The evening Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1918-1920, 1919-03-31

| heroless narrative? What of Mary
Purse?- What. indeed? For the time
t has come when we must also look on
Mary when she is old, for time spares
not the heroes and heroines more
than it does the adventuresses and
villains.
We have seen Mary the girl in the
first part of our history, sitting in
! the moonlight with her mother and
dreaming of the days to be and won
dering what they would bring. We
have seen her working at a type
case and asking Daddy Joe if it was
wrong to marry for money. We
have seen her walking with the mar
she loved into the depths of evening
where the world of summer sadness.
seemed wrapt in one sweet dream
We have seen her as wife and a,
! mother. We have seen her face
fade and her hair become fiecked viii
silver. We have seen her as wild
owed woman, bending over the husk
of dead love and saying: Goodbye,
Jack, dear! When the boys have all
joined you over there, then I'll come
too,-never thinking poor soul, that
it is not given to mothers to guide
their little flock before them through
the gates of heaven but to go before
them and let them follow after. We
have seen Mary Purse in these tw.
roles. Now we are called upon to be
hold her in her last role-the role
of a prematurely old and faded wo-
man. Old and faded the same as
Mibb is old and faded-and yet how
differently! Let the last act of tho
narrative present her as we of the
Telegraph" office have come to
know ard love her best.
She had taken her place in our
Office that following morning. We had
no body-type for her to stick, but VIC
gave her the fine-type work in the
ads to do and later Sam bought some
cases of eight-point metal slivers I'M
der the excuse that the machines
were not setting all the news that
the town demanded. She climbed on
her stool in her old place and from
that time on, her bent shoulders and
quiet personality made her a familiar
fixture in our Office somehow like
battered old piece of equipment
which we do not know why we keep
and yet which we cannot bring our
selves to throw away.
But during the. years; of her wife
hood and motherhood that she had
been absent. from the office, she had
altered somewhat from the nimble
girl eve once had know. Her hands,
der had become red and stiff and
contorted with labor. She couldn't
set the "string" of the years be-
fore But she didn't appear to notice
that. Or if she did, she never men
toned it for fear she might discoun'
herself in the eyes of the Office pow
ers and lose her place. ray after
Gay she toiled at the case ard ther
drove home in the supperll.Hr an!
did the housework for those grow
ing boys, far into the night
Oh that we could stop and set
OOWI ICIC III dCtdlI SOttC VI Xix
struggles that woman went through
as the seasons vert slowly by and
bills came in which must be paid and
cruel setbacks and handicaps and
hardships interrupted the noble work
she was doing-work for which it
seemed there never could be an ade-
quate reward. Sam Hold, who from
time to time has been glancing over
these pages while they were in com
position, is wrathy indeed that SO
much prominence has been given to
the days and times and folk that came
before Jack left US and Mary's work
since crowded into one petty chapter.
"The time since she was left widow
is the real story of Mary Purse, you
fathead!" he has again and again de-
clared. But Sam does not realize
that there is no drama is one aging
widow-woman coming into the village
day after day and working through
the hours at typecase and going
home at night to order the household
for family of growing boys and
the old Morrow woman. Those years
might be replete with childhood trag-
edies and bumps and bruises and the