Alpena argus. [volume] (Alpena, Mich.) 1893-1909, 1893-10-18

"Your brother!'
swell, what of that? He never
asked me to help him, or" was
the harsh voice husky, Frank
wondered-"I might have been idiot
enough to do it,"
ut was pity he could not know
that. Father" in softened tone,
don't stand between Rhoda and
me! will not give her up, but
you make her hard to win. She is
as proud to-day as when her car
riage drove up to our door, and she
brought you fruit from her hot
house. No, l am wrong! She was
not proud then, heaven bless her!
but she is now"
"Beggars have no right to be
proud! I won't have it! Do you
understand? If you persist in this
folly you will accommodate yourself
to the situation, for your allowance
stops-stops, understand, the day
you propose to your cousin Rhoda.
You can find home and an income
elsewhere"
II don't mind that threat, but |
should be very unhappy if | left
you alone, father"
Don't do it, then"
"But it will make my life utterly
wretched to give up my cousin"
bah! Go to bed. You are
headstrong boy, and you have not
tasted poverty yet, Keep your
heroics till you have"
Frank Lewis knew that there
were moods in which his father was
utterly stubborn, and that to argue
was to waste time. So he accepted
his dismissal, and went to his own
room. Thinking deeply, he came
to the resolution to try his power
to conquer fortune before seeing
Rhoda again. She knew he loved
her, and if his love was returned
she would trust him; if she cared
for him only in a cousinly way,
then the separation would help him
to bear a later disappointment.
He would not desert his father, but
perhaps when he had proved HIM
self no braggart his father might
relent.
1t was dreary enough in the
weeks that followed in the tiny
parlor behind the little stationery
store where Rhoda Lewis strove to
keep the wolf from the door.
Brought up in utter ignorance of
business, the young storekeeper
had depended unconsciously upon
her cousin Frank in all financial
difficulties. Frank had taught her
how to keep her books, had given
her instructions about renewing her
stock in trade, managed her bank
ing business and had been her adj
wiser and best friend from the day
when she returned from her father
funeral to find that she must be
breadwinner for herself and invalid
mother. She had never looked up
on him as a lover, only as avery dear
cousin, until her uncle rudely open
ed her eyes and heart by informing
her of the penalty attached to his
sons courtship. Then love awaken
ed to sting her sharply when pride
forbade her cherishing the sweet
intruder.
| Yet, while she suffered in heart
there was magic of prosperity
about the tiny store. Customers
flocked to her, and she found sale
for better class Of goods than she
had ventured upon at first. She
was skilled in water-color painting,
not wonderfully talented, but suf-
ficiently capable to accomplish
much of the pretty decorating at
that time becoming fashionable.
For what she had leisure to do in
that line she found quick sale at
large profit.
Her sorest grief was in her moth
er's wasting health, and the certain
ty that the disease must terminate
fatally, though the decline was
slow. Heart and brain were sorely
taxed; the more that she had been
so carefully guarded during her
fathers life. But she was brave
and faithful in the discharge of her
duty, trusting in Gods care for her
future, as a child trusts it's mother.
Two years had passed since Frank
Lewis put up her shutters, when he
wrote to her from another city,
telling her that he had a good po-
sition, was working hard to be-
come independent, and asking her
to become his wife il his income
ever increased sufficiently to start a