Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1904-02-03
The Courtship Of Miranda Jane.
By Minnie A. Greiner Ellington.


daughter in family of twelve chill
dren. Three boys, older than her.
self, had already tumbled out OF the
home nest, and were providing Tor
themselves, each after his peculiar
fashion; but there were still enough
left to make people wonder how they
managed to turn around in the over
crowded nest.
Miranda Jane had now reached her
sixteenth birthday; and her mother
said
Miranda Jane, it's high time We
were looking out for yerself. Sence
your father is laid up with rheumatic
/ kin hardly git cornbred enough for
The kids, an backy fer the ole man an
myself"
'Weu. marln," Miranda Jane an
sWered, as she twisted corner of her
apron about her finger, how'll I do
ut? I can't get place, cause I don't
know how to cook anything but corn
bread, Eaters an bacon"
"Git married." was the short and
pointed reply.
Miranda Jane opened her eyes wide
with establishment.
E'Why, Marin Brown, who in the
name O. sense kin I marry? I never
mad beau, an men don't grow on
bushes like blackberries, to be got fur
the pickin'."
"No reason why you shoul MT mar
ry. Marry that long-legged, red-hair-
ed Jim Shade. He's got a Lighthouse,
an an acre of ground his grandad
left him. It amt good fur a man ito
live alone; an Jim's a mighty good
worker, if he amt jest so hansum."
But s'pose he don't ask me,
marm?" And Miranda Jane looked to
her mother for an answer to this
puzzling question.
'Ill help We. He's got kind of
laundering arter you, anyhow, cause
yer sort of purity, Miranda Jane, with
them yeller curls, red cheeks, an big
blue eyes. Yer ought to marry man
of property like Jim. Yer needn't be
q poor mans wife with that face O.
yourn."
Miranda Jane blushed, giggled, and
looked bashfully at the reflection of
her pretty, but not overclean face, in
the bit of broken mirror hauled out
from the city, and had been most care
fully treasured.
Miranda James home was miser-
able little shanty in a recently cleared
- Of
was black and rich, but almost swamp
like, even in dry weather. What it
was during rainy season | leave the
reader to imagine. There were nalf
q dozen such shanties, scattered along
either side of the railroad newly-built
through this region. The thriving
city of k was only some two miles
distant; but Miranda Jane had been
there only once; they had moved to
this place some three years before,
when work on the railroad was first
commenced
Miranda Jane went about for the
next two or three days in sort OF
expectancy, as though the much need
ed man might even drop from the
skies, or, like the princes in the fairy
tales, come riding across the marshes
on a snow-white horse-glittering with
gold and jewels; or might spring up
out of the ground like mushroom.
Miranda Jane was romantic, and in
dulged in many blissful day dreams
that closely resembled the cheap nov
els that she now and then found a
chance to read. She kept her face
and hands half clean, and washed out
her best, but sadly-faded red calico.
In imagination, she went through,
numberless times. but with as many
changes, the exciting moment when
Jim should fall upon his knees and in
smpassioned words, declare his never
dying love. Jim was not at all like
the heroes in the novels; but of course
she could not expect any of those
grand personages would come in her
way.
aspect I'd orter faint" she said to
herself, when Jim pops the question.
Only | don't know how they do it. All
the fine ladies in the stories does that,
or falls gracefully against his manly
breast"
She did practice falling against a
tree a few times, in lieu of manly
breast" but when her mother CHANGED
to see her, and asked her il she was
trying to knock her brains out, she
cave I'D her practice and determined
to depend upon the emotions of the
moment to help her out.
Three days passed by as usual, and
Jim had not even been near the snan-
ty. Miranda Jane began to yield to
the despairing thoughts and jealous
fears of her favorite herOines.
"Marm's been foolin' herself, she
said dejectedly, as she sat on "a stump,
and dug her bare toes into the damp
black soil; AN 'Xpect there's moth
in fur me to do but tramp it. Jim
don't keer fur me, 'spect he's stuck
-, that red-haired Sal Perkins. who