The News-Herald. [volume] (Hillsboro, Highland Co., Ohio) 1886-1973, 1901-01-03

M RS. MORGAN kept working
Vf mems boarding house, down
near the railroad tracks, and per-
petual odor of fried steak and on.
ions and boiled cabbage pervaded
the dingy halls, and saluted you as
you opened the front door. Life there
resolved itself into procession OF
tired men who stumbled up the steep
steps at night, or heaved themselves
down at the table and ate ravenously
of the heavy food, or smoked short
pipes in their shirt sleeves on the door.
step in the evenings. 1t was the last
place on earth where you would have
looked for a romance, yet, nevertheless,
it was the home of an idealist whose
soul scared far above her sordid sur
roundings, into world of fancy where
such things as grimy men with cal.
loused palms were unknown, and a
putty pipe would have been an impos
sibility.
This was Mrs. Morgan's daughter
Mamie Mrs. Morgan, in talking about
her, always dwelt fondly on the fact
that Mamie had had advantages,
which, being interpreted, meant that
she had been ground through few
grades in the public school. where she
had acquired passion for novel read
ing and a profound contempt for the
station in life to which she had been
born. In her mothers adoring opinion
this passed for culture, and she never
looked at Mamie's soft white hands, sc
different from her own work-hardened
ones. or at Mamie's slim young figure
in its pretty, cheap finery. so different
from her own toll bent one, without
thrill of pride that she had raised"
the girl above herself.
The little tragedy of the mother who
makes willing slave of herself in order
to indulge her daughter is so common
we scarcely notice it. Assuredly
neither Mrs. Morgan nor Mamie saw
anything strange or culpable in the
mother spending her days cooking end
less meals, washing endless dishes,
and making endless beds, while the
girl gossiped with her friends in the
shabby parlor, or read the novels in
which her soul delighted.
mamie don't take to housework,
and she amt got to, long as live" her
mother would say, and left free to fol.
low her own devices Mamie reveled in
lurid romances where the beautiful but
impecunious and lowly born heroine is
importuned by Sir Reginald de Mont
morenci to share his coronet. or where,
after impossible scenes of carnage and
daring, the hero succeeds in rescuing
the noble Lady Clara De Beauchamr
from her enemies. and is rewarded with
the hand of that august and frigid lady
in marriage.
If she had only been content with
what real life had to offer her. Mamie
would have had no time to find her love
%stories in books. She was an extre mely
pretty girl, with skin like milk and
eyes as blue as a summer sky, and there
was no lack of honest-hearted young
fellows who would gladly have mar.
ried her, but she would have none of
them.
''She's looking out for one of them
hero chaps whatwears silk hats. and
smokes cigarettes. and don't get his
hands dirty, like what's in the I'm books
she's always reading" one of her dis.
comfited suitors had declared. resent.
fully.
"An' what If am. Sim Reeves" she
had flashed back in sudden wrath,
"what if | am looking for man what s
got more spunk than TO sit down cross.
legged and sew an patch all day like
a woman? Anyway. don't you worry
When / start out to look for hero
won't come round your way"
Other men had come and gone, and
paid their court to the romantic and
scornful maiden. and had taken their
blighted affections. elsewhere for con.
ISOLATION. but Tim Neely had been faith.
full through il all.
He was big, good-natured teamster
with hand as large as s.edge ham
merandas gentle as chi!d's. For three
years he had occupied Mrs, Morgan's
second story back, and during all that
time he had laid patient siege to Ma
mics heart, with devotion as faithful
as dogs. He surrounded her with
boundless love and tenderness. but he
was too humble to urge his own merits
least of all to dream how much too good
he was for the silly, selfish girl.
"I-I-I-know | ain't much to lool
at like them feliers what's you're al
ways readin' about" he said, deprecat-
ingly, to her, ,"but got $50 a month,
an something laid by in de bank, an
an'-I amt never drove hoss that
wouldn't follow me round de stable
yard"
II know, Tm," the girl answered.
An / wish could love you. Honest, l
do; but it jest seems to me like can't
marry any man thats just everyday
common kind of folks like I've knowed
ever sence ! was born, that don't think
bout nothing but just Getting, and
sleeping, and working. just got to
have somebody that's hero and ro-
mantic."