Ladysmith news. [volume] (Ladysmith, Wis.) 1906-1907, 1906-12-29

There were fourteen rooms and they
kept thirteen stoves in continual ac-
ton. The room without stove was
an extra room in the attic and was
used for a store room. Gregory said
that all the men turned out in the fall
and hauled wood, and then when snow
fell all began chopping, and chopped
until time to plant in the spring.
1t kept Gregory busy feeding the
stoves. He would fill up number one,
and then fill number two, and so on,
and by the time he had number Ii
stocked he would be ready to load num-
Der one again, and sometimes he would
not be able to get around in time and
the fire in number one would be out
before he had number Is full of wood.
The front door was completely
showed up, buried behind twenty
foot drift, and Gregory told me it was
a lucky thing, for if it had not been
and any one should have opened the
front and rear doors at the same time
the lake breeze would have blown the
whole unlucky 13 stoves out of the
house and clear down to Toronto
That lake breeze was what they called
"bracing weather" up there Down in
! Iowa we would have locked ourselves
indoors and said: What a fearful
blizzard"
And they seemed TO enjoy it. The
girl cousin Maud Gregory, did not
mind it in the least, and would take
her skates and sail out for little spin
on the ice on days when I was Won
dering whether we had not better tie
the house TO the pine trees to keep it
from blowing away.
But then she was accustomed to it.
She had never been farther South than
Toronto, and frequently spent her win
tiers there on Lake SimcOe.
She was a beautiful girl, too. I saw
that the first time 1 met her, and I
saw it more plainly every day.
By the time I had grown little ac-
customed to the beautiful climate we
were quite good friends, and as Greg
ory's carbuncle practically confined
him to the smoking room, the pleasure
off escoryir,g her on her numerous
skating trips naturally fell to me. And
I did not shirk my duty.
She was an only child, and her father
was a clerk in one of the Toronto
banks, the Commerce, and Maud was
very DESTROYS of helping him by Sc
curing a position as stenographer
somewhere. She had taken a course
,in a school, and felt herself well
equipped for the position, but so far
she had not secured it.
Of course, her aunt laughed at her
So did Gregory, too, for that matter,
for she had been quite a society girl
and both predicted she would be picked
up and married off before she even got
a place as stenographer ] thought so
myself.
1 remember it was the last day Of
1913 that I was sitting in the smoking
room, and all the others were in the
next room (which they called the
warm room because it wasn't quite
as cold as the others) when the next
mail came Gregory brought me let
ter from the ''boss," and | was reading
It when l heard Maud say in her quiet
way: "Auntie, may as we'll tell you,
1 am engaged"
Then I heard Mrs. Gregory get up
and go over and kiss Maud, and as [
don't like to overhear conversations
meant for other ears [ went up to my
room and stocked up the fire.
I may as we'll own that was cut up
quite a little, for I had begun to like
Maud a little too we'll for my own COM
fort, and, while l had no real hope OF
ever winning her, it was rather shock
to learn that she was actually engaged,
and that I was to have no chance at
all.
I pulled out my writing material
with a jerk, and answered the letter
I had received in pretty bad mood,
and then smoked a pipe and read a bit,
and before I knew it it was late.
Gregory came in and sat on the bed
awhile and talked about a curling
match that was to come off the next
day, and then he incidentally re-
marked: "You heard Maud say she
was engaged at last, didn't your
Eyes," I said, 81 did hear something
of the kind. Who's got herr" Simp-
S(,,sa