Spirit of the age. [volume] (Woodstock, Vt.) 1845-1913, 1898-02-05

H~ aHl L%J.NA. dresses to-
= - ~Ss, .l ssther: s,.H That +
was five and she was four. We were,
from that time, always together. Like
brother and sister, you say? More
than this. For brothers and sisters
are not always close friends. We
were chums. She went everywhere I
went and did everything / did, and,
as we grew up to boyhood and girl
hood we were inseparable, Even
when [ had attained the dignity of
long pants I preferred her society to
that of my male friends, for there was
nothing soft about Tessie, except, per-
haps, her eyes, and they were Il
beautiful. soft hazel.
She was strong and athletic, but of
a slender build; could drive, row and
swim as well as I could; and had
complexion we'll Drowned by long
and intimate acquaintance with Gods
sunlight A brave girl, too. 1 re-
member well how once she swan
across quarter of mile of choppy
river to get the doctor for that grumpy
old Sarah Tore, the lighthouse keep
er's wife. She loved the cross old
woman, she said, although no one else
saw anything i'll her to love.
Then Tess went to boarding school
and came back at the end of three
years with little of that ''horrible
tan''-that's what her proper sister
Laura called it-gone out of her
cheeks, and just the faintest trace of
city manners about her; but at heart
the same dear old Tess as ever.
Now, although my girl friend and I
had known each other so long and so
intimately, yet we had never fallen in
love with each other. I am positive
of this, because when 1 got soft on
Jennie Bingham and layished all my
money on flowers for her, Tess only
laughed. Then there was the time
I fell head over heels in love with
dashins Cora Sands. Why, then had
it bad. 1 got to the stage where you
moon around street corners and carve
her name on old stumps and gate
posts. 1 even wrote my name and
hers together ON the marriage page of
the old family Bible. Just to see how
it would look, and then rubbed it ont
in guilty haste. Even then didn't
Tessie get mp the lawn party and ma
neuvrc so that Cora and ] 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 conld marry her.
] think he even proposed elopement to
Tessie. But she didn't love Jack. she
said and 50 wouldn't hear of his vast
ing any time or money on her. And
l didn't feel bit Jealous. T am sure
7 didn't. So you see it's quite plain
that we had not given the mischlevOu5
little god Cupid any work to do for
MS. But now / was twenty and Tes-
sic nineteen, and somehow, as l 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
beautiful girl, and that her eyes were
bewitching. And there came into my
heart strange, uncomfortable feel
ing dissatisfaction, jealousy-w what
was it? 1t certainly was not pleasant.
Suppose some one should take it into
his heal to fall in love with Tessie
aud marry her? Confound him! But
then, what was that to me? I was
not in love with her. OF course not.
We were simply friends. And yet L
instinotively disliked this fellow who
might make love to my girl chum.
The summer | wish particularly to
tell you of, the one following Tessie's
return from school, our folks and her
folks decided to spend the hot season
at little mountain hamlet with an un-
pronounceabie name-a mixture of
French and Indian thirty miles or so
to the north of Lake Superior. We
had already spent one season there
aud knew of good boarding house
where they gave you enough to eat,
and were too unsophisticated to charge
a ruinous price. 1t was n one-horse
sort of II place, containing about Il
dozen families, mostly French Cana
''At'' 'is''itth'T' II NN
The population numbered about one
hundred persons. The town was
perched right on the side of thirteen
hundrel-foot-high hill. Dover Noun
tain, they called it, Directly back of
this hill-in fact. almost continual
tion OF it-rose Il tall. pointed noun
tain about three thousand feet high,
which the French habitants called
Ducre's Spine. This eminence. as
well as the hill on which the little vii
lage lay, as though it had been dropped
there, was very thickly wooded. just
n little space close about the houses
had been cleared of trees, while for
miles around extended the dense vir.
gin forest, most of whose heavy growth
of pine. cedar. chestnut, oak and
hickory, besides rank underground
of sumac and scrub oak. had never
been desecrated by the woodlands ax.
The folks were to go M to this wild
retrea! early in the summer, and I was
to join them in August, when l 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 one hundred miles from Dulnth.
and then struck into the forest for a
short distance to avoid a great mass
OF basait rock, too hard to tunnel
through. the tracks coming close to
the waters edge again about five or
six miles from where they left it, Just
where the road was farthest from the
lake. at the most northeasterly point
of ths ,letour the train slowau m a