The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1896-03-19

SUDuIleEo, BlII tIIS Ulu not uIi!lGI-u
Mary's Joy over her restored first born.
Even its utter absence Of features was
no defect in a family where features
were as eyanescent as in hers. and the
most OJdinBry student Of evolution
could see that the ''Amplach.' ninepins
were iG legitimate succession 10 the
globuiar headed Misery For time
L think Mary even preferred her to
the others. Howbeit il was pretty
sight to see herOna summer afternoon
sitting upon a wayside stump her
other children dutifuIly arranged
around her. with the hard. unfeeling
head Of Misery pressed deep down
into her loving little heart. as she
sWayad from side 70 side. grooming
her pIaintiye lullaby. Small wonder
that the bees took up The song and
dT0ned slulnbrOus accompaniment.
or that high above her head the enor
nous pines stirred through their
depths by the soft Sierra air-or
Heaven knows what let slip flicker
ing lights and SHADOWS to play over
that east iron face. until the child
looking down upon it with the quick.
transforming power Of love. Thought
that il smiled,
The tTo remaining members Of the
family were less distinctive. "Glori-
ana'-pr pronounced as two words:
Glory Anna" being the work Of her
father who also named it, was Simply
4 cylindrical roll OF canvass wagon
covering girt so as to define a neck
and waist, with d rudely mixed face
a weak. pitiabIe. manlike
Inventions; and Johnny Dear" allpg
ed to be the representative Of John
Doremus," a young store keeper who
occasionally supplied Mary with gla-
tuitous sweets. Mary never admitted
this, and as we were all gentlemen
along that road, we were blind to the
suggestion. johnny Dear" was or
iginaIly q small, plaster prenogoIical
east OF head and bust, begged from
some shop window in the county town
with q body clearly constructed by
Mary herself 1t was an ominous
fact that 1t was always dressed as
boy and was distinctly the most hu
man looking Of her progeny. Indeed.
ia spite Of the faculties that were
-egibly printed all over its smooth.
white, hairless head. it was appalling
y lIfelike. Left sometimes by Mary
astrlde of the branch of a waysido
tree, Lorsemen had been known to dis
mount hurriedly and examine il, re
turning with mystical smile, and it
was OF record that Yuba Bill had once
pulled up the Pioneer coach at the
request of the curious and implOring
and then grimly installed
johnny Dear beside him on the box
seat, publicly delivering him to Mary
1t Big Bend, to wideey eyed confusion,
and the first blush we had ever seen
)n her round. chubby sunburnt checks.
Ii may seem strange that with her
great popularity and her well known
instincts she had not been
kept fully supplied with proper and
more conventional dolls. but II was
soon recognized that she did not care
for them left their waxen faces. roll
Ing eyes and abundant hair in bitches
OF stripped them to help clothe the
more eXtrayagant creatures OF her
fancy. so il came, that Johnny
Dear's'' strictly classical profile looked
ont from under a girls fashionable
straw sailor hat 10 the utter 0blltera-
ton Of MS prominent intellectual ia
culties. the Amplach twins wore bon
netS on their nine pin heads, and even
an attempt was made to fix tlaxen
scalp on the iron headed Misery. But
her dolls We're always q creation of her
own her affection for them increas-
ing with the demand upon her imagin-
auOn. This may be somewhat incon-
7istent with her habit Of occasionally
abandoning them in the woods or in
the bitches. But she had an unbound
ed confidence in the kindly maternity
Of nature. and trusted her children 10
the breast Of the Great Mother as
freely as she did herself in her own
And this confidence
was rarely betrayed. Ratz. mice,
snails. wildcat, panther and bear never
touched her lost waits Even the
elements were kindly: an Amplach
twin buried under a snow drift in high
attitudes reappeared smilingly in the
spring II all its wooden and painted
integrity. We were all Pantheists
then-and believed this implicitly. 1t
was only when exposed to the niider
forces Of civilization that Mary had
to fear. Yet even then when
Patsy O'Connor's domestic goat bad
once tried to sample the lost Misery
be had retreated with the loss of three
front teeth and Ihompson's mule came
out OF an encounter with that iron
headed prodigy with a sprained hind
leg and cut and swollen pastern.
But these were the simple Arcadian
days Of the road between Big Bend
aud Reno, and progress and pros per
lty. alas, brought changes in their
wake. 1t was already whispered that
Mary ought to be going to school. and
Mr.. Amplach-still happily obliyioua
of the liberties taken with his name
as trustee of the public school at
Duckyille had intimatel that Mary's
bohemian wanderings were a scanda.
to the county She was growing up
in ignorance, a dreadful ignorance Of
everything that bat the chiyalry. the
deep tenderness, the delicacy and un-
selhshuesa Of the rude men around her
and obhviousness Of faith in anything
but the immeasurabIe bounty Of nature
toward her and her children. or
course there was fierce discussion
between the boys" of the road aud
the few married families of the settle
ment on this point, but Of course pro
gress and .'sniyelization' as the boys
chose tocail it-triumphea The pro
lection Of a railroad settled it; Robert
Foulkes, promoted to q tiremarship
On division Of the line, was mode to
understand that his daughter must be,
educated. But the terrible question
Of Mary's family remained. No school
would open its doors TO that hetero
geneOus collection. and 1Iary's little
no9Vf won ld b1v, I-,Dl-n, yy.o,. h , ~, 7 r,