Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1892-05-02
The Calico FrOCk.

1t wasn't hot day, nor cold day,
nor a damp day, but it was an afro
cious day, clammy day, an unbear-
able day, day that made your clothes
stick to you like poor relations, that
brought out cold sweats on pitchers
and goblets, that made your back a
race course for contemplate little
chills and the rest of your body tar
get for a thousand invisible pins and
needles, that made the grasshopper
burden and the dusty, begrimed city
q pandemonium, that made Solomon
Griggs, bachelor, of the firm of Griggs,
Makem & Co., the great clothing mer-
chants, shut up his ledger with bang
and start for the country by the next
train, remarking to old Grimesby, the
head clerk, that ''the city was stiff
ling'
To which that worthy replied:
$50 it is, but how about the fellers
that can't get out of it and must stay
and be choked?"
A problem which, I suspect, our
friend of the firm of Griggs, Makem
& Co., troubled his head very little
about, being just then in looking into
the dusty recsses of that picture gal
1ery, which memory furnishes and ar
ranges for us all as single landscape,
hanging there.
4 low house with messy overnang-
ing caves, standing on the slope Of
green hill, shaded by branching elms,
with level fields stretching off in the
foreground toward the sparkling wa
ter on one side and dusky woods on
the other, and there, dusty, sweating
and tired, Solomon found himself just
before sunset. Out came a ruddy
checked, smiling old lady in cap and
apron that had attained a state of
snowy perfection unknown to city
laundresses.
f'Why, bless me, if it isn't little Sol!
Why, who'd although of seeing you?'
and she folded the stalwart, bearded
man in as warm an embrace as though
he were in reality still the little Sol of
former days. "And how do you do,
Sol? Come in, come in; don't stand
out there. You know the little path
and the way to the pantry yet, dare
say. Come in; you needn't start
back. It's only Rachel"
''But [ didn't know you had young
ladies with you, Aunt Hester"
It's only Rachel, tell you-Rachel
Hart, the seamstress. Are there no
women in your city that you are
afraid TO face little country grip"
Little, indeed" thought Solomon,
as he acknowledged his aunt's some
what peculiar introduction-and not
pretty, either-with large eyes Of that
uncertain gray that sometimes beams
darby blue and then deepens into
brown, with smooth, low forehead
and light brown hair, drawn tightly
across each ear, just revealing it's
crimson tip; face irregularly feat
ured, and rendered still more Strik-
ing by the singular contrast between
its extreme pallor and the intensely
scarlet lips-the personifcation of
neatness, the embodiment of reserve.
Gan odd little person." thought
Solomon, ''but it's none of my bust
ness.''
Dismissing her from his mind, he
proceeded to the much more impor-
tant business of making himself per-
ceptible at Aunt Hester's ea-table.
Solomon did ample justice to the
snowy bread, golden butter and lus-
cious strawberries, and later, as that
worthy was indulging in a stroll
across the field, he lifted up his eyes
and beheld the little seamstress,
whose existence he had quite forgot
ten, under a venerable cherry tree,
making desperate efforts to seize a
tempting branch on its lowest Dough,
revealing in her gyrations very neat
foot and ankle, and looking almost
pretty with her flushed cheeks and
sparkling eyes.
Now Sol was gallant man-decid-
eddy the preux chevalier of the firm
of Griggs, Makem & Co.; SO that
whenever, as had once or twice hap
pened, a petticoat ventured into the
mouldy shades of the establishment,
Sol was the man whom destiny and
the other partners selected ito parley
with the enemy.
Advancing, therefore, with a happy
mixture of confidence and condescen-