Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1889-12-25
QUEEN 'LIZBETH.


Ella Higginson, in Demorest.
-3~
QUEEN 'LIZBETH.
The Great Sacrifice Little Harmony
Made for Unluoky Tom.
Forty years ago the present ''Meadow
avenue" of Van Buren, was the "Old
Back road" 1t skirted broad stretch
of marsh which was coverC in summer
with clumpy growth of rushes and
coarse grass, except where little prom
ontories of partial upland jutted ag'
gressively out into the marsh, and held
the position with tangled defenses Of
swamp-maple, black alder and cat-brier
A dozen or fifteen acres of such dis
puted territory ir.closed the old 'sSwamr
College, on three sides, and was the
only play ground provided for the young
people who availed themselves of the
disadvantages which the school afford
disadvantages so obvious that the
name, Swamp College, having been
once ironically applied to it, was re-
garded as such happy hit that it be-
came the ordinary name of the school.
When I was matriculated at the in
stitution, Mr.. Eliphalet GIBBS was it's
president and faculty. He mad been old
and queer when he assumed the posi-
ton. and he was twenty-five years older
and twenty-five times as queer when he
relinquished it and entered an institu.
ton for the aged and infrm.
l regret that l have not space to de-
scribe Mr.. Gibbs, nor his methods of
teaching, nor the old school-house, that
was so suitable a setting for so rare an
educator, that my younger readers NAV
compare their own school advantages
with those Of their parents.
My chum at the college-of course you
understand that it was merely child's
school-was Tom McKelway, Farmer
Simpsons hired boy. TOMS wages were
board, clothing and days schooling
now and the1., and his duties were those
of man, woman and boy all together.
He was awkward, plain, badly dressed
even for those days, and-so Mrs. Simp-
son said-<'real backward in his larn-
in'," in which opinion her Judgment was
better than her grammar, for Tom was
backward, absolutely and relatively,
too, compared with even Swamp College
standards.
had been so unfortunate as to enter
Mr.. Gibbs institution of learning with
out garments similar to those of the
other pupils. I wore ''store clothes, -
and I Supposed hope, at any rate
that I wore some of the manners OF
civilized society, for my gentle mother,
until her death, a short time before I
came to live with my uncle at Van
Buren,, had been my teacher. Perhaps
she had guarded me too carefully, for I
was thoroughly surprised boy when I
found myself surrounded by Mr.. Gibbs
collection of human animals, all uncaged
and untethered.
They made grimaces at me; they
called me ''Dandy" and ''Miss Nancy
and would probably have laid violent
hands upon me had not Tom come to my
rescue.
''Look 'ere!" he said. "Thee Teller
as goes to huntin' o. this ERE little
greeny afore he larns to hoe his own
row III have me to handle" and after
that was unmolested. Il. ~
There was no reason for Toms cham.
pionship of me except that I was q
stranger and smaller than my torment.
ors, and Tom was born a defender of the
feeble. In those days no weak and
needy thing came into his way that he
Il ~ 1f Z In 1,,11 ok< !
the midst of the most exciting game to
lift turtle out of a wagon-rut and head
it towards the swamps and safety, and
he seemed to do such things without
thinking, as naturally as he breathed.
Nearly opposite the school lived Mrs.
Sally Skillet. This lady owned large
and various stock of poultry, which she
encouraged to open-air exercise quite tc
the disadvantage of the school children.
She had learned to her cost that tres
passers upon the upland were summa'
rily dealt with, and, accordingly, she
sedulously headed off her feathered fam
lily whenever they turned their bills In
that direction. ..r.
But the road and the swamp she con
sidered as theirs, and defended theil
rights to the last wag of her wicked
tongue. >.-- 49,.
OF course she regarded the children
as interlopers. II they played in the
road, she took the view that they were
appropriating the sand-baths of he1
chickens; II they splashed through the
swamp, that they were trespassing upo1
the hunting grounds Of her ducks.
Singularly enough, the children, de
spite her many unjust accusations, were
not disposed to be vicious. Indeed, Il
never occurred to US that We had any
rights where ducks or geese or chickens
were concerned, and the masters course
when Mrs. Skillet made COMPLAIN