St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1893-07-09
HALF TRUE STORIES
Drawn From Actual Life in
All About the City OF
st. Paul,
From the Luxurious Halls Of
Homo to an Upstairs
Squalor.
a Young Girls Life Wrecked
by a Stony-Hearted
Father.
tou3hing Love Of q Sister
Mni3l Was Faithful to
Death.

zach sunday one or more briefly told stories
ba,ed upon 81 Paul incidents which have
rome under the observation of the re portorlal
eye. These stories will all be taken from
life. but as all the actual facts are not TO be
.;rctly adhered II, they will be called half
true The first sorry of the series, published
below, is more than half true.
Two sisters. whose devotion to each
other presents one of the most beautiful
pictures ever drawn by nature, are to be
the central i,ur S in this bItef1ytold
narrative. We will call them Marie and
leannette, because there is really no
necessity for using their true names.
These two girls were born and rails ed
% bluSs0ming wJmanh0od in far-away
Canadian city. In babyhood they were
bathed in perfume, wrapped in silks
ami provided With every toy that their
little tongues twaddled for; in early
girhood their natural and Guilt
gated beauty was not married by
the slaps, knocks and other hardShipS
that mOSt"yOung 'unS" encounter; their
school days were made Into one con-
annual dream of brightness by the con-
slant care and genial Indulgence of
their private tutors; and their young
womanbood was toned and polished by
travel ard study in foreign lands. Marie
was twenty-five, Jeanette twenty when
they last returned to their Canadian
home from abroad. They were women
beautiful. cultured, luxurious. They
had been trained, not born, to these
conditions; for their parents were illit-
crate and coarse.
The father of these two lovely sisters
was rich, ignorant, irascble and oDsti-
nate. His riches made his daughters
women of the highest and most lovable
type; his natural traits of character
wrecked their lives.
At a popular resort OH the Thousand
IslaI.ds. in the summer of 1887, there
was regatta which attracted to the
place decidedly Heterogeneous crowd.
Wealthy, refined cOttagers from various
parts OF the Islands came to see the re-
gatta, and incidentally mix with the
c0urtesans, sports and gamblers who
had tlOcked to the place from all quar-
tiers of the country. In this motley
crowd were Marie, Jeanette, mamma
and papa. The resplendent beauty of
tie two sisters made them truly the
most conspicuous figures in this holiday
gathering; they were here, there, every
where; always chatting, ever laughing;
enjoying to the utmost the pleasures OF
TIE day. Ali was sunshine to these
siotcrS-tle past, the present-and why
not the future. Little did they dream
that on this day, the day of all days,
when the whole world seemed to be
laughing together, that the cloud which
was 10 Hlacken their future lives was
ESVir;ng EIGr.
can't say how it happened, but in
tie evening, after the races had been
lost and won. while the stars tWinkled
With the eyes of merrymakerS on EARTH
while tine moon reflected its smiling
cOuntenance in the ripping. laughing
waters OF the st. Lawrence. while music
7nt its soothing charm to all the lowell
NESS of nature, Marie was listening to
,/,ft words of love from the man who sat
CLOSE to her lin a lonely corner of the
.veranda. Her eyes seemed to dance to
the music OF the words that rolled from
his tongue, which painted a fantasy she
had never dreamed of before. Long
after midnight, two vacant chairs in 4
far corner OF the veranda might have
repeated a very interesting conversation
had they the power of speech. They
might lave told how the conversation
ended with feIvent:
0ood hlght my DICK"
dropped into an East Seventh street sa-
Icon for the purpose of picking up
few items for the sporting page of the
newspaper upon which l was engaged
at the time. The proprietor, rough.
gcod-hcarted fellow, greeted me with
more thau ordinary cordially as | en-
tered, and insisted upon having me
drink with him forthwith. The pro-
prietOr took lager, saturated tine sawdust
Oil the floor with the froth, set the glass
OH the bar, looked me straight in the
rye, and, III that deep, husky voice for
which he was noted, exclaimed:
Say, old man, want you to do favor
for ne without sayin' nothin' about it
i'll the paper. Will you?"
What is lt?' inquired.
well. you see, it's little private
matter. Woman in a whole lot o.
trouble. You can help her out if YOU
will; bat we don't want nothin' to git
in The papers,"
All right" said l, "if you say not,
wont publish anything about the mat
ter You can depend on that"
We'll" resumed the proprietor.
there's q sick woman roomin' up stairs
that had some kind of a row with her
The thing up with the old man by writ
ing 10 him for her. tried to write the
letter myself, but couldn't get it up in
proper style; so | told the poor woman
I'd yet one o you newspaper boys to do
ii for her. Come on up stairs, am she'll
tell you all about ito
followed the Saloonkecpcr I'D stairs
and was ushered into a stutfy little
back room, where was asked 10 sit
down on the only chair In the bed.
which was a rickety affair, lay the sick
Woman-worn and haggard, her large
blue eyes Sunken and without luSter,
her face drawn AMI cOlorleSS. her hands
bony and like marble lie. At first glance
saw she was the wreck of a once beau
tIful wOman.A
Il am very pleased to know YOU"
said the woman feebiy. after the saloon
keeper had introduced me in his best
possible manner. 81 asked Mr.. --
10 get some one to do me great favor,
and presume you are the unfortunate
one he has selected"
| assured the woman that | considered
1t fortunate to have the opportunity
10 serve her. and was quite willing to
do anything within my power TO help
her. Coming to the point at once, she
said that she wanted me to write let
ter 10 her folks; she was too weak to
write herself, she had no friend to do it
for her, the colored woman who at
tended her could not write. and the sa-
loon keeper had made failure Of one
trial.
You will find this quite an unpleas,
ant task, fear" remarked the poor
woman. as l pulled small table over
beside the bed and prepared to write as
she dictated. Truth compels me to
ant, one that caused even my hardened
heart to moisten my eyes more than
once before the letter was finished. AS
the woman dictated she made an almost
painful effort to control her emotion,
but nearly every word was punctuated
with sob, and nearly every sentence
with hysteria. If should live hun
dred years l would never forget the
text of that letter. 1t read like this: