Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1898-12-05
A Thanksgiving Pie.

They lived up stairs in a small
frame house in one Of those convent
emit side-streets where one is always
sure Of finding a laundress or woman
for general house cleaning
They were not quite like the people
around them, the neighbors recognize
ed that They never leaned over the
fence for friendly visit, as the other
women did, with their back hair half
UNFINISHED, their calico wrappers I'M
buttoned at the throat, and their red
arms wet from the wash-tub. They
were tidy and honest, the neighbors
admitted, adding, half resentfully.
"and they kept themselves to them
selves"
1T doesn't matter about the neigh
borhood, mother" Samantha had
said, when they were considering the
rooms, 1--WE shan't have any time for
visiting"
So they moved their scanty bed
room furniture into the front room,
and their cooking-stove, tins and
dishes into the back room, and after
half a day spent in settling, called
themselves at home.
It was refuge, it was something to
be thankful for, to have roof over
ones head. Samantha and her mother
had learned that among numerous
other lessons since Samantha had
given up teaching.
She had resigned" the papers said;
so she had, at the suggestion of the
board who were ambitious to secure
younger teachers, trained in normal
schools, and with "up-to-date
methods, they explained to poor Sc
mantha, assuring her at the same
time that they appreciated her faith
fulness through long years of service.
They even passed vote of thanks
which they sent her copied in the new
vertical hand, SO unlike Semantha's
delicate slanting chirography, and
signed by all the members of the
board. Then they felt, or tried to
feel, that they had treated Samantha
generously. But they were relieved
when she and her mother left town.
It was painful to meet the two women
as the weeks passed, and to note how
anxious and pale their faces were
growing.
The wife of one OF the board asked
them to tea the night before they
left. She was a good woman, and
the invitation was kindly meant, so
that she felt hurt when note came
from Samantha thanking her, but
saying that she and her mother were
too tired to go out that evening.
A number of friends, among them
some of her scholars, went to the sta
ton to bid them goodbye, and one of
the big boys checked the old
fashioned trunk marked S. S. For
Samantha had been popular with the
boys and girls and had perhaps taught
them some things the new scholars
would never learn from the normal
school graduate who succeeded her.
There were many to advise them,
and there was hardly any part of the
country that some one of their
friends did not feel sure was just the
place for them. But Mrs. Snow and
Samantha talked it over together,
and announced that they had decided
to go west.
"S'manthy's young and strong"
said her mother, "an' 1 guess we'll
git along" Semantha's mother
could not realize that her daughter
was middle-aged woman. She was
only So" herself, and that was not
old in the New England town where
she had grown up and married-:-where
the doctor was Is and their minister
nearly 80, and both hale and hearty
still.
She and Samantha had an idea that
schools were not very plenty in the
west, and that "genteel private
school" could easily be established in
some good-sized, prosperous town,
and there was an exhilaration in the
prospect of the change that helped
both women to bear the strain of
parting from old friends and break
ing old ties.
But that was long past now-that
and the dream of establishing "gen-
teeI private school which Samantha
should conduct according to her own
ideas, with no interference from a
board of any description
Their little hoard of savings, drawn
from the bank in that far-off New
England home, had dwindled to a sum
OF alarming insignificance and Mrs
Snow and Samantha were thankful to-
bake bread and cookies for t!la Wo-
mans exchange, while waiting for
what Samantha called "an opening"
She paid the little boy down stairs
Is cents a week for delivering the
food for her, saying in excuse that
she could not be dressed for the street
and do the baking at the same time
She was ashamed to find how proud
she was, for Samantha had never
thought it disgrace to be poor.
tits strange, mother, how I've come
to feel" she said one evening, as
as they sat resting in the twilight,
with folded hands. 1T makes me think
of that story l used to laugh at,