Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1890-07-12
BEN'S OLD HAT.
From the New York Ledger.

yellow farmhouse on the hill. Bache-
lor Bar was dead, and his heir, a
Young nephew he had never seen since
the boy was wears old, had come down
to sell things off Rumor said that he
intended to tear down the old house aft
elward, and take the money from the
bank and build fine new residence
with a manSard roof.
cit is a Shame,' said one or two.
''Such pity Barker did not make a will.
He must have had some intentions
about such property. He never could
have intended all that wealth to go to
boy he did not like enough to ask him
over for the summer"
The doctor felt sure he would have
founded hospital, and placed him in it
as resident physician for life, if the will
had been made.
The clergyman knew he meant to do
something for the church. The profess
sOr had heard him speak OF free library
and readingroom. Everyone knew
something, and all the far-away cousins
had expected legacies.
Everyone thought the arrangements
all wrong but the heir and the auc-
tioneer, who had made an inventory of
the old turniture-the tall clock, the
andirons, the solid tables with leaves,
the spinning wheels, big and little; the
fiddle-back chairs, and all those other
possessions adored by the fashionable
to-day, but utterly despised twenty
years ago as ''old things not worth keep
ing"
The young heir would, if he built his
villa. furnish it with ''sets" of the latest
style, with brussels carpets with white
grounds and bright wreaths of roses
scattered over them.
Cant get much for the old sticks"
he said, ''but I'd like to clear up and be
done with it.
Miss Camiola Brown, sitting at the
front up-chamber window cutting out
calico short waists for Mrs. Blacks five
little boys. laid down her shears for
once in her life, and with her elbows on
the sill watched the people as they
walked or drove past and entered in at
the gates of the late Mr.. Barker's prem
Uses.
Poor Benjamin y she sighed IT
wonder whether up in heaven he re-
members the day when he took me and
walked me all over the house %
The things are old-fashioned,
CamioIa,' he said to me; but they were
mother sand before that they were
grandmother's. / like them, but say
the word and I'll new furnish. No,
Ben says |, what your ma liked to
have | don't want to alter. / like it all;
it's good stuff and then he kissed me"
Miss CamiOla felt for her handkerchief
as she said this to herself. "And we
stood at the grand window and looked
off toward the mountains. We're going
to be happy as ever folks were, said he"
here the tears began to fall. ooh,
Ben," she sobbed, ''to think we quar-
relied after that and didn't speak when
we met. But you never married, and
a.,
guess Wen meet up there some time
and make up"
Poor old Camiola put her head down
on her arms and cried softly amidst the
purple blossoms of the wisteria that
yelled the window. No one could see
her from the road. But her tears dried
soon, and she came back to the present.
They were selling the old furniture at
auction. The claw-footed sldeboard,
the settle, the big mahogany cradle in
which four generations of babies had
been rocked-all these dear old things
that once were to have been hers as
poor seamstress, an old maid going from
house to house for her board and fifty
cents a day; looking forward to feeble
old age, and with an awful dread in her
soul of becoming town poor at last.
If she had married Ben how differ
ent it would have been.
"Why, Miss Camiola you've been a
erwin - said Mrs. Blacks loud voice
lust then in her ear. Camiola started
guilty., but she was too candid to COM
plain of a cold or the sun in her eyes.
"Well, | have cried little, Mrs.
Black" said she. ''You see we used to
be friends, MIR. Barker and |, and |
knew his ma and | remember all that
furniture, and it seems a sin to sell it
and tear down the old house, and may
be root up the lilacs and strawberry
shrubs and perhaps cut down the trees.
1t was almost like home to me in Mrs.
Barker's day
"Well, it must seem sin to anyone,
and more so to you, Miss Camiola," said
Mrs. Black But don't you want to go
over and see the place and what is 60
ing on? You might Just as well take a
day, or the rest of it. I'm in no hurry,
and you look tuckered out"
Mrs. Black was kind in her way and
felt Il certain pity for Camiola. She had
heard that Camiola was once engaged to
Mr.. Barker, and might to-day have been
rich and important widow instead OF
poor, lonely seamstress.
$50 along, Miss Camiola," she added.
81 know you want to-
Ibid she want TOP" Camiola asked
herself, and her heart answered Yes"
She would see the old home once
more, see the old furniture, and when
she could get chance she would go up