Abilene weekly reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1888-1935, 1889-09-12
UNCLE JACOBS RUSE.
a Change in His Will Produces a
Happy Effect.

test two girls in Balky Bottom. Their
mother was very proud Of them, and
though a widow in straitened circum-
stances she strained her narrow means
to put them at the new seminary.
The ambitious mother might have
found it difficult to carry through
her plans if an only brother, several
years her senior, who had run away
when a boy, and who had long ago
been given up for dead, hadn't come
back one day as suddenly as he had
disappeared, with no end Of money in
his pocket, still bachelor.
Uncle Jacob Ransower, in spite of
his grotesque dialect and oid-fashioned
manners, soon became q great favor
tie with Jenny and Lucy. BY sort
of tacit understanding he took up his
home in his sisters house, and from
that time the latter was relieved from
all anxiety on the score of her daugh-
ters' education, Uncle Jacob thence
forward cheerfully paying their bills,
including all the extras"
The girls came home finished at
last, and Uncle Jacob was leased into
buying a grand piano, with half cart
load of fashionable music.
The sisters would have had fiocks of
beaux, for thoy were not only remark
ably pretty, but, as every body knew,
they would one day come into Uncle
Jacobs money; bat they held their
heads so Ucyy high that there wasn't
youth in Balky Bottom adventurous
enough to spunk up to them. Even
Hiram HOppicl, who used to be rather
Spry in his attentions 10 Jenny in the
ante-scminary days, and Reuben Ruck-
man, who used to bask in an occa-
sional smile OF Lucy's in the same
blissful period, hung back now like a
brace OF bashful school-boys with their
fingers in their mouths.
At last q star of the first magnitude
set the armament of Balky Bottom all
ablaze 1t was no less a luminary
than Mr. Cleophas Brassey. Uacle
Jacob. who had caught from his niecas
touch OF the seminarian idiom, pro-
nounced him ''moOch too quote. "
But the ladies nOncOncurred. Mr..
Brassey, in their eyes, was a perfect
Prince Charming: and when they
came to know him, and heard him
sing: "Me hawt is fawh, fawh away"
"a statement with probably more
truth than poetry in it-Jenny declared
he was nicer than a-a-, and Lucy
quite agreed with her.
For the first time in their lives was
there any jealousy between the sisters
For time Mr.. Brassey distributed
his attentions impartially between the
two. 1t would have puzzled him, in
deed, TO give q reason for prefer
ence. In point OF looks, neither sister
had the advantage. and Uncle Jacobs
money, it was understood, was 20 go
10 them in equal portions.
But CleOphas Brassey was of more
practical turn of mind than the meta
physical donkey that starved to death
between two haystaci1s, for want of a
philosophical reason for choosing the
one rather than the other. Uncle
Jacob was complaining q good deal
lately of 'puzzin' in his het," and
had put himself on double rations of
blackstrap IS remedy. Feeling there
was no time TO lose, Mr. Brassey, in
the privacy of his chamber, christened
his meerschaua Jenny and his tobacco
stopper Luc5. and went owe: the old
juvenile rigmarole by which school
boys decide who's first to be hare.
The last word fell toLucy; so Lucy it
was.
From that time forth it ceased to be
a question where Mr.. Brassey's pre-
objections lay. 1t was nothing but
Lucy with him now.
Mr.. Brassey would have proposed
to Lucy without delay, but he was a
little dubious on the score of Uncle
Jacob. 1t would be just like that OBJ
stinate old Dutehman, if he didn't Ike
the match, to express his disapproyal
by disinheriting clause in his will.
But at last circumstance occurred
that couldn't fail to give Mr.. Brassey
considerable lift in Uncle Jacobs
opinion. Lawyer Hacker, with whom
Mr.. B. seemed to have a good deal of
business lately, came in hot haste in
search of that gentleman, whom he
found on the widows back porch MAX
ing himself quite one of the family
Uncle Jacob, with his corncob pipe
and pitcher of blaekstrap. fanking
the party.
Il have just received" said the law
yer, breaking in on the company with
the air of one on pressing business,
san offer of two hundred thousand dol
lars for your Florida plantation
What answer shall l give?"
Say I've changed my mind and
don't wish to sell, carelessiy replied