New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1894-02-21
HER LOVE LETTERS.


!. Jeanne Campbell came back from the
tailor's shop where she worked and
found a company of boys and girls con-
gregated round the doorstep of the tall
tenement house in which she rented one
small back room. They were hooting
and jeering at man seated in his shirt
sleeves on the doorstep placidly smok-
ing huge German porcelain pipe. The
man did not seem in the least disturbed
at their jeers and shrieks, but smoked on
with his eyes fixed upon the one strip OF
sunset sky visible above the gr1my roofs.
Jeanie pushed her way in.
whats the matter?''
Yah, Dutchy! INT e bloomin
soft? Give boy shillin to go and
fetch m somethin to eat and is with
| ERE for m! INT e style? Wonder
'ow long he'll w'ite!"
"Who is he?''
"A blooming Dutchy! e carn't
speak no English, g earn 't-'as to mike
signs-and nobody ERE carn't speak
nothink else. INT g a softy?'
The girl paused and looked at the
man. There was something in his pa
tient attitude that aroused her pity.
Some softer remembrance Of the days
before she came to this great, wicked
London came over her. The man 8 eyes,
SO blue, clear and bright, and the healthy
tlnge Of his wholesome face smote upon
her with pang Of recollection of the
honest Scottish faces she had left with
contempt for their content when she
had started forth to see life in London
She went up to the man and signed
to him to follow her indoors. She tried
to make him understand that he had
been robbed. The soft, gentle tones
that answered her were quite unintelli-
gible. He smiled, shrugged his shout
ders, spread his hands and looked at her
with that calm trustfulness one sees in
dogs and children.
She smiled, nodded, pointed up the
stairs and then ran out of the house.
She returned with a loaf of bread and
half pound of sausages for him and
roll for herself. She would make that do.
He was stranger, alone and friendless.
She put the things in his hand, point
ing down the street as if to indicate that
she had brought the things from the
boy. He seemed to understand, took
her hand and raised it to his lips. The
action was so simple, so grateful that
she felt ashamed and ran up the stairs
to her own room.
Her comfortless breakfast of a dry
roll the next morning made her little
regretful OF her charity the night be-
fore. He must shift for himself. as
have had to do, - the thought, and she
went out to her days work.
When she returned in the evening,
she found him standing outside his
door. He bowed and smiled, opened his
door and showed his various purchases
on his table. He had evidently found
his way round to shops. She went up
the stairs, feeling the least little bit dis
appointed that he did not require her
help any more. He seemed different
from the jaded, vulgar men and wom-
en- she came in contact with in her city
life. The air of the fields seemed to
cling to him still. She thought as she
toiled up the weary stairs how sweet
the country must be looking now. Was
the sun shining on the hills at home
and making the waters of the Ioch
sparkle, the bonny hills that she would
never see again! Friends were dead,
and to tailoress at 10 shillings a week
it was indeed far cry to Lock Awe.
Something was on her table, little
sketch of sweep of wide hills, with fir
forests clinging to their sides, a little
cluster of houses with wide overhang-
ing roofs and shutters to the windows.
A figure was standing in the doorway
of one of the houses.
"That is his house," said Jeanne to
herself. ''What a funny thing to do, to
give me picture of it! I wish could
send him back one Of Loeb Awe and our
house up on the braes.''
The next day was Sunday. She usu-
ally passed the morning in bed, tired
out with her weeks work. When she
came down about the middle of the day,
she met him coming in, evidently in his
Sunday best. Could he have been to
church? Well, it was clear he had not
ACd4ACu LuS HldAucIS Oh Eureka COUIC
yet.
She tried to express her thanks by
looks and smiles. He seemed to under
stand and laughed, and then she felt
with quick touch of dismay that he
glanced in surprise at her untidy dress
and tousled hair. Jeanie did not tidy
herself until afternoons; then in an
enormous hat and feathers and much
becurled head she perambulated the adj
jacent streets in company with girls of
her acquaintance, not yet vicious, only
ignorant, vain and craving for a little
OF that happiness which seems to all
girls their birthright.
That same hair was in papers now
she blushed as she recalled the fact
her hands We're grimy, her face I'M
washed. His eyes noted it.
They did not meet again during the
week, but next Sunday morning found
Jeanie with her hair out of papers and
her hands washed. She was lettering at
the street corner when he came back in
his spruce clothes. She gave him