The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1910-09-21
THE EVENING STORY
Andrews Ancestors.
lBy Jane OSborn.)

(By Jane OSBORNE
"Genealogist, P. o. Box 172:
My Dear Sir:-In answer to your
advertisement in the Saturday Re-
view,' 1 wish to make some inquiries
concerning your genealogical work. I
should like to have my family traced
down to my grandfather. In his
fathers time believe the records
were in the family, dating back to the
sixteenth century, in Scotland; but
partly owing to fire. partly owing to
lost. I should like to restore them.
IF you will undertake this work for
me, let me know your terms and I will
forward whatever information 1 have.
Every truly yours,
ANDREW MAC PHERSON."
Celia Dale began to read this note
with the interest she always felt in a
possible order for work, but when she
came to the signature she exclaimed
in surprise:
Andrew MacPherson!" she said to
herself. eff that isn't queer! 1 shan't
let him know who I am, though. OF
course, he's we'll to do. or he wouldn't
have been at the mountains last sum-
mer, and if he knew I worked"
Celia smiled.
She would have thought the CO.
incidence 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 "Genealo-
gist, P. o. box 172.'
Andrew was 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 of lumber
land in Michigan when it burned his
grandfather's house and possessions,
were 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 a young 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 a fashion
able 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 interview for the
capitalists approval.
For Andrew, confirmed bachelor as
ne IHOuRnI nlHlS0ll, IldQ ldllcu III 1--we.
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 determined to live somehow
through the winter, work harder than
ever before and then indulge himself
at all costs in two weeks vacation
the next summer in Celia's company.
that AndraWfG
began to bother him. He was MAX
ing a 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,
town and a fortnight's vacation each
year spent quietly in the country as
diversion.
So Andrew, detected and helpless.
fell back on his family. In rash
moment of foo1ishness he CHANGED to
see Celia's advertisement.
TITS something to have a family that
stretches back for centuries" he said
to himself. eff I can't offer her money
1 can at least offer her name that
she can be proud Of" And with a
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
months out of the twelve in small
room not far from Andrew. She was
an orphan, and although she had
rich aunt, she insisted on supporting
herself, boarding with friends in the
city and looking up genealogies. Once
a year she spent a gay month In the
mountains with her aunt, who begged
Celia never to speak of her work and
to do her best to make a suitable
match.
But Celia's ideas of suitable match
did not agree with those of her aunt,
and after four summers of gayety Celia
still dug away in musty library books
and ancient records.
Celia went to her task of finding
Andrew MacPherson's lost ancestors
with enthusiasm. She liked tracing
zest in tracing, under safe cover of
P. O. box 172, the lineage of some one
she knew-and Andrew Macpherson at
that.
With the information which An
drew, unsuspicious, forwarded to her,
Celia managed to trace his ancestors
from the pioneer times in Michigan
back to a landing in Virginia. and
then over the seas and back to the
days of one Andrew, laird of the Mac
Pherson ancestral hall in the Scotch
Highlands. 1t was really very inter
esting line of ancestors that she ar
ranged in neat, typewriter array over
several sheets of foolscaps-
But at the end of her search Celia
came upon trouble. At first she
thought she had made great find,
| for in an old record she came across
a verse of many stanzas about bold
Scotch knight named Andrew, of the
| house of MACPHERSON and a fair lady
whose name and history nobody knew,