Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1895-07-24
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Copyright by Bachelor. johnson q Bachelor
Copyright by Baeheller,Johnson 9 Bachellerl


fort, who had given her gold ring and
gold dollar for her name. Comfort
could not understand why. 1t always
seemed to her that her aunt and not
she had given the name, and that she
should have given the ring and the dol
lar, but that was what her mother had
told her. Your Aunt Comfort gave
you this beautiful gold ring and this
gold dollar for your name" said she.
The ring and the dollar were kept in
Mrs. Pease's little rosewood work box,
which she never used for needlework,
but as repository for her treasures.
Her best cameo brooch was in there,
too, and lock of hair of Comforts
baby brother, who died.
One of Comforts chiefest delights
was looking at her gold ring and gold
! dollar. When she was very good her
| mother would unlock the rosewood box
and let her see them. She had never
worn the ring; it was much too large
for her. Aunt Comfort and her mother
had each thought that it was foolish to
| buy a gold ring that she could out
grow. If it were a camelian ring
wouldn't care" said Aunt Comfort,
''but it does seem pity when it's q
real gold ring" So the ring was
| bought little too large for Comforts
mother. She was very small woman
and Comfort was large baby, and,
moreover, favored her fathers family,
who were all well grown, and Aunt
Comfort feared she might have larger
| fingers.
"Why, I've seen girls eight years old
with fingers a good deal bigger than
yours, Emily" she said. Suppose Com
fort shouldn't be able to get that ring
on her finger after she's eight years
old what pity 'twould be, when it's
real gold, too"
But when Comfort was eight years
| old she was very small for her age, and
| she could actually crowd two of her
| fingers, the little one and the third,
into the ring. She begged her mother
| to let her wear it so, but she would not.
mo-" said she, Il shan't let you make
| yourself laughing stock by wearing q
couldn't use your fingers. You've got
, to wait till your hand grows to it."
So poor little Comfort waited, but
she had q discouraged feeling some
times that her hand never would grow
to it. suppose 1 shouldn't be any
bigger than you, mother" she said,
couldn't l ever wear the ring?"
flush, you will be bigger than l am;
all your fathers folks are, and you look
l.
clusively, and Comfort tried to have
faith. The gold dollar also could only
impart the simple delight of possession
for it was not to be spent. II am go-
ing to give her gold dollar to keep be-
side the ring" Aunt Comfort had said.
"What is it for?" Comfort asked some-
times, when she gazed at it shining in
| its pink cotton bed in the top of the
workbox. Its to keep" answered her
mother. Comfort grew to have a feel
ing which she never expressed to any
body that her gold dollar was somehow
like Esau's birthright, and something
dreadful would happen to her if she
parted with it. She felt safer, because
''mess of pottagc" did not sound at
tractivc to her, and she did not think
she would ever be tempted to spend her
gold dollar for that.
Comfort went to school when she was
ten years old; she had not begun as
early as most of the other girls, be-
cause she lived three-quarters of mile
from the schoolhouse and had many
sore threats. The doctor had advised
her mother to teach her at home, and
she could do that because she had been
teacher herself when she was a girl.
Comfort had not been to school one
day before everybody in it knew about
her gold ring and her dollar, and it
happened in this way: She sat on the
bench between Rosy and Matilda
Stcbbins, and Rosy had n ring on the
middle finger of her left hand. Rosy
was a fair, pretty little girl, with long,
light curls, which all the other girls ad-
mired, and begged for the privilege of
twisting. Rosy at recess usually had
one or two of her friends standing at
her back twisting her soft curls over
their fingers.
Rosy wore pretty gowns and aprons
too, and she wasalways glancing down
to see if her skirt was spread out nice
ly when she sat on the bench. Her
sister, Matilda, had just as pretty
gowns, but she was not pretty herself.
However she was q better scholar, al,
though she was a year younger. That
day she kept glancing across Comfort
at her sister and her black eyes
twinl1led angrily. Rosy sometimes sat
with her left hand pressed affectedly
against her pink check, with the ring
finger bent slightly outward, and then
she held up her spelling book before
her with her left hand, and the same
ostentatious finger.
Finally Matilda lost her patience, and
she whispered across Comfort Pease.
"You act like q ninny," said she to
Rosy, with fierce quicker of her red
lips and black twinkle of eyes.
Rosy looked at her and the pink
spread softly all over her face and neck,
but she still held her spelling book
high, and the middle finger with the
ring wiggled at the back of it.
at amt anything but brass neither"