The Portland daily press., 1894-07-28

She didn't wish to do the latter, as it had
proved very profitable, and as she wished tc
send he son to college. Thereupon she came
to Portland and took charge of this.end OF
the business. She has done SO every summer
for the last seventeen years.
Mrs. Libby believes In the special inteven
tion of Providence, and in divine response
to the efforts of those who help themselves
She relates two of her experiences as proofs
of this.
Sixteen years ago when she was boarding
here in the city she got, one evening, a
telegram from her husband saying that 800
boxes of blackberries would come the next
day. She was in despair. The market here
was glutted, and they would simply spoil on
her hands. She lay awake half the night
trying to think of some way to dispose of
the many berries. It was an unusual year
for them, and the city was full of them.
She got up early in the morning with her
mind made up. She was too anxious and ex-
cited to eat any breakfast. She asked at
the boarding house, where she could get a
man and team to peddle her berries for
her, without going to the livery stable and
paying dollar an hour. Nobody knew of
such man. She went out on the street and
the first man she met she accosted. Had he
a team? He had. How much would he
charge? Twenty-Five cents an hour.
He was engaged, and in two hours she had
got the berries from the station and sold
them. All her customers took two days
supply to help her out. But letter came
with the berries saying that 300 boxes would
come the next day. She was discouraged.
All her customers were supplied for the
next day. She didn't know where she
could sell berry. But she resolved to let
the morrow look ont for itself and went to
bed and to sleep.
In the morning as she approached the
Canadian Express office to receive her
berries, she suddenly received advice. She
heard no word nor whisper, but she heard
just as plainly as if spoken: go to Old
Orchard" She Lad never been there be-
fore or though of selling berries there.
She hurried to the Grand Trunk station.
Several crates of her berries were already
on the platform.
''Put those back in the car and bill them
to Old Orchard she said
She had just time to get the right car her.
self. Arrived at Old Orchard she got per-
mission to put her berries in the baggage
room. she found boy, and with his help
sold all ths 800 quarts, and for two cents
more quart than she could have received
in Portland.
That may have been luck of course, but
Mrs. Libby thinks differently. She never
has sold any berries in Old Orchard since.
In the last seventeen years she has sold
in the city an average of from 100 to 800
quarts daily during the season.
1,bo xx,,arriaS Loot aho1,+ fhraa re
and half, the raspberries the same and
the blackberries four weeks, though some
times six weeks if the frost is late This
year the S rawberries were and the rasp-
berries are scarcer than she has ever known
in her forty-one years of experience. She
says this is due to a late frost that blighted
the blossoms, and then drouth. She is only
getting now from thirty to forty boxes of
raspberries day. She has hardly enough
to supply the Ottawa house. But she ex-
poets plenty of blacKberries.
This is her last year as business woman
in Portland She thinks that forty years of
it is enough. She has sent her son to college.
He graduated at Bowdoin in 1882, and is
now successful lawyer in Gorham, N. H.,
and county attorney of Coos county.
She gave her daughter a musical education
and bought her d piano. She bought her
present farm of eighty acres and paid for it,.
She built her present large house. She was
twelve years doing it. But now it is fin
ished and paid for. 1t is a fine house with
eighteen rooms All this money she earned
in her business
Her husband has never been in good
health. He is now POSTMASTER atsLocke's
Mills.
Certainly Mrs. Libby's life is one of I'M
usual business achievement for a woman.
She is certainly entitled to claim that she
and that for forty Years She has carried #
on with great industry, ability and success
she is about to take. a well earned rest.
Certainly her life indicates, as she sc firm
ly believes, that God help those that help
themselves.