Wauwatosa news. [volume] (Wauwatosa, Wis.) 1900-1948, 1902-05-31
CHAPTER I.

The single street or Gray borough runs
down hills that face the sea on that rock
bound coast of Maine where all winter
long. turbulent waves show changing gray
faces to gray sky. Far out are little
islands of stones that serve as picturesque
visions for summer tourists and, when
the storms come down, eat ships. 1t is
A community of shOpkeepers, boarding
house keepers, retired seamen, resident
,srmers. a lawyer or two, one doctor,
four ministers, a woman who writes for
fiction weeklies, and is therefore a liter
airy person, seagOing men who sail along
the coast in sch0oners, and lisJless me-
chanics, carpenters, wheelwrightS, ana
SO on. For three hundred years the
same families have lived there and they
have intermarried until every one is akin
10 every one else. You cannot stand in
front of the little hotel and say that Jede-
diah Robbins is skinfint without arous-
ing the wrath of Mehitabel Brown, whose
eat-grandmother married a great-grand-
second cousin of Robbins In the summer
time, occasional visitors come from the
great cities, attracted there by the sting
ing salt air and quiet. For six weeks
the place is excited into spasms by men
in knickerbockers, girls in bicycle skirts,
the whack of tennis rackets, the click of
golf balls, moonlight firtations, mandolin
seemades, light laughter and song. The
residents look with set reproving faces
upon these evidences of immortality and
when the chill September has come settle
back into the wonted routine with gossip
material to last them through the winter.
The life in Grayborough is hard, mar
row, devotional, monotonous. In 1897
old Ephraim Butler, who used to be mate
Of the schooner Polly" to and from the
Bermudas for onions, went to Bangor,
stayed three days and returned with
quart of Medford rum, from which he
publicly and fearlessly drank in Samuel
Higgins grocery. 1t will take him three
years longer to regain his social status
Near the end of the street furthest
from the bay lives Miss Tabitha English.
who owns to forty-fve years. She is
narrow hipped and fat bosomed with
iron gray hair, thin lips and large nose.
Earlier in life she had leanings toward
Cniversalism, but has repented and is
now an earnest Presbyterian. She has a
little house and a little garden and a lit
lie income derived from her fathers es-
tate With her lived her niece Lois
English. As the story under narration
is practicall. the story Of this young
woman, it Is proper here to state who
and what she was.
In that staid, still. somber town she
doomed as some strange tropical flower
might bloom for an hour upon a rock
ribbed pinnacle of Greenland. She was
Of straight New England strain except
that three generations back upon the dis
taft side of the house there had been an
admiXture of French blood from Canada,
and in her the deathless Latin fire show
ed as it had showed in her mother and
her mothers mother. With this dash of
the fiery song-inspired fluid of Provence
came her name, Lois. Her mother had
died when the child was five months old
Three years later her father, as brave
and competent a seaman as ever set his
life upon east in all those stormy wat
ers, went to a grave which had yawned
before him since his boyhood. Aunt Ia
bitha took the infant and reared her into
Womanhood according to her lights.
which were dim, but steady. The girl,
showing evidence even when a child of
strange beauty and strange contradic-
tons of character, went through the pub-
.!c school at Grayborough, through the
high school at Augusta and through a
modest seminary for young ladies in Mas
sachusetts. Her father had left enough
money to educate her and the wish that it
should be expended in fitting her for
battle with the world. Her rigid aunt
scrnpulously accounted for every dollar
OF 1t. Subsequently Lois was trained for
year as a professional nurse in Phila-
de!phla, sickened of the business, attend
Cd Normal or two and became Il
school teacher. She spoke German slow
" but correctly and, as a gift Of hered-
lily, battered French with the soft slurs
ana ease Of the people just above Mar
settles. She was an expert needlewOrker
and fair musician, possessing a con
ralto voice of wonderful depth and pur-
ny with a strange pathos and passion
IN 1t that sounded strangely to the peo-
Pie among whom she was born. Upon
me native warmth Of her character was
grated through early environment a GER
IAN repression of manner. She walked
among them a volcano of an icy outward
seeming. Thoroughly pure thoroughly
honest disdainful OF petty trick or arti-
nee with dreams which she dreamed
@.ohe and ambitions which she stifed or
l'a' she went her way, utterly out of
sympathy with the small village affairs
winch made up her aunt's existence, Sc
Heuy longing to escape, yet owning the
Ophgauon fastened upon her by that an
N'flt maiden and determined TO repay it
WIN eompanionship and help. though her
IVA young life burnt itself out and be-
o'He ashes 1u,ng the hard years which
ere 70 follow. She worked with her
Nv pupils mornings and afternoons and
" evenings she devoted TO making the
'"We life more cheerful. 1t was a task
eeyohd the strength Of the strongest, be-
r Use mere was no cheer in Miss Tabitha
English. She had no sense of humor; no
r,--'4 I,r Of the large affairs of the
9''a, no interest in anything which was
~'. OF Grayborough.
IA twenty-five years of age Lois Eng
SI stood FIVE feet FIVE inches in her high
'sned stockinged feet. Her shoulders
t. re broad and sloping. surmounted by
iul white column Of throat on which
eAla4l head was lightly poised Hap skin