The McCook tribune. (McCook, Neb.) 1886-1936, 1893-11-10
BARWELL'S MAID.

| uS6u 10 nave several CuSCOulerS Ill
Silverado. 1t is only pleasant ride out
from here in the beautiful summer
morning, long before the sun begins to
peep above the Sierras and when the
dawn is just beginning to break bright
and fair, as dawn never does show any
where except in this semitropical cline.
The road to Silverado is bordered on
both sides with long rows of pepper
trees. Now, other fellows may have a
different taste in trees, but for MI there
never was anything in trees so pretty as
a row of peppers, with branches looking
down like the eyes of a modest girl when
she sees her lover coming along the road,
and the first CLINT of day creeping
through them and making little gold
| paths in them till you don't know
whether the tree itself is green or vel
low, and the morning breezes blowing
through them till they ripple and shine
all over as if they were laughing.
There never was anything else so like
a pretty woman with a smile on her face
as those pepper trees in the morning
with the wind blowing over them-that
kind Of a smile that creeps over the face
in a soft, lazy way and laughs in the
! eyes and hides away in the waves of hair.
used to think that the pepper trees
were what made me like to drive my
milk wagon out to Silverado. But that
| was before I had seen the little maid at
| Barwell's.
Barwelrs was a boarding house. Sill
verado was a kind of health resort, and
| people used to come from the east and
| go out there winters and board at Bar
wells. Maybe it did their health good,
but l don't think Barwell's' ever i'm
proved the health of the little maid very
much. If it did, she must have been a
| sight to behold before she came.
The first time I saw her she came out
| with the milk can. Usually it stood on
the stoop waiting to be filled, and l
would pour in the milk and leave it
standing there for the first servant who
was up to come out and get it. But this
time it seemed to have been forgotten,
and the little maid had crept out in the
early dawn to bring it and stood SILVER
ing in the morning chill, for the dawn Of
a semitropic morning near the sea is not
| warm. however the mind may tend to
romance concerning its balminess. And
| she was such a very little maid l could
| scarcely see her on the other side of the
milk can and thought at first that the
| can had just taken a notion to walk out
| alone and get itself filed.
"Hellor' I said.
eyes," she replied, quite as a matter
of course. And then l saw what a very
| thin and white little maid it was.
"Where did you come FRONT"
"If you please, Pm Mrs. Barwell's girl.
I work for my keep"
Now, I did not please in the least. l
| should have preferred, if she must be
anybody's girl, that it should be any one
else in the world whom l had ever seen.
And as for the ''keep," if there is any
proof in looks, it must have been very
| small.
1 CHANGED to have a big orange in my
| wagon that some n OF my drive, who
had an orange orchard, had given me. l
| threw it to her when Ihad filled the can.
| She caught it eagerly, and when l looked
back as I drove off I saw her going up
the walk with the orange pressed up
| close to her mouth. After that I never
forgot to have an orange, or a nectarine,
or some apricots in my wagon when I
| stopped at Barwell's. Sometimes the
milk can would be on the stoop, and l
! would not see the little maid for several
| days, but when l did see her again I
would give her all the good things that
had accumulated in my wagon since the
last time l saw her. And good things
had a way of accommodating very rapidly
| at that time.
Once when Mrs. Barwell happened to
be up early to get a picnic party success
fully off her hands l saw her seize the
| little maid and drag her into the kitchen.
And thought she struck her just as the
door was closing. Igrew hot all over
and thought savagely that if Mrs. Bar
well had been a man I should have called
her out. As it was, I had a fancy that it
! would do me good to get out and assault
| Mrs. Barwell's kitchen door and fling
my opinion at her gratuitously and forci-
bly,.
But neither course seemed quite feas-
ible. Ipicked up my whip furiously and
looked around for something to lay it
onto. AS I could see nothing available
for that purpose but my patient, good
tempered horse, who never gave me the
slightest excuse for savagery, l put it
i down again with a resolution to make
things more ever some day, though it
never entered my ridiculous head in what
particular way I could accomplish the
leveling process. But the little maid got
a whole apronful of the incest peaches
and nectarines and pomegranates in thu
market the next morning when 1 stopped
to deliver the milk.
So time went by until the little maid
had grown into a slipof a girl and would
have been pretty one, too, if she had not
| been so thin and white as to the cheeks
and staring as to the eyes. She had
beautiful eyes, but they in company with
her other features had grown SO starved
that it made anybody hungry only to
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