Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1905-11-17
MARY AND JOHN.

n 81 MARY AND JOHN.
Pretty Story Of How Love Triumphed
Over Obstacles and Hard Work
Won Fortune.
am asked why I do not tell of the
doings Of common, everyday men and
women in our land. Well, I will.
Here is true story of one brave pair.
r. John was q clerk in a northern city.
He was faithful fellow and getting
along as we'll as he could in that
capacity. He was honest and indus
trious and his employers priced him.
OF course they could not very well
: take him into partnership. That is
done in story books and in real life
too, but only very small per cent of
the clerks can enter partnership, be
they ever so faithful.
Mary was his mate. A 1.-the, active,
black-haired, red-cheeked, black-eyed
girl, she had cooled up in her slender
body a lot of capacity, capacity to
love, and to create, to defend and to
fight. She was one of the sort that
clings; when clinging is best, or that
stands firm and let's another cling,
when that is necessary. I do not
think that Mary came from station
above the great body of common peo-
pie I feel that her father was a
carpenter, and good workmen, or
maybe a blacksmith. And Mary, in
the common school, shone am sure;
she was of that eager, ambitious ma
ture that does not balk at obstacles.
Well, John was far more easy-going
than Mary, but he had one good quail
ty, that was logged persistence, a
stubborn blind faith. He would hardly
have made a brilliant success of life
without Mary. She had an eager mind
that ran on ahead, an ambition, al
most a genius for seeing ways, for
iconceiying ideals and he helped exc
cute them. But am getting ahead.
OF course when John saw Mary he
gave her his love, and all the rest of
him! She was miracle to him, a
wonderful creature, linking him with
the angels and making him, all at
once dimly and mistily to understand
what life means and what God is and
all that. It was a religion to him to
love the girl, and a mighty astonish-
ment and delight to find that she loved
him. Why, 1t seemed to him alto
gether too good to be true; he felt sure
that she had made some mistake, that
she had not really known him, that he,
SO slow and stolid and dull $50 he
seemed to 1imself) should own her
love and devotion seemed too good to
last and his only shadow was that he
feared she would find him out some
day, and fly away from him! Foolish
John. She loved him. for his very
solidness and stability, for his sensi-
bile goodness and sureness. She felt
her need of something solid and
steady, to hold her genius in check.
They were we'll mated. And they mar
ried, after a rather short courtship.
1t is not so hard for poor people to
marry. There is not so much formality
to go through, you know, and not such
elaborate toilets to prepare. John had
a new suit made by his friend Eikel.
hammer and looked as good as any
gentleman in the city. And Mary
made her own dress, setting the lit.
tie milliner who boarded at her home
to help bedeck it. Then they were
married and went on an excursion on
the lake and staid three days out in
the country when Michigan peaches
were ripe. And then John went to
his desk again and she kept the very
tiny cottage under the willow trees
and in a year, their boy was born.
Two or three years afterward
years when they both had to work
hard and live soberly and renounce
much, they were dismayed by the ap
pearance OF a little hacking cough IL
John. It. did not make him quit his
I work, not for some months, but in the
winter when his Office was very warn
and close he felt worse and lost flesh
and finally there came time when he
was abed for some weeks. His physi
clan told him that he was threatened
with tuberculosis and should do out
door work and in a SUMMER cline. He
was aghast at this, not knowing how 1,
was possible, but Mary arose to the
emergency, found a purchaser for the
home, supplied the energy needed fol
the transplantal and in a short time
mad bundled her household goods into
Q box car and her babies and Johr
INTO a day coach and taken them away
to Georgia. where peaches grow. And
there they undertook to farm and grow
fruit, In a strange soil and a strange
cline, among strange people meaning
! tn h, kind hTIf mt kn0yuin o mJ,ot MOS,