Williston graphic. (Williston, Williams County, N.D.) 1895-1919, 1902-07-24
A PUFF OF Of WIND.
T had been an unfortunate session
Observation-Disclosures

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7 r had been an unfortunate session
i for Miss Peek, the principal and
proprietrix of the seminary for
young ladies at No., 80 Blanlzview
Terrace. About year previously,
in the fond expectation of receiving
large number of advanced pupils,
Miss. Peek had engaged several extra
assistants capable of teaching adj
vanced subjects at advanced salaries;
but at the beginning of the session,
in spite of dilgent advertising and
delivering Of pink-covered prospect
uses, her anticipations had been
but meagerly realized.
Now, at the close of the last term,
she had leisure to brood over the de-
plorable fact that she had paid more
to her assistants than she had re-
ceived from her pupils, and to wonder
whether she could venture to carry
on her establishment for another
year. No one had any idea that she
was in difficulties, for she had man
aged to scrape enough sovereigns to-
gether to settle with her assistants
/ apd to entertain the parents and
friends of her pupils on the prize
giving day in such fashion as to
convince them that the school was
in most fourishing condition; and,
while the parents and friends and the
emancipated scholars gobbled up the
ices and teas and buns provided for
them in the music room, they little
dreamed of the months Of starvation
which those dainties had cost Miss
Peek, who at the moment was rush
ing about smiling and talking to
everybody in the brightest manner
Imaginable. Even the housekeeper
was ignorant of the true state of
affairs; for Miss Peek early in the
session had led her to believe that
the wretched diet she INDUCED in
was according to doctors orders"
It was not until the house was
quiet and empty that Miss Peek, as
has been said, came to consider the
results of the dismal farce in which
she had played the leading part for
nearly ten months. The afternoon
following the breakup she sat at the
desk in her little parlor, porting over
a ledger, every page of which bore
some depressing detail. The win
dow was open, for it was blazing
day in the end of June, and now and
then puff of warm wind stirred the
fading hair ON her temples and
played fippantly with sheaf of un-
paid bills that lay on one side of the
desk.
''Quite- quite hopeless!" sighed
Miss Peak after three hours wrestling
with figures. "All gone in two years!
I should never have tried the school
on my own account. 1t was better
shaving away as assistant. And then
that awful letter this morning from
Curle & Coyle! I never thought I
should have lived to receive such a
letter" She picked up the docu-
ment which lay among the unpaid
bills, and regarded it with terror and
disgust. IF could only settle that,
I think could get the other people
4 to wait till the beginning of next ses-
sion-if I have a next session. But
where on earth am I to get twenty
five pounds? And once dreamed of
helping them at h-home." Miss
Peek laid the letter aside, and bowed
her head on the ledger.
Two tears trickled down the
pounds and pence columns, and
others would have followed had not
a knock at the parlor door caused
Miss Peek to arrest them ere they
dropped. The unhappy lady sat up
and blew her nose.
"Come in,'' she said, and blew her
nose again.
professor Bumpus," said the
housekeeper, ushering in the gentle
man who had taught advanced math-
& ematics to one advanced young lady
during the past session. The pro-
fessor taught in several ladies'
schools, and had few private pupils.
Z whereby he earned a moderately un-
comfortable income, the greater por.
ton of which he spent on old books
of alchemy and astrology. He had no
one dependent on his exertions, and
his few acquaintances were the pro.
prietors of secondhand book shops,
He was As and looked ten years older;
his face was clean-shaven and wrin-
kled; he was tall and thin and he was