The Virginia enterprise. [volume] (Virginia, St. Louis County, Minn.) 1893-19??, 1902-10-31


without one; then in again with one. She
piled them up in heap on the floor in
corner.
They'll hev to go up on that shelf over
the mantel,' said she, tomorrow. l
can't get 'em up thar tonight an go to
meet;n' nohow:'
l. She had double shelf of implanted
pine rigggcd over the ordinary one for her
squashes. 90
| After the squashes were all in, Ann
took off her shawl and hung it on a nail
behind the kitchen door. Then she set
her bowl of smoking hot tomato stew Oh
| little table between the windows, and
| sat down contentedly.
There was white cloth on the table
and some bread and butter and pie be-
sides the stew. Ann looked at it solemn
". I'D orter be thankful said She
That was her way of saying grace. Then
she fell to eating with relish.
This solemn, spiritual looking old
lookout for it. Perhaps she got spirit
ual enjoyment out of it, too, besides the
lower material one. Perhaps hot stewed
tomatoes. made savory with butter and
| pepper and salt, on a frosty November
night. had for ner a subtle flavor of home
comfort and shelter and coziness appeal
ingly to her imagination, besides the COM
,noner one appealing to her palate.
| Before anything else, though-befo1e
seating herself-she had given her cat his
saucer of warm milk in snug corner by
the stove. He was beautiful little ami
NAL, with handsome, dark striped coat
on his back, and white paws and face.
| When he had finished tapping his milk.
he came and stood beside his mistress
chair while she ate and purred-he rarely
mewed-and she gave him bits of bread
from her plate now and then. She ta]ket.
to him, too. "Nice Willy" said she,
nice cat. Got up on the window to see
me bring in the squashes, didn't he
There's beautiful lot OF 'em, an he shall
hev some stewed for his dinner tomor-
| row. so he SHALL
And the cat would purr, and rub his
soft coat against her, and look as if he
knew just what she meant. T.. 49,
There was prayer meeting in, the
! church that evening. and Ann Milet
went. She never missed one. The min,
lister, when he entered, always found her
| sitting there at the head of the third
seat from the front, in the right hand
row-always in the same place, meek,
erect little figure, in a poor. tidy, black
bonnet and an. obsolete black coat with
no seam in the whole of the voluminous
back. That had been the style OF outside
garments when Miss Millet had laid aside
drcssnaking, and she had never gone a
step further in fashions. She had stopped
| just where she was, and treated her old
patterns as conservatively as she did her
Bible.
| She had had pretty voice, people said,
when she WAS young, and she sang now
in thin sweet quaver, the hymns which
the minister gave out. She listened in
solemn enjoyment to the stereotyped
prayers and the speakers remarks. He
was a dull, middle-aged preacher in a
country town.
| After meeting, Ann went up and told
him how much she had enjoyed his re-
marks, and inquired after his wife and
children. She always did. To her min
lister was an unpublished apostle, and his
wife and children set apart OH the earth.
No matter how duh parson labored
here, he would always have disciple in
this old woman.
! When Ann had walked home through
the frosty starlight, she lit her lamp first,
and then she called her cat. She had ex
rected to find him waiting to be let in,
but he was not. She stood on her little
piazza, which ran along the rear corner
of her house by her kitchen door, and
called, "Willy! Willy! Willy!''
She thought every minute she would
see him come bounding around the corner,
but she did not. She called over and
over, in her shrill, anxious pipe, "Willy !!
Willy! Willy! Kitty. Kitty, Kitty"
Finally she went into the house and
waited awhile, crouching, shivering with
cold and nervousness, over the kitchen
stove. Then she went outside and called
again, ''Wi]ly! Willy! Willy" over and
over, waiting between the calls, trem-
bling. her dull old ears alert, her dim old
eyes strained. She ran out to the road,
and looked and called, and down to the
dreary garden patch behind the house
among the withered corn stalks and
Wondering squash vines all white with
frost. Once her heart leaped. She
thought she saw Willy coming; but it
was only black cat belonging to ore of
the neighbors. Then she went into IT,,
house and waited little while; then out
again calling shril]y, ''Willy! Willy!
Willy! Wl]ly!"
There were northern lights streaking
the sky; the stars shone steadily through
the rosy glow; it was very still and lone.
some and cold. The little thin shivering
Old woman standing outdoors, all alone
in the rude chilly night air, under these
splendid stars and streaming lights,
called over ard over the poor little
creature which was everything earthly
she had to keep her company in the great
universe in which she herself was so
small.
"oh. Willy! Willy! Willy!" called Ann.
"Oh, where is that cat? Oh, dear! Willy!
Willy"
She spent the night that way Mrs.
Stones daughter, Ruth, who was up with
a sick child. heard her.
Miss Millet must have lost her cat,''
she told her mother in the morning. Il
heard her calling her all night long,
Pretty soon, indeed, Ann came over,
her small old face wild and wan.
| ''Hev We seen anything of Willy?" she
asked. "He's been out all night, an I'm
afraid sometimes happened to him. l