The Virginia enterprise. [volume] (Virginia, St. Louis County, Minn.) 1893-19??, 1898-06-03

the other and then shuffles to the door.
swell, Miss Patience" he says sheepish-
~. and yet with a look of mulish deter
NINA ton, "mebbe you's right, but if she
makes it hot for me kin git out like all
de rest, an r.y stepmaw makes me pay
her fur doin' my washing, SO might ez
we'll git married an I'se gwine to git er
bedstid an fifty pounds er meat and hat
| barrel. err -four; an hot or no hot, Is
gwine ter be married anyhow"
Somehow the words rouse a responsive
echo which is never quite silent in Miss
Patience's heart, and as "Wash" disap-
pears she looks after him and signs. 1t
marrying: 1t is as if for years she has
stood and watched closed gate behind
which lies beautiful land filled with light
and love; from time to time she has seen
radiant girls crowned with snowy flowers
pass through, and though some have
passed only to meet death and others to
| find care and trouble, still there have been
many who have been happy-supremely
happy, it seems to Miss Patience, as she
keeps her lonely watch.
Once she had hoped that the gate might
open to her; but the angel of death had
stepped between with his terrible silence.
and tonight she is only a poor old maid,
too old for the pleasures of youth and too
young to be contented with the torpid
VI Olu uSe she mas uOtuluEs
to love but Tommy" a vicious gray cat
with wicked green eyes, whom she pets
and sometimes cries over little, because
Angus McNeal had given her Tommy's
grandmother when she was little fluffy
ball of kitten with frivolous propensity
for chasing her tail.
When Miss Patience looked back on her
own life she always said candidly to her
self that though she would have liked to
marry pOn6 nrnviHol ho did
have hump or squint, or was rot
especially repulsiye in any way. and would
have been much happier as wife than as
a maid, still Angus McNeal was the only
man she had ever really loved-the only
one to whom she had ever written any
poetry and the only one-though that took
more moral courage to .admit--who had
overlook her lack of beauty and find
charm about her pale face framed in scan
ty light hair that would never stay
in curl. So many years of youth nature
is impartial i'll giving to each of us, wheth-
er we be rich, or poor, and Miss Patience
had been young, but she had no beauty
either of face or form and no brilliancy
of mind to lend piquancy to her plain face.
Therefore suitors had not been plentiful,
and only Angus had seemed to care for
her q little, and to divine what kind,
warm heart beat beneath the fat bosom
of her dress. Whether he had really loved
her or not was a question which was new
er answered: Perhaps he did,. and if he
had lived her life might have been diff
ferent and a fuller one, out Angus died,
and with him all the happy possibilities
which the future held. There had been
no regular engagement between them. He
had been as attentive to fully dozen
other girls during his sojourn in the little
town, but no one had ever been SO atten-
tive to Miss. Patience before. When he
died of fever, after few days of fierce
we'll scene by his deathbed no loving
words to cheer her forlorn heart through
the low]y creeping years to come, with the
assurance that he had loved her and to
invest her with a new interest to the
young and romantic.
1t had been only the shadow of a TO-
nance, but it was very real to her, and no
his funeral, with the red nose and eyes,
had cast the best love of her heart in his
grave along with the bunch of viOlets on
his coffin. A few of her dear friends re-
marked, soto voce, that it was pity
the poor thing was SO susceptible and
couldn't hide her grief for a man who
had only been ordinarily civil to her, and
| that she wanted to get married badly, but
| was much too plain to succeed. Then
this matter was forgotten, along with An
gus in his quiet grave. This world has a
way of considering it very ridiculous for
a single woman to wish to be married be-
fore she is asked, and yet every defect
and twist in her nature is explained by
the fact that she is an old maid.
rolled relentlessly by, long more and more
for home-not a house, for she had that,
but home where she would be busy and
happy and rear healthy little children to
love and cook and sew for, though she
never for one moment felt that any man
could be what Angus might have been
but never was to her. Now and then she
has seen man whom she has felt is her
ideal of what a man should be and just
calculated to make the head of happy
home and has attended tea drinkings and
sociables with an added interest, and per-
haps worn ribbons a shade gayer and
taken to prepared chalk and false curls,
but nothing has ever come of it but disap-
pointmcnt. Such incidents, though they
to Angus, have in the end only served to
make her cling to his memory more.
And now "Wash"-even "Wash,"
whom she had thought a mere boy and
who totes" in the woods going to be
married too. OF course it doesn't really
matter, but it gives her little feeling Of
added loneliness. She opens the kitchen
thinks, as she has done every day and
night since Angus died, with a devotion
| which has something beautiful in it, of
his grave. which lies SO still and green
not very far away.
Everybody is getting married but
me-" she says to herself. Everybody
but me, and l am not going to think Of
~ and had a happy home and somebody
to work for and love, although l do warn
young people against it, just as father
| and mother and al the folks who are
dead used to warn me. 1t may be dan
gerOus, just .as they said, but l would
have been willing to take the risk. But
the years are passing by and I'm get
would be too late to change now, even if
l had the chance. The stars shine bright
est on a dark night, and so''-thinking of
the few days of dear joy she had known
| when Angus lived-"all the memories of
these little things which cheer my life
now seem the brighter because l have
nothing else"
Fastening the kitchen door she goes
slowly up to her room, where Angus
picture hangs dim and faded, but smiling
| and comely yet-alas! that q frail bit Of
pasteboard should last SO many years
longer than strong man-above an an
cient chest of drawers, which holds few
dainty garments. It was the beginning
of n trousseau commenced tribe pre-
cipitately, after the evening Angus had
brought her Tommy's grandmother, TWEEN
ty years ago. She had needed clothes
sorely since, but she had never had the
heart to wear those. Tonight she opens
| the drawer and looks at them, and then
lays them back one by one, lingering
longer over the gown, dainty garment
of cambria and lace, wrought with the
toll of her hands and fashioned when she
sat by herself at night. 8sz5 Eli 81 I
IL wouldn't suit my old face nov, 9
she says to hefs<lf =. but I'll be buried Is