10 an actual proposalo of marriage
without seeing the object or, except what her
pen has told him. without knowing something
about her.-sententious Magazine Writer.
So much for the conclusions of self
conceit. Man has done that thing. ]
know a Ease in point. Don't II / think
/ do, forasmuch as / myself was its dom
mating idiot. 1, age 81; name, Francis
Howlandi usually known as Brother
Francis-not of ecclesiastic brotherhood
Heaven Forbid / got the sobriquet
from a trick my sisters-there are eight
of them, four older and four younger
than la trick tho girls had of always
designating me with that misleading
prefix. / was thus known far and wide.
Would be witty people used to send
penitents TO me to confess, and strangers,
on being introduced, took to addressing
me as "Your Reverence" and that be-
fore l was out OF my teens. o, and
wasn't it CALLING? l loved the girls,
though, the whole eight, even Martha
the oldest, who had married and gone
to the next town to live before / entered
those teens, and Catherine, whom she
had taken of with her-she was next to
her in age-then Harriet, the sensible
one, who, after our mothers death, had
taken her place as head of the house.
Eliza, number three, is a frisky maiden,
two years older than /. She talks ever
lastingly, and never says anything worth
hearing, only / like the rattle of her
.a,-,,a Tha, fka ltfIa pnnu-E1nrannn
Maud, Blanche and Edith. II anything
could have reconciled me to my hated
prefix it was hearing them use it. How
they used to tousle me around, and run
races over me, and make he business Of
existence a perpetual scramble for me.
Edith was only five years old when my
twenty-first birthday came and l started
for tho west Il seek my fortune.
And now l pass over nine years. 1t
would be idle to tell of the struggles and
hardships, the disappointments and C
cesses OF those momentous times. Suffice
1t that, after various ups and downs, 1
took up government land in Colorado, a
corner of which, very soon after, was
fixed upon by the ruling magnates for a
great railroad center, and = prestoi
changed i was q rich man.. / declare
I've been living in an Arabian night
ever since.
1 wrote directly home, telling of my
good fortune, and l built a house and
furnished it, and laid out my grounds
and stocked them with a m~agnifcence
which accorded with my means. But
here was my grand stumbling block. l
am n quiet, reserved man. Indeed, /
never, whatever society ! may have been
mixed up in, could identify myself with
the spirit of my surroundings. / was
alone, always alone. I understood
Adams predicament II anybody ever
did, but however deep a sleep might fall
on me, never the withdrawal of a rib
diminished my either side.
Up to the day when / was 80 years
old, and rich, my whole time on my
hands, l had been too busy to give the
matter much thought. But now this
skeleton in my closet made up all my do
mestic society. 1t wasn't sociable.
Is 1t any wonder that l, like many
another victim of uncongenial fireside
companionship, was much from home?
Not that l went abroad in search of per-
sons with whom to exchange ideas. /
rather think / was a tolerable wet blan-
ket when l dropped in among those in
clined to that recreation. One day, saun-
tering into the railway station, 1 picked
up a scrap of newspaper somebody had
tossed by, and in my lazy, aimless super
abundance Of leisure began to run
through it.
Eurekal Here was the message 1 had
waited forl Thereon 1 read that some
body-oh, the d~eliciousness of that sug-
gestionl-some man, another as yet full
ribbed Adam like myself, no doubt
solicited the correspondence Of the wo-
man whose hand the fates had knotted
into his"
Upon that hint l spake, or rather ]
wrote. / don't think q forcing pump
could have got the words off my tongue
though the very woman whom of all the
world / would have chosen had stood
there with her ear open to receive them.
But could not /, trusting the divinity
which shapes our ends" SO put forth my
ham with faith, with that unconquerable
force Of will which should summon out
of the unknown that completion of my
being which my soul craved? / went
home, dashed my appeal OIL paper and
hurried it of to that beneficent little
journal by the earliest mail.
Could / wait for the time when an an.
swer was possible? 1t was no easy task,
but / managed to do it-and what? Had
my earnestness multiplied its demands
Had the editor secretly set me off as an
inhabitant of Utah-one in excellent
standing, too? F~ifty-seven letters the
postmaster handed out to me in answer
to my first call l carried them home
with a quaking heart. Could they all be
addressed to me? Yes, every one, and
in every n the writer expressed a be.
lief that she mad found her other self in
me. They were variously written-pah
Have you heard what Mr.. G. L. Weast