River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1898-03-03
3COMRADES |
9 BY Louise E. Van Norman.
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4 always been friends since-well,
nince we wore dresses together. That
was when | was five and she was four
+ We were, from that time, always to-
! pether. Like brother and sister, you
say? More than this. For brothers
and sisters are not always close friends
We were chums. She went everywhere
/ went and did everything | did, and
as we grew up to boyhoOd and girlhood
we were inseparable. Even when had
attained the dignity of long pants
preferred her society to that of my
male friends, for there was nothing
soft about Tessie, except, perhaps, heI
eyes, and they were beautiful, soft
hazel.
She was strong and athletic, but of a
slender build; could drive, row and
swim as well as l could; and had a
complexion well Drowned by a long and
intimate acquaintance with Gods sun
light. 4 brave girl, too. l remember
well how once she swan across a quar-
ter Of n mile of choppy river to get the
doctor for that grumpy old Sarah Tore
T the lighthouse keepers wife. She loved
/ the cross old woman, she said, although
no one else saw anything in her TO love
Then Tess went to boarding school
and came back at the end of three years
with a little of that horrible tan
that's what her proper sister Laura
called it-gone out of her checks, and
lust the faintest trace of city manners
about her; but at heart the same dear
old Tess as ever.
Now, although my girl friend and
had known each other so long and SO
intimately, yet we had never fallen in
love with each other. l am positive OF
this, because when l got soft on Jennie
Bingham and Iayisbed all my money on
flowers for her, Tess only laughed
Then there was the time fell head over
heels in love with dashing Cora Sands
Why, then l had it bad. | got TO the
stage where YOU moon around street
corners and carve her name on old
stumps and gate posts. | even wrote
my name and hers together on the mar.
riage page of the old family Bible, just
to see how it would look, aud then
rubbed II out in guilty haste. Even then
didn't Tessie get up the lawn party and
maneuver 50 that Cora and l were part
ners for the whole evening. And then
there was the Jack Manners episode
Jack quite lost his head over Tess, and
asked her father if he could marry her
] think he even proposed elopement tc
Tessie But She didn't love Jack, she
said, and so wouldn't hear of his vast
ing any time or money on her. And
didn't feel a bit jealous. l am sure
didn't. So you see it's quite plain that
we had not given the mischieyous lit
lie god Cupid any work to do for rs
But now ! was 20 and Tessie 10, and
somehow, rs | took the shapely little
hand she offered me to welcome her
back, after those three years at school
somehow it came to me suddenly that
Tess was a beautiful girl, and that her
eyes were bewitching. And there came
into my heart 4 strange, uncomfortable
/ feeling dissatisfaction, jealousy
what was it? 1t certainly was not
pleasant. Suppose some one should
/ take it into his head 10 fall in love with
Tessie and marry her? Confound him!
But then, what was that to me? l was
not in love with her. OF course not.
We were only friends. And yet l in
stinctivcly disliked this fellow who
might make love to my girl chum.
The summer l wish particularly to
/ tel you Of, the one following Tessies
return from school, our folks and her
folks decided to spend the hot season
/ at little mountain hamlet with an I'M
+ pronouncable name mixture OF
French and Indiau-3O miles or so to
/ tile north of Lake Superior. We had al
ready spent one season there and knew
/ Of a good boarding house where they
gave you enough to eat, and were toe
unsophisticated 10 charge a ruinous
price. TWAS a one-horse sort of place.
containing about a dozen families,
mostly French Canadian habitants,
i primitive as Noah. Two or three hay
seed Yankees came there in the logging
season and spent the summer in Du-
/ luth. The population numbered about
100 persons. The town was perched
right on the side of n l,3OO-foot-hirb
/ hill. Dover mountain, they called it
/ Directly back Of this hill--in fact, al
most a continuation of it-ruse a tall
pointed mountain about 5000 feet high
which the French habitants called
/ Ducre's Spine. This eminencc. as well
as the Hill on which the little village Law,
/ as though it had been dropped there,
+ was very thickIy wooded. Just a little
4 space close about the houses had been
/ cleared OF trees, while for miles around
t extended the dense virgin forest, most
Of whose heavy growth of pine. cedar
! chestnut, oak and hickory, besides a
/ rank underground of sumac and scrub
+ oak, had never been desecrated by the
+ woodlands aN.
+ The folks were 10 go mp to this wild
retreat early in the summer. and was
I to join them in August, when got my
vacation.
The railroad by which one reached
/ this out-of-the-way place followed the
shore Of the mighty Lake Superior for
+ about 100 miles from Duluth, and then
/ struck into the forest for short dis
lance to avoid a great mass of basalt
/ rock, too hard 10 tunnel through, the
+ tracks coming close to the waters edge
again about five or six miles from where
Z lICN ttlt IT, a ASl NAGlG AAiE iQAu " ds
farihest from the lake, at the most
northeasterly point of the detour. the
train slowed up a moment to let off any
passenger for the place with the long
name. The hamlet boosted no station,
only platform of rough. unhewn logs.
From this point there wound up
+ through the thick forest a narrow, tor
tuous road, rough and stony, and dark
even in the daytime, from the overarch-
+ ing trees, M to the houses on the hill
side. OuJy one train a day stopped
/ there, at $3.50. and they always drove
from the boarding house to meet ii
/ in an autiquated. nondeseript vehicle
that might have come out OF the ark.
This was q tVyo-wheeied rig, the wheels
thick, rough slices cut from hickory
log The horse usually attached to it,
he WAS the only being attached in any
/ way TO the unloyely thing 4 Dig
nitied, conservative animal, fun OF