Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1910-09-24
THE EVENING STORY.
ANDREWS ANCESTORS.
BY Jane Osborn.
Copyright, 1910. by Associated Liter

BY Jane Osborn.
Copyright, 1910, by Associated Liter
airy Press.)
"Genealogist, P. o. Box 172:
"My Dear Sir-In answer to your
advertisecent in the Saturday Re-
view wish to make some inquiries
concerning your genealogical work. /
should like to have my family traced
down to my grandfather. In his
fathers time i believe the records
were in the family, dating back to the
sixteenth century, in Scotland; but
partly owing to fire, partly owing to
indifference, these records have been
lost. should like to restore them.
IF you will undertake this work
for me, let me know your terms and
/ will forward whatever information
have. Very truly yours,
Andrew Macpherson"
Celia Dale began to read this note
with the interest she always felt in q
possible order for work, but when she
came to the signature she exclaimed
In surprise:
Andrew MACPHERSON! she said to
herself IF that isn't queer! shan't
let him know who am, though. Of
course, he's well to do, o.. he wouldn't
have been at the mountains last sum
mer, and II he knew I worked =
Celia smiled.
She would have thought the CO
incident still stranger If she had
known that Andrew Macpherson had
had her. in mind when he answered
the noncommittal advertisement in
serted in the magazine by "Geneal-
ogist, P. o. Box 172."
Andrew was a newspaper man.
The shiftlessness which made it so
easy for his grandfather to lose track
Of family records. the fire which de-
stroyed thousands of acres o. lumber
land in Michigan when it burned his
grandfather's house and possessions,
we're still a heavy drain on the young
mans energy. His father, as ener-
getic as Andrew, had devoted himself
body and soul to his work as a back
woods Presbyterian minister, and
family pride and possessions had
dwindled even as the spiritual life of
the community where he labored in
creased Andrew, at thirty years of
age, was still working to care for his
mother, to see younger brother
through college, and to keep the
Michigan property until the new
growth of timber was ready to cut.
Hence Andrew was poor. Until the
preceding summer he had not cared.
Then one day he had been sent to
interview one of the big trust mag
mates who was staying at fash
ionable mountain resort, and there
he had met Celia Dale. He had seen
her three or four times in the course
of the following fortnight, for he
thought it necessary to take unusual
pains in submitting the article he
had written as the result of the inter-
view for the capitalists approval
For Andrew, confirmed bachelor as
he thought himself, had fallen in
love. He tried to find out where
Celia would spend the winter, but
although she was friendly enough,
she grew cold and distant when he
pressed this point But she told him
she would be in the mountains again
the following August, and he deter
mined to live somehow through the
winter, work harder than ever be-
fore, and then indulge himself at all
costs in a two weeks vacation the
next summer in Celia's company.
Then it was that Andrews poverty
began to bother him. He was max
ing good income, to be sure enough
even with his heavy expenses to sup
port a wife simply. But Celia, who
was used to spending her summers at
one of the most fashionable noun
tain resorts in the country, could
never be expected to accommodate
herself to a five-room apartment in
New York, with an occasional week
end out of town and a fortnight's va
cation each year spent quietly in the
country as diversion.
So Andrew, detected and helpless,
fell back on his family. In rash
moment of foolishness he CHANGED to
see Celia's advertisement.
"Its something to have family
that stretches back for centuries" he
said to himself. IF l can't offer her
money / can at least offer a name
that she can be proud Of" And with
vague idea of. falling on his knees
before Celia some moonlight night
and begging her to accept typewrit-
ten account of the lineage of the Mac
Phersons for generations back An
drew answered the advertisement.
Celia, it CHANGED, lived for eleven
out of the twelve in small
room not far from Andrew. She was