The evening Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1918-1920, 1919-02-27

y
( place she was leaving was speaking
to her. Outside was the dull gray
! night with the strange mysterious
heart-cries of autumn. The thought
of her own hard life up to the
! moment, her mothers sacrifice and
present predicament, the uncertainty
! of the future, the work and struggle
and worry, all arose before her ano
confused and unbalanced her.
Cautiously Herbert opened the
big front door and stood aside for
her to proceed him. His desire to
please her, to do the correct and
gentlennanly thing, overwhelmed her
Herbert, she said in voice she
scarcely recognized as her own.
eyes, Mary"
"You can kiss me,-if you want
tot" she offered softly
The humble scribe who sits here
in the corner of this grimy little
newspaper office recording this narra-
tive, entered the back room unnoticed
the next noontime,-entered to find
little Mary Wood with her head down
on her type case by the window weep
ing with no one to see. Daddy Joe,
fatherly old tramp printer, was in the
next a1-alley.
The girl suddenly raised her head.
She turned and looked out of the
window, down Cross street and be-
yond the town to the brown hills
awaiting for the winter.
daddy Joe," said the girl, "tell
me; is it real wrong for girl to
want to marry money!"
Joe did not know she had been
weeping. In voice soft and SYM
pathetic he replied across the cases:
Suppose you tell an old man the
circumstances, honey"
"Oh there aren't hardly any cir
cunstances, Joe. Only I'm just tired,
that's all. I'm tired of living in a
boarding house bedroom all alone. I'm
tired of getting up at the unfeeling
bang of a cheap alarm clock every
morning I'm tired of having no one
to talk to at night, no one who cares
about me for myself alone. I'm
weary Of making endless motions, set
ting endless galleys, correcting end
less proofs, drawing my ayenvelope
every Saturday that's spent before |
get it,-for board, for clothes-for
the help Of mother out on the farm.
Sometimes I feel just as if I'd like
some man-any lnan-to come along
with about billion dollars and pick
me up and carry me off and do any
thing he wants with me, so long as
he'll only take away the endless
grind; SO long as he'll just provide
me with pretty clothes and proper
food and a few good times and just
let me-rest. Yes, I'm wondering if
it's sinful to want to marry any man
for his money"
| Now those are dangerous senti-
| ments from an honest pretty girl.
Daddy Joe saw in a moment that it
wasn't money the girl craved. 1t was
love. For as heard him tell her
that day, "when folks is in love they
don't give boot bout making no
endless motions or payin' board or
gettin' up every morning to the bang
| O. a cheap alarm clock" Fatherly
old Joe, whom we found out after
ward had buried wife and two child
rem, saw that the girl was tired,
friendless and alone; that it depended
upon him to keep her feet in path
ways that We're straight.
aY es, Mary he went on, "it's
downright wicked to want to splice
up for cash when you Just amt swept
| off your feet with hell-bent-for-elec-
ton alteration for somebody. What
you need, is for some nice young
chap to come along and get you in
terested in him. Amt you got no
steady, Mary?"
NO." said the girl.
"Then just you hang on, Mary,
said the kind old fellow. "The right
| boys on his way along. You'll meet
him sooner or later and when he
4 comes you won't have to be told
And you don't want to go spoilin
things by havin' him find you the
| wife of some other fellow just be
cause there was money-bags fingered
in it. You want to be free to marry