Smyrna times., 1890-01-29

ANO olAAS AAetAt upposta ever carried an eDlSLQ
harry Irritation on toan actual proposal of marriage
without seeing the object, or, except what heI
pen has told him, without knowing something
about ther.-Sententious Magazine Writer
So much for the conclusions of sell
conceit. Man has done that thing.
know a case in point. Don't 1? think
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 forbidl~ got the sobriquet
from 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. o, and
wasn't it CALLING? l loved the girls,
though, the whole eight, even Martha
the oldest, who had married and gone
to the next town to live before I 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-tirst birthday came and started
for the west to seek my fortune.
And now pass over nine years. 1t
would be idle to tell of the struggles and
hardships, the disappointments and sue
Cesses of those mOmentOus times. Suffice
it that, after various ups and downs, !
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 - prestol
change! | was rich man. l declare
I've been living in an Arabian night
ever since.
wrote directly home, telling of my
good fortune, and l built a house and
furnished it, and laid out my grounds
and stocked them with a magnifcence
which accorded with my means. But
here was my grand stumbling block. !
am a quiet, reserved man. Indeed, /
never, whatever society l may have been
mixed up in, could identify myself with
the spirit of my surroundings. / was
alone, always alone. understood
Adams predicament if anybody ever
did, but however deep a sleep might fall
on me, never the withdrawal of a rib
diminished my either side
Up to the day when l 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 in my closet made up all my do
mestic society. 1t wasn't sociable.
Is it any wonder that l, like many
another victim of uncongenial ireside
companionship, was much from homei
Not that ! went abroad in search of per-
sons with whom to exchange ideas.
rather think was tolerable wet blan-
ket when ! 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 1 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 / spake, OF 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 my
hand with faith, with that tunconquerable
force Of will which should summon out
of the unknown that completion Of my
being which my soul craved2 went
home, dashed my appeal on paper and
hurried it off to that benefcent little
journal by the earliest mail.
Could / wait for the time when an an
swer was possible? 1t was no easy task,
but | managed to do it-and what? Had
my earnestness multiplied its demands
Had the editor secretly set me off as an
inhabitant Of Utah-One in excellent
standing, too? Fifty-seven letters the
postmaster handed out to me in answer
to my first call ! carried them home
with quaking heart. Could they all be
addressed to me1 Yes. every one, and
in every one the writer expressed a be-
lief that she had found her other self in
me. They were variOusly written-pahl
l can't bear to think of them. Before ia
read that installment half through the
postoflice clerk came rushing to my door
with another
There had been second mail. Nv
box was bursting with them More than
hundred made up this last batch-all
to the same tunel Heavensl lifted up
my voice and wept But the end was
not yet. They came pouring in day and
night. In less than forty-eight hours !
had enough to stuff four mattresses.
What could do other than what did9
went out and made a bonfire Of the
whole. / had glimpse Of scores of pho
sographs and various little tokens like
painted hearts and different cabalistic
signs as they went off in smoke, but the
fragrance was hateful to my nostrils. Il
was plain / was on the wrong track.
And still they came.
For three weeks stood the target for
those missiles. never answered or re-
ally read one. They all went in the Chi
nese mail to their ancestors, and was
at peace Then there was a lull. No
letters for q week. At the end Of that
time there came one, a dainty, per-
fumed, most artistic looking little mes
senger, which my inner consciousness at
once announced as the foot for the glass
slipper; the dreamy, mawkish simpleton
/ wasl / swallowed the bait, hook, line,
fisherman, all And forthwith there
began correspondence that might have
melted a pathway to the North Pole. /