Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1908-12-03
she crossed over and sat down by her
husband

she crossed over and sat down by her
| husband
Didn't have any such things as coy
| corners when Mary and | made our
| start at housekeeping" the old boy
went on, crossing his legs and leaning
back and putting away at his pipe. Not
many scrumtiferous fixin's of any kind,
! for the matter Of that.
Fact is. it was a shack And. on top
of that, a oneroom shack. Built 1t
myself after working hours. Cut the
scrub spruce and fir to build it, too.
II was a timberman then in a new
silver mine sixty miles from a railroad
Got $50 a week, which wasn't much,
counting how costly it was to live.
We'll, after l got the shack built
went down to Boise and asked Mary
she was teaching school there Mary
was agreeable about it-we'd been
beaus since we'd met year before, al
though after | went to work in the
new mine l didn't have much chance to
see her.
bUL Mary Was ltduy, anu WE SDL
married in Boise City, and l took her
TO the shack I'd built. Marvellous days.
those-both of US young, you see, and
not bOthering much about anything nor
Winding any sort of Inconvenience, so
long as we were close enough to each
other SOS I could holler across the
gulch on my way to work and on my
way home And it was a home, plumb
and proper-neyer had any such home
since.
81 made the stove myself, too, out of
an old rusty two-horse-power boiler
that | cribbed from the engine house.
Made most of the furniture, too includ
ing the bed, spare times. Wagon
freighting was costly, and beds and
gear like that ready made, cost heap
of money out there those days-any-
how. they were beyond me.
Had a rag carpet on the floor of the
shack that Mary'd been making herself,
after school hours, for year. Dishes
were mostly WOODEN was pretty
handy with jackknife those days.
Had calico curtains in the one window
Mary had an artistic eye. and the
way she draped those curtains sure was
something dainty.
Il got the water from the crick,
about 400 yards back of the shack.
Used to fill up the three big barrels
once a week, and let the water settle.
Didn't have any fresh meat, unless
shot it O. Sundays-freighters used
to fetch in the salt meat once a week.
over the trail. Canned vegetables, too,
and scandalously high they were.
I'D started truck patch, but the
soil wasn't adapted to truck raising.
All right for flowers. though. Mary
got hold Of some flower seeds-sub-
scribed to a dollar-a-year weekly, l be-
lieve. and got the seeds as a subscrp-
ton prize-and she had the prettiest
little garden Of flowers In front of the
shack you ever saw; sweet William and
pansies and bachelors buttons and
china asters and marigolds and old
things like those.
"She used to sit in that teenchy
flower garden of summer evenings and
play on the little old ten-strinced
either, fixed out with numbers for each
string, that l got for her down at Boise.
Mighty fetching and sweet the music
| from the either sounded, too, out there
in the open air, with the wind stirring
through the branches overhead, and
Mary with her pretty head. and a flow
er in her dark hair, tilted back against
a tree, humming the tunes she played.
Our first born arrived in that shack.
The medical man who officiated on that
occasion was a fellow who'd been ar.
rested and locked up for horse stealing.
They allowed him TO come to our shack
in company with a deputy marshal and
then they took him back to the lookup
again.
We'll. Mary and land later, the
first one-kept house in that little, old
handmade shack. squatting at the base
Of the mountain. for three years.
Speaking for myself-and if Mary was
on earth she'd join me In saying it
those were far and away the happiest
years Of our lives. they sure were"
After some music the old man took
his leave, with CHEEKY praises for the
young wife's dinner of shoulder and
greens. The two young people sat pen
sive and silent, for quite while after
the old gentleman had gone.
81 guess our little nat isn't so dinky,
after all, eh, little woman?" said the
young husband then, pinching his wife's
cheek.-Washington Star.