News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1894-10-11
ROMANCE OF AN APPLE PIE.
THE OLD WAY TO MANS HEART
THROUGH HIS STOMACH.


"Heigh-ho | do wish something
would happen. Something good, |
mean. 1t seems as if something
ought to happen on such a pleasant
day, and | sort O. feel it in my bones
that it will"
Miss Barbara Brown sighed a little
as she looked out of her sunny west
window on a mellow September day,
and listened to partridge whistling
dob White" in a neighboring corn
field.
Miss Brown had often wished for a
romance of her own, but had never
had one, though she was thirty odd.
She was tall and slender, with rather
a long face, thin, yellow hair, very
smooth and straight, and a small
mole on her chin, which she imagined
people were always looking at.
Perhaps her sigh was for the miss
ing romance at any rate she sighed
again as she glanced across the neat
paling fence to where Mr.. Peter Per-
riman was busy gathering his North
ern Spy apples. Mr.. Perriman was a
bachelor who lived with his widowed
sister, Mrs. Tibbins. and her daugh-
ter, Mary Ann, or May Annie, as she
insisted on being called. The one
crumpled rose leaf in Peter Peril
mans lot was the style of cooking
done by his sister and niece, whom
he credited, deep in the recesses of his
own mind, with having as little fac
nlty for the culinary art as a pig for
playing checkers.
eff they would only give me plain
bread an meat, with potatoes, an a
bit of pie to top off with, I'd be per-
fectly content" he groaned inwardly,
as he dispatched the mussy friccasses,
sloppy hashes, and "made-over" dish
es, and the fearfully and wonderfully
concocted buildings of his sisters
production. But he made no audible
comments, for Peter possessed the
virtue of eating what was set before
him with ont grumbling. Perhaps it
would have been better had he done
so, and disabused his sister of the
firmly grounded conviction that Pc
ter would scorn the everyday fare
which would have been amply salts
factory to May Annie and herself.
''l( he would only becontented with
plain, wholesome vittles, it would be
far better for him, and much less
trouble to u.s." she would sigh, as
she stirred and mixed, and seasoned,
at the elaborate messes, which tried
the soul of Peter and injured his d.
gestion, as we'll as kept herself and
her daughter in the kitchen for the
best part of the day. But, as already
stated, Peter Perriman was not a
grumbling man. Neither was he a
ladies man." In fact, he had al
ways been exceedingly shy of the
"women folks" and while Miss Bar
bara Brown had for years been in the
habit of visiting and receiving visits
from the Tibbinses with neighborly
freedmo, she had never had the pleas
IRE of exchanging as many as doz-
en- words with Mr.. Perriman in her
life. He had troubled himself very
little about her, indeed, except as to
the best means of keeping out of her
way when she called on his sister.
ITO, day, however, Mr.. Perriman
found himself in rather unusual
mood. Whether the mellowness of
the apples he was gathering COM
municated itself to his feelings, or
whether his obdurate bachelor heart
was softened by the gentle September
sunshine is matter of uncertainty.
At ali events, after casting several
glances at Miss Browns window, he
remarked to himself:
''That woman looks kind of lone
some like, setting there all by her.
self. But no wonder staying shut
up in the house, darning or sewing
on a day like this, instead of being
out of doors gathering apples"
Mr.. Perriman shook his head dis
approvingly, but presently a new
thought struck him.
"Come to think of it, she hasn't
got any apples to gather. Gust
like woman" he grumbled. "Not
an apple tree about the place moth
ing but a lot of old gooseberry and
currant bushes, by way of fruit
Maybe she couldn't help it, though,
seeing she's all alone. There now,
maybe I'm a BOBBY, but I believe in
my heart III go take her mess or
so of these here apples"