The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1892-11-12
THE EDITOR.
How He Was Entertained in q
Modest Home.

Nell and / were orphans and lived
with our brother Tom. Tom was an
orphan, too, of course, but then male
orphans are never the recipients OF
sympathy and motherly advice from
every dear old lady in the neighborhood,
so that by and by they really forget
that they are orphans.
Tom was twenty, and he kept a sta
fionery shop, and we lived in four
small rooms in the rear of the shop.
This was in one of the new towns that
spring up in night on Puget sound,
and although the town itself was rough,
bustling and noisy, we were very hap
;py there. for our rooms were within q
hundred yards of the opaiine waters,
and the shore sloped to them, green as
emeralds the whole winter through.
Nell assisted Tom in the shop, and 1,
besides being houselzeeper. contributed
TO several magazines which helped
wonderfully in the way of new gowns,
gloves, bonnets and all the dainty things
which delighted our souls.
We were quite the noisiest and most
.harum-scarum household you can i'm
agine. As / have said, we had only
-four rooms. In one of these Tom slum-
bered the dreamy hours away nightly,
and II was "thc meanest, darkest,
smotheriest room in the whole She
bang" Tom was given to declaring
each time he entered it on slum Der
bent. Then there was a room wherein
Nell and slept. and from whose win
dow we could see at dawn dear, white
Mount Baker towering into the prim-
rose sky. Then the kitchen, and lastly
the parlor, which Nell called the draw
ing-room, and which also served as
dining-room. Between the parlor and
the shop was a tiny cubby hole of a
room, about six feet square and dark as
IA dungeon, in which Tom kept surplus
stock, and in which we likewise SNUG
Rled away sundry bags from the green
grocer's, trusting to the friendly dark
ness to conceal them from the inquisi-
tive eyes Of our visitors,
Our parlor was a thing having once
been seen to be remembered. 1t was
nleven feet wide and sixteen feet long.
and in it were one stove, one organ, one
sewing machine 1--WE made our own
gowns), one three-ply carpet, one big,
black dog (by the name of JEFF, who
was fixture and the object of our de-
voted affections). one dictionary and
stand, one walnut table, four chairs
tmore or less broken), one trunk (de-
ceptively cretonned and cushioned up
to allure unsuspecting guests into the
freshness of sitting upon it), one book
case, some pictures, and, alas! that
must chronicle it of a parlori bureau!
"A really and truly bureau in a par
Tor" as little girl said once. to the
hysterical mirth of ourselves and the
speeches. modification of her mother,
who had brought her to call. How
ever, the size-or lack of size-of our
bed chamber forbade the introduction
of bureau, so into the parlor it went.
One autumn evening Tom was in the
shop. and Nell and / were making our
selves very comfortable in the parlor.
tipped back in our rocking chairs, with
cups OF chocolate in our hands, and our
feet on the low nickel rod that encom-
passed the stove. We had been sew
sng, and the room was in the widest
disorder. The machine was in the GEN.
Ter of the floor, its box was upside
'town, the bureau was Uttered with
.'ards and yards of embroidery, spools
scissors, tape-lines and buttons: there
were piles on piles of muslin uncut
md dozens of muslin garments in vari-
Ous degrees of .cut, basted and sewed-
all over the floor, chairs, organ and
trunk.
We'll have our chocolate" Nell had
said, land then we'll have a cl'ar'n.up
tpell."
But suddenly we heard the shop door
open, and then a gent,eman's voice.
lhe kind OF voice we did not heur ire-
pnentlr n that rough town, II was