The evening Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1918-1920, 1919-03-20
CHAPTER TX.

Back In The OLD House on the Cobb
Hill Road, the Purses Settle Down
to the Day to Day Experiences of
Plain People Which Makes Jack
Purse Frantic Man.
It was about the time we put in
out linotype that Jack and Mary
bought the old Wheeler place out on
Cobb Hill. The man was plainly
worried that he was never going to
draw more than three dollars a day in
our Office and three dollars day
with rents going up in the village
was not sufficient to raise the live
wire youngsters who were beginning
to demonstrate that they were real
boys. The day came when his land
lord gave formal notice that the place
was to be sold for businessb block
site and on that day he and Mary
took the remaining money out of the
savings bank and the place passed
back into the hands of the girl who
had left it so sadly decade before
The first home on Pleasant Street
which had stood for so much to them,
was broken up. Ed Dickinson drove
over from Foxboro with his big two
horse van one Spring day and moved
them. The musty old house was
painted. The bitter-sweet sorrow at
leaving the little tenement on Plea
SAINT street was only offset for the
woman by the satisfaction of the
home coming-back to the old farm
behind the maple trees near the top
of Cobb Hill.
az thought d. when we moved
from Pleasant Street at all, . that
it was to be so very different" Jack
complained bitterly, "-I thought it
was rather going to be like the Hol-
land place. After all, it's only a
lonely old farm"
ttBut the boys, they will have
their childhood in the country, and
after all, there's no blessing equal to
that, Jack,
Jack knew it, but he refused to be
eonsoled.
1--WE got. to do something's he
cried bitterly give got to prove I'm
not a failurei Damn the newspaper
business; 1t takes and takes and
never gives! 1t ties you down and
sdueezes the best that's in you out
for some other persons profit. Why
did | ever learn the trade of a prin-
rer?'
But if Jack realized he was headed
toward failure, Mary too must have
looked into the future after two more
children-six in all-had come to her
and had it brought home to her that
she had made the same mistake that
her mother had made before her, that
life would be but one dreary day OF
years-so much cooking, so much
dishwashing, so much mending and
cleaning and hanging-out of clothes
Some day death would overtake her
/ There would be plain average
American small-town funeral with
the relatives attending and the church
choir rendering an anthem and 6
young local pastor not old enough
yet, MOI. wise enough, to understand
the hearts of human beings, who
would mouth over conventional fun
cral phrases and look gloomy and BIZ
more or less thankful when the ordea
was over. There would be six-incl
obituary down in a corner of oul
paper, perhaps sandwiched between
report of the county treasurer anc
4 patent medicine advertisement
There would be a plain white stone
out in the cemetery on the hill, sool
forgotten by all but a lonely man ant
God. 1t would be marked with thu
words: Mary Beloved Wife of JOIN
Purse. Born Sept. 18th, 1861. Died
April 9th, 49," Life, like her wed
81 ding day, like the dreams which sh'
had dreamed, would have passed
The grass and the brian bloom woulc
grow up around the headstone. Sh
would be forgotten. Oh. the heart
rending hopelessness- of it.
But, insofar as any of us can re
call, insofar as any of the folk il
our town knew, those who came il
contact with her after her sixth AM