Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1894-06-18
The Family Tree.

lt was n1pp1ngly colo nlght IN an
otherwise tepid January when my
wife, Elizabeth, embraced me in our
front hall, and before could get out
of my ulster asked me if IT would get
her tree"
Now, to be empty and cold and tir-
ed and to be asked on the threshold
of ones door and dinner in midwinter
for "a tree" even by the being whom
one adores is trifie irritating. I am
amiable as a rule and ruler, but the
tone in which / said, "a what" was
not up to the martial mark. But my
own Elizabeth knew me too we'll to
be deferred.
<'Why, dear, Mrs. Makehay Higgin-
son was here this afternoon, and she
said ought to be a Colonial Dame,
and can't be one, she says, unless
have a tree which the Colonial
Danes are to sit upon at their meet
ing, and if it's all right they will take
me ill.,"
"Humph! don't doubt they will"
+'She says that everybody that is
anybody is doing all they can to get
up tree, and, dear, she said that you
were SO awfully clever that you could
get me up tree in no time"
('Mrs. Higginson is a woman of
more penetration than l gave her
credit for if she said that" said I.
but, seriously, dear, if your happi
ness hangs upon a tree, you shall have
one.''
1t was between the soup and the
fish, for Elizabeth and by this time
were seated at our dinner table, which,
bless her, she likes to make bright
and sweet against my home coming,
the vaudeville bills would say, fam
lily tree for her.
For the first time I noticed in my
wife strange elation-a sort Of sup
pressed superiority. l made her
broaden all her as when she spoke to
me and her dear, sweet American
voice came down from her nose into
her throat when she talked about be-
ing Colonial Dame," SO that my
wife really became quite English in
her discussion of the subject, which I
had supposed to be thoroughly Amer
lean. Mrs. Higginson had left her, it
seemed, with an awful sense OF all
that meant to be a Colonial Dame of
the E'great works. as the reformers
say, to be done when everybody had
q t'tree.''
"How?'' I asked, for mutton had
made me monosyllabic,b but neither in
elegant nor aboriginal in my vocabu
larry, as Elizabeth seemed to think
from the Mortified way in which she
looked at nee before she went on.
''In the first place, you know, dear,
that society in Old Haven is neither
SO gay nor so general as it might be if
we weren't all the time on pins and
needles for fear we might know some
body who wasn't, well, quite so nice
as ourselves, and Mrs. Higginson
says that the Society of G. D.-'a cap
ital name for some of them,' said in
parentheses-will do away with all
that sort of thing. There are going
to be meetings. lots of them, and
when they have had enough meetings
to find out that everybody has an an
cestor as aristocratic as everybody |
else, then they are going to unbend
and be nice to one another, and the |
SWEETEST of the lot are going to give |
balls, and it's going to be aWfully |
exclusive and English YOU know and |
If any woman's name is put up for |
membership that the other women
don't like she's going to be blackball-
ed unless she has great deal of mon
ey. And I am sure it's going to make
a lovely feeling all through the socie-
ty, and it's just what this stupid old .
stuck up town needs.
Not being able to grasp the cogency