The Opelousas courier., 1892-11-19

pool when I was second mate Of the Julia
A. Smith. And now / have put out a
months earnings for a new one. What
possessed me | don't know"
And SO the captain went on.
Now, Captain Sprowl was not, us you
might think from the name, q bald
headed old man with bushy whiskers.
No; names arc very misleading. In
stead, he WIS tall and slender, with a
sandy mustache, and had not a gray
hair in his head. He came from Maine,
and although but thirty years old, he
had been for six years captain or the
Edna Dunn, now lying at Constitution
wharf, in Boston, discharging her cargo
OF sugar.
"Well,o pulled the captain, tsnothing
to do now but to get rid of the old sezS
tant. ! should 60 ashore next time If I
had two sextants to navigate BY. Must
work the old off on some landlubber or
somebody"
The package was lying on an old news
paper which he had read through and
through on his last trip out.
"The very thing!" said he. stT'H put
a notice in the paper-tSextant for sale,
cheap and if somebody don't bite at
it, / miss my guess"
The next morning the only thing the
captain could see in the paper was this:
Sextant for sale by a ship captain. near
Ign CIV and in perfect order: win BE- sold
cheap. Address O.. Al Globs Office.
And now my story's begun.
Eta Bourne had been at work In a
millinery efore in Boston for nearly two
years. She and her older sister Annie
had learned the trade with the village
milliner down in Kennebunk.
But Annie, who had long been the
belle. of the village, got married, and
Eta concluded to try her fortune in
Boston.
She was full of ambition.
So it fell that in her two years I'm Che
millinery store she studied shorthand
and typewriting,. with the intention Of
hrtlng herself TO be a confidential olark.
On Sunday she saw this advertise
menf:
For S~ale-Jones's Premier Tvuewritar AZ
half price; been used less thar a month; in
perfect order. Address O., At Globe office.
Eta Bourne, being a Maine Yankee,
knew q bargain when she saw it. She
wanted to own a typewriter, aud so she
wrote n brief note addressed to 10, AZ
Globe Office" asking where the machine
could be seen, and dropped it into the
letter box as she went to work Monday
morning.
Now, ] said at the beginning that the
advertising clerk was to blame. Per-
haps the mistake was partly that OF Eta
Bourne. At any rate it will never be
known.
The clerk was sorting the replies and
putting them in their Appropriate boxes.
When he came to Eta Bourne's letter to
20. Az" he read it 30. AZ and put it
in the %pigeonhole as such.
That was a very, very little mistake,
of course, but you who have noticed
how things go in this world of ours have
discovered that the most serious changes
i'm the course of our lives come about
from just such little happenings.
For il was that very day that Captain
advertised his sextant for sale.
And Captain Sprowl was 70 A."
Now the tali captain ssas Q very busy
MN, ana it was late frat afternoon be-
fore he went to the Office to gather III
the replies from people who wele anxious
10 buy a sextant.
But the sextant market was apparent
y rather dull, for all the clerk could |
give him was one solitary letter. The
tore the envelope open and tossed
q aside.
II saw your advertisement 10 the
5lobe, : read the captain. II wish to
4 good secondhand machine of
Itandard make, and If the one you offer
! ii perfect repsiF md the price Is sat.
sfactory. perhaps We can trade. But
'annos eige mere shan eqbo, nd il Jon