The weekly Thibodaux sentinel and journal of the 8th Senatorial District. [volume] (Thibodaux, Lna. [i.e. La.]) 1875-1898, 1893-04-22
SARAH JENKINS.
The Story of a Plain Girl With q
Million Dollars.

She wasn't a pretty girl. Ihose VINO
liked her best couldn't, with any show
of honesty, say hat she was Neither
was she young-not as the world de-
fines youth-for she was thirty-two.
She was taller than the average
woman, and her figure had M of
the symmetry that makes tall women
attractive.
Her face was plain. She hadn't even
pretty eyes to redeem it; and, as If this
were not misfortune enough, her
mother had named her Sarah, and
that, too, after she had been guilty of
marrying a man named Jenkins. Not
pretty, not young, and named Sarah
Jenkins!
Add to this the fact that she had to
earn her own living, and you have a
sum-total that does not promise we'll
for the heroine Of a story. But there is
a law of compensation that helps to
even up things in this world. This
law was observed in the case of Sarah.
She had prospects. That vas what
people said when they looked at her
homely face and angular figure and
thought of her toll. For everybody
understood that when old John Jen-
kins died Sarah would not need to
work any more; and the possession OF
a million dollars does more to soften
the unbeautiful lines in q girls face
and figure than any tricks of the toilet.
So the wo~rld-Sarah's world-was
not so sympathetic a. it might have
been, and as for Sarah herself-well.
she wasn't given to sentiment over
much. Her life had not been of the
kind that tends to foster sentiment.
Her mother and father had died before
she could remember. and her grand
father, with whom she lived, vas her
only relative.
John Jenkins had likings for people
just as he had for houses. He liked
both just as long as he could control
them and make them profitable.
When a house ceased to yield him suf-
ficient revenue to pay for the money
invested in it, that house was sold.
When people about him ceased to be
useful to John Jenkins he simply
dropped them and forgot that they ex'
listed. His only son mad been a disap-
pointment to him because he was no,
successful in business, and when his
father wanted him to marry a rich
wife and try to get ever with his luck,
young John dared to have differen,
views, and married one of his fathers
clerks.
She made him a good wife enough,
but somehow nothing prospered with
them. The old man seemed to forget
that he had ever had a son, and finally
young John gave up the struggle an6
died. His wife, who was a neck ane
obedient creature, seeing no other way
out of it, died too.
When old John heard of it he said
'Im not surprised; not a bit They
were too shiftless to live" And theI
he said not another word, nor did hs
show any signs Of emotion.
Some one wrote to him about thu
baby, asking what should be done.
"Send her to me-" was the old man.
answer. "I1i take care of her unit
she is old enough to take care of her
self"
So the baby was sent to her grand
father, and she was taken care Of jus
as were the young animals on hi
farms. Some one "a paid to do
who knew how, and the some n wa
given this instructions:
LET her have plenty of good, plail
food-no sweets to ruin her teeth an
stomach. Dress her in clothing that
clean and comfortable. No folly, mind
Ii she is sick, call a doctor. When sh'
Is old enough send her to school, an
let me hear no more about her"
When she was seventeen years oil
she went day to her grandfather
Office. They were almost strangers
Sarah had not spoken to him q dozel
times in all her life.