The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1904-05-22

ed out of his fortune. Tom was about
a fourth or fifth cousin of mine, and
as his gold mine was a failure, / never
claimed kin with him very much. /
don't know how it would have been, If
his ising-glass had been gold and he
had become a millionaire. l might
have treated him as a double first
cousin, and paid court to 1.-The beauti-
full and accomplished Miss Narcissa."
There's no telling. 1 knew a case once
which convinced me that, with some
young men, at least, money is of first
Importance.
Some years ago I knew man with
three daughters who went barefooted
all summer; plowed and chopped cot
ton, and even hauled logs to the
saw mill; mauled rails, put up fences
and did everything that had to be
done on a farm. In short, the father
made field hands of them. But, for
all that, the girls had some pride and,
hard worked as they were they tried
to make themselves look tidy at
church on Sunday. OF course they
were uneducated and so grew into wo-
manhood. A few turns of the wheel
of fortune made the old man a large
land owner, and put twenty-five or
thirty thousand dollars to his credit
Then he built fine house and furn-
ished it, and bought a piano for his
horny-handed girls; and a carriage
was substituted for the old cart the
girls used to ride in, and then-Y es,
it was not long before the very young
men, who a few years before had seen
those girls barefooteds blowing mules
or achopping cotton, mauling rails or
hauling wood, were hanging around
them at church, carrying them home
an
porches with them till bed time, on
Sunday night. Mary Jane" was now
Miss Marie: polly Ann" was Miss
Pattie and Harriet was Miss
Hattie. What made all that change?
The old mans bank account. The
young fellows who used to make fun
of Mary Jane. Polly Ann and Harriet
Jones, when they were blowing mules
and their coarse dresses were tucked
up nearly to their knees, had come to
think, since old Jones had acquired
broad acres and stored up his thou
sands in cash, that in all the country
there were no such girls as Misses
Marie, Pattie and Hattie Jones.
No, l can't tell how it would have
been. or what would have happened,
if Tom Rhodes gold "speciments'' had
been sure enough gold, and Narcissa
had become the petted daughter of a
millionaire. 1 am sure of one thing,
she would have had plenty OF beauX;
for, as molasses draws flies, so will
money draw boys.
l don't know when I have enjoyed
anything more than l did the fine adj
dress delivered by Col. Theodore T..
Davidson, the 10th inst, on the life
and character of General Robert b.
Vance, who, in addition to the many
valuable services rendered by him to
his county, State and country, as citi-
zen, soldier and legislator, and the
still more valuable service given to
home, Sunday school and church, was
n lifelong temperance man, and aided
largely Immediately after the war, in
building up the Friends OF Temper
ance; of which order he was the Presi-
dent in 1S67-S, and for which, as long
as he lived, he never ceased to work.
/ shall always hold in memory our
first meeting. He had been reading
my paper and was. of course, familiar
with my name but had no more idea
how / looked than 1 had of how he
looked. He had made UP his mind, no
some fellow: and 1 had formed the
doubt, to see in me a portly, hand