Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1915-07-08

newspaper oy uulCdlS.J
The house of the two maiden sis
tiers, Misses Phoebe and Prudence
Shaw, had descended to them from
away back in the year. the tea was
thrown overheard in Boston harbor.
OF course, there had been heirs be.
tween that exciting event and the
Misses Shaw and those heirs had
lived their time and passed on the
property by will. None Of them had
been rich. Indeed, most of them had
been very poor. 1t was big colonial
house, with ten acres of ground
around It, and there had been times
when the place had been sold for
taxes, and would have had new
owner and new tenant had not public
sentiment come forward to rescue it.
The sisters had starvation in
come, and had passed the half CEN
fury mark. There were those who
could remember them at twenty -
fair faced and attractive young
women. They had never married be-
cause they felt they could not separ-
ate. And whenever the subject o.
marriage or the sale of the place came
up they had both exclaimed in chorus,
"But there is the garrett"
1t was the biggest garnet for fifty
miles around. He who had planned
and built the house had not paid spe-
cial attention to the rooms and halls
below, but he had provided a garnet
that all who came after him should
be proud Of 1t was long and wide and
contained treasures beyond enumera-
ton in the shape of spinning wheels
and bedsteads and bureaus and chairs
and what not of. the long ago.
An antiquarian who came one day
and was allowed to look but not to
touch, said to the eldest sister:
There is nothing like it under the
sun. If you will let me dig here for
a week Twill give you hundred dor
lars"
mot for a thousand" was the
reply.
"But why?'
Because you would make dust
and litter"
When Betty Lawrence, a cousin, at
the age of ten had visited the Misses
Shaw and become homesick and shed
tears, the sisters comforted her by
promising:
"Now, Betty, chirk up and be good
girl and you shall see our garrett.
Now, at nineteen, she was visitor
at the old house again, and she hah
q lively remembrance of that quaint
room. She didn't care much for the
antique, but she was at romantic
age and endowed with healthy curl
osity, and when one of the sisters
had let drop the fact that the OLD
chests were full of documents dating
back into the beginning Of the e1gh-
teenth century she made/up her miro
to have look at some of them. !.
Betty was determined to overhaul
that garnet II given half a chance.
She dwelt upon the idea so constantly
that she came to believe, that some
where in that collection OF musty
relics of the past there lay concealed
a document which would bring a
treasure to it's finder. She even pic
tured herself standing before her
startled old cousins, document IN
hand. this announcement on her lips:
envy dear cousins, I have found a
great treasure. 1t is all yours. You
can each buy new hat and ne"
shoes. and if you want real coffee for
breakfast and chicken pie for dinner
you can have them
One day while waiting her oppor'
tunity to explore the garnet, young
man known to the sisters called on
an errand for his mother and was IN.
troduced to Miss Betty as Mr.. Ford
Kirkwood. The following day while
she was out for walk, he turned
up as if by accident This happened
again on the third day, and on the
. fourth he forgot to offer an excuse
! for it's rather marked recurrence
Within week it had happened 50
/ frequently that neither saw anything
unconventional in the matter.
This rapidly developing acquaint'
ance did not escape the vigilant eyes