The weekly messenger. [volume] (St. Martinsville [i.e. St. Martinville] La.) 1886-1948, 1889-06-29

alton from study ana stlil keep ner out oi
mischief. There it was, acres of 1t,
spread out on every side, and Belle quite
took her fathers breath away by suggest
ing that they should go to work, he and
her, to improve the estate. No wonder
the squire was dumbfOunded at the idea
of a young woman attempting to do what
generations of men had undone, but
Belle was very much in earnest, and turn
the matter over as he would, he could see
no good reason for refusing to let her
try the experiment.
Before long the neighbors were greatly
exercised over the spectacle of the squire
/ and his daughter "trampin' up an down
the mountain, across back lots an low
lands, a surveyin' an goin' on a great
rate
The women said they ''sud think she'd
better be n spinnin' or doin' somethin'
useful" but the men said: "Let her
alone an see what she kin do. There's
no better place in tn country than tn
squire's, if 'twuz only looked after, but
he don't know anything about farmin';
wuz always in politics, same's all his fam
lily when he wuz younger. An now he
won't sell foot of his land; won't do
nothin' whit himself, ner LET any one hev
it tibet could"
Soon after this fences began to go up
on the Outhet place, and then it was re-
ported through the village that the squire
had actually got a stumpin' machine. "
This, in face of his prejudice against
''new tangled notions" was certainly re-
markable. But the new machine was
nothing more nor less than home made
contrivance, the product of circum-
stances-and a little wood and iron. The
men on the place had said they could 'do
nothin' with them fields west o tn old
orchard s'longs theirs nothin' to root out
tn stumps with" and Belle had said
"Well, we will have something to root
them out with" Simple laws of physics
furnished the plan; Belle explained the
principles TO jim and Dana-men who
had grown up in the squire's family and
knew less about managing affairs on an
estate than the squire himself, (Which
was needless, " as the gossips were fond
of saying-and in the end, the stump |
problem was solved. Belle soon found |
out that the dilapidated state of affairs
was due to the habit of letting everything |
drift from an Indifferent state to bad, |
from bad to worse. Merely locating the
trouble helped to rout it. 1t was not |
long before the squire could see that |
science was useful in other places than
schools. 1t did not stop with |
making stump machines. 1t helped |
to make dressing for the stumpless fields,
it shed light upon the economy of keep
ing the live stock warmly housed and |
clean through cold weather, it traced |
Tremaine's illness to the old well be-
tween the stable and the house, closed it
up, and brought water to the house in
pipes from the living spring east of the
garden. Its power, at least with so able
an exponent as Belle proved to be, seemed
limitless. 1t showed how easily they
might have ice through the summer by
utilizing the pond that hitherto had been
given to the ducks and to the skaters by
turn, and a little ice-house on the north
side of the hollow went up almost by
magic. The squire's latent vigor began
to show itself. He wondered no one had
ever thought of turning the lowland be-
low the road into cranberry bog until
Belle suggested it, and then he astonished
himself by deciding there was nothing to
prevent two young orchards being set
out.
The neighbors said they ''never see the
beat Nv it, and Belle was even a good
deal surprised herself to see what knowl-
edge could do in the place of heedlessness
and ignorance. The spell of decay once
broken, its power was gone. The evil
work of years was not undone in sum-
mer or in two, but it was effaced as it
had grown, in time, that cures all ills.
Last summer Hester Pierce n former