The daily Alaskan., 1906-01-11
AMatrimonial Sand Bar

it's trials and tCibulations 1t was Mss Mary Jones, splnster, who came ovel .ud took charge of things for three oI four days. She had known the deacor Rrd his wife for several years, and Il WIS reported that when the wife found herself dying she said to Mary: T am going to that better land. am glad on my own account that an going, but sorry on Samuers. He will Le left all alone, and how he will gel his shirts washed, his cooking done and his bed made I don't know. You must Lc kind to him, Mary, and a year or so after I am gone should he ask you should he ask you
 But she got no further After the funeral and as the weeks went by some folks interpreted this to mean that Miss Jones was to marry the dea con if he asked her and others that she was only to oversee his house.
 For ten months the deacon himself gave no sign of how he personally in terpreted it. Then 1t was noticed that he began to walk home with Mary from church and prayer meeting and pay her other little attentions. She was living with a brother who was married, and by and by the deacon be- came a frequent caller. When a full year had gone by Uncle Joe Tracy, who was known to be a pillar of goodness as well as the biggest gossip in the country, stopped the deacon on the yil- lage street one day to say:
 Look a-here, Samuel, I'm a-hearn' that you are sorter shinin' up to Mary Jones'"
 Well, it's my business if am," was the blunt reply.
 50 1t Is, Samuel-so it is, but don't you make no mistake on Mary Jones. She lived with Us for four years when she was a gal. and I'm tellln' you she's got a worse temper than q sore footed cat"
 q hain't seen no signs of it."
 And mebbe you won't till you are married. but it's there, just the same. She's expectin' to marry you, and she's as soft and smooth as lasses, but when you are married it will be a diff fcrcut thing. She'll let her temper loose and make your hair stand up
 Il don't believe a word of 1t, and l don't thank ye for your gossip ob' served the deacon as he broke away.
 One moonlight night a week after his talk with Uncle Joe the deacon invited the spiuSter out for a row on the river. It wasn't much of river nor much of a boat. and the deacon wasn't much of a hand at the oars, but it seemed the proper thing to do under the roman tic occasion. The whippOorwills were singing, the harvest moon blinking and the weeping willows waving theiI p,umes in the soft night air as they set out, and everything went well for ten minutes. Then Miss Jones suddenly discovered that the boat was leaking aud that she had already got one of her feet wet. The deacon was sorry, but as far as he knew all rowboats leaked, and people who went out in them had to make the best of 1t. He bent to his oars to keep time with the whippoor- wills. but he hadn't been rowing fire minutes when he hirted one of them out of the water and at the same tLDle fiirted about a gallon of the briny over Mary.
 "Deacon Bradshaw she called out as she rose up.
 q am sorry, but couldn't help 1t"
 But you ought to have helped it It was very clumsy in you. I'm all wet through, and we must turn back this minute. 1 don't believe you know any thing about boat"
 If you hadn't been bobbing around 1t wouldn't have happened"
 "I wasn't bobbmg around. l say ] want to go right back home"
 The deacon started to pull the boat around and lost an oar. In trying to recover that one be not only came within an ace of upsetting the boat, but lost the other.
 "Why don't you jump Out?" shouted the spinster at him.
 Because the water here Is over my head and l cant swim"
 Then what are we going to dol Deacon Bradshaw, you are nothing but a blundererT
 Nobody could have done any differ ent. You were bobbing this way and that, and'-
 T wasn't bobbing! You ought to be ashamed of yourself to try to lay It on to me. Amt you going to do any thing?'
 "The only thing we can do is to wait for the boat to drive ashore"
 And how long will that be?"
 No telling. If you hadn't been talk ing about the moonlight on the water l should never have asked you to come out rowing. guess you'll get moon light enough" ..
 Miss Jones didn't answer this tsunt. She kept getting mndder and madder, but she concealed the fact until the boat finally grounded on a sand bar in midstream. When they had both scrambled ashore she found her voice, She called the deacon names until she had rattled of a hundred of them. She expressed her pity for the wife dead and gone and more pity for the wife to come She criticised bis personal ap'