Orange County observer. [volume] (Hillsborough, N.C.) 1880-1918, 1891-03-21

and destruction. Oh, why didn't / stay
in Rhode Islands What evil spirit pos
sessed me to come out here q Dakota,
where one might as we'll be baled alive
and done with it,"
Emily Elkton sat down and cried
heartily, rocking herself forward ano
back, and sobbing out loud, like child
whose slice of bread and molasses has
been taken away from it. Aud not until
the candle hared up, with an extra sizec
"winding-sh wrapped around it:
wick, and the cat rubbed itself persist.
emily againSt her knee, did she arouse to
the quadruple fact that puss wanted he,
supper, the fire was low, the candle
needed snufhng, and there was no sort
Of use in tears.
Emily had come out West, partly be-
cause there seemed nothing to do at
home, and partly because Uncle Absalom
had written that one Of his nine nieces
would come very handy for house
keeper at Swampy Cor. .ers, in the State
of Dakota, if she could be spared.
The latter sentence was intended on his
part for q sarcasm, but the Elkton
family had received it in all good faith,
AolJ 1ol;ha-,+;o, hafnro fhou
consented to let one Of the nine young
birds f1utter out Of the home nest
And more especially she had come be-
cause she had incidentally learned that
Andrew Markham was one of the en-
gineers in charge of the new line of rail.
way on the other slope of the mountain,
which undertaking involved tho navy
camp and the great derricks and steam
drills, ard the gangs of slit-eyed Chinese
and dark -browed Italians.
"Not that that signifies" Emily had
plausibly told herself; ''but Of course it's
pleasant to be somewhere within hun
lred miles of an old acquaintance!
Andrew Markham had been to see her
| twice, and both times she had made up
ner mind thatthe Far West was the only
| place to live in.
s'He expects to settle here.'' she
thought, with soft pink color suffusing
| her face. ''He says he has already
bought sunny slope of land, where he
means to build house and bring a wife,
when he can afford it, He thinks that
| life here means twice what it does in the
effete civilization of the East.
But to night, with darkness the wrap
ping the little depot like a blanket, and
the wind bowling down the mountain
gorge, Miss Elkton would not at all have
objected to some of that same |'effete
civilization"
| Alone in the house! During the whole
of her sojourn at Swampy Corners, such
thing had never happened to her be-
fore.
Uncle Absalom had occasionally been
absent, it was true, but Miriam Nudge
was always there to bear her company
until his return.
Now that sudden summons from her
father, hurt in an accident in the sawmill
on Ragged River, six miles below, had
called Miriam away, poor Emily was all
in futter
True the one train day which stopped
at the ''daypot' was not due until seven
in the morning; the telegraph office was
closed, and there was absolutely no care
for her to assume except to put another
log of wood on the air-tight stove and
go quietly to bed. But the very sense
of solitude appalled, her. She shivered
at the very click of the snow flakes
against the window, the creak Of the
boards in the floor, the slow drip of thu
water into the kitchen sink, where Uncle
Absalom had recently introduced the
modern improvement Of a water faucet
connected by pipes with the spring IL
the spruce glen above.
why couldn't Miriam have stopped
at one of the neighbor's houses and sent
some to keep me companyE' she repined
"Andrew says there are some nice girll
at Almondsley, down the mountain, and
he said he'd like to introduce me to Ma
rietta Mix, who teaches Sunday school
in the South Cleating and does type
writing for the company On week days.
I'm sorry now that | tossed my head ant
put on airs, and said l didn't care to
mingle in the society hereabouts. Oh
dear! what a hateful, insolent mink