The Mason County journal. [volume] (Shelton, W.T.) 1886-1927, 1889-09-13
BROTHER FRANCIS.


No sane man. l suppose ever carried an episto
larry Irritation to actual proposal 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 l
know case in point Don't l? think
l do, forasmuch as myself was its dom
mating idiot. l, age 81; name, Francis
Rowland; usually known as Brother
Francis-not of ecclesiastic brotherhood
Heaven forbid! I got the sobriquet
from a trick my sisters-there are eight
of them, four older and four younger
than Ia trick the 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 was out of my teens. 0, and
wasn't it CALLING? l loved tho 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 off 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 frisky maiden,
two years older than l. She talks ever
lastingly, and never says anything worth
hearing. only l like the rattle of her
tongue. Then the little ones-Florence,
Maud, Blanche and Edith. If 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 the business Of
existence a perpetual scramble for me.
Edith was only five years old when my
twenty first birthday came and l started
for the west to seek my fortune.
And now pass over nine years. 1t
would be idle to tell of the struggles and
kardships, the disappointments and sue
cesses of those momentous times. Suffice
it that, after various ups and downs, l
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 - presto!
change! was rich man. l declare
I've been living in an Arabian night
ever since.
l wrote directly home, telling of my
good fortune, and built house and
furnished it, and laid out my grounds
and stocked them with magnificence
which accorded with my means. But
here was my grand stumbling block. !
am a quiet, reserved man. Indeed,
never, whatever society I may have been
mixed up in, could identify myself with
the spirit of my surroundings. I was
alone, always alone. l understood
Adams predicament if anybody ever
did, but however deep sleep might fall
on me, never the withdrawal of a rib
diminished my either side.
Up to the day when | was 30 years
old, and rich, my whole time on my
hands, had been too busy to give the
matter much thought. But now this
skeleton i'll my closet made up all my do
nestle society. 1t wasn't sociable.
Is it any wonder that l, like many
another victim of uncongenial freside
companionship, was much from home!
Not that went abroad in search of per.
sons with whom to exchange ideas.
rather think was tolerable wet blan.
ket when l dropped in among those in.
clined to that recreation. One day, saun.
tering into the railway station, picked
up scrap of newspaper somebody had
tossed by, and in my lazy, aimless super.
abundance of leisure began to run
through it.
Eureka! Here was the message had
waited for! Thereon l read that some.
body-oh. the deliciousness of that sug.
gestion!-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 I spake, or rather
wrote. | don't think a 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 l, trusting the divinity
which shapes our ends" so put forth nv
hand with faith, with that unconquerable
force of will which should summon out
of the unknown that completion of my
being which my soul craved? l went
home, dashed my appeal on paper anG
hurried it off to that beneficent little
Journal by the earliest mail.
Could wait for the time when an an
swer was possiblel 1t was no easy task
but managed to do it-and what? HaC
my earnestness multiplied its demands
Had the editor secretly set me off as ar
mhabitant of Utah-one in excellent
standing, too? Fifty-seven letters the
postmaster handed out to me in answe,
/ to my first call. carried them home
with q,aking heart Could they all bt
addressed to me9 Yes, every one, anc
! in every one the writer expressed a be
lief that she had. found her other self ir
me- They were va1iously written-pah
can't bear to think OF them. Before I'd
read that installment half through the
postofhce clerk came rushing to my door
with another.
There had been a second mail. Nv
BOX was bursting with them. More than
hundred made up this last batch-al]
to the same tune! Heavensl lifted ur
my voice and wept. But the end was
not yet. They came pouring in day and
night. In less than forty eight hours ]