The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1931-10-23


and presided when the president of
the organization, Lon Brown, son of
the principal of the high school,, was
obliged to be absent She had fine
executive quality and once or twice it
had been Sibbie's privilege to sit In
at one of these sessions and see her
young daughter, pert, slim, alert, and
intelligent. conduct the affairs of this
cultural organization with manner
and precision.
Sometimes the literary society, or
the dramatic club of which Lottie was
also member, met in the modest lit
tie home where Sibbie took great
pains to serve excellent refreshments.
There was a girl named Edda May,
OF wealthy parents, who had come to
be great chum of Lottie's. Some
times they practiced their dramatics
together, while Sibbie held the book
and prompted them. LOttie and Ed.
da were bound for the same college.
Once, too, Lottie was chosen to play
Juliet opposite Lon Browns Romeo
in the school production of that play,
and 1t seemed to Sibbie, sitting there
beholding, that no fulfillment could be
finer than this vicarious one that was
hers. Compared to the joys Of be-
holding in this girl of hers the frui-
ton of her own stunted and blunted
desires, the years of struggle, grief
and despair, were as naught.
In
herself, it was blessed dispensation
that she had been too silly and igno-
rant a girl to realize the incalculable
advantages of an education. Other
wise, she might never have realized
thus keenly how essential were the
cultural attributes she desired so pas
sionately in her daughter.
The world was filled with women
who had suddenly found themselves
in the routine rut of homes, without
having had time to equip themselves
for life; women without the capacity
to desire the better things. Sibbie
had been such a woman. The ave-
nues of good reading, of foreign lam
guageS, of art were closed to her, be-
cause she had never prepared her
mind to understand or love them.
There came to be something hor-
and that young girl of Lottie's &C.
quaintance had married.
Too soon, too soon, was what her
heart tolled when tidings such as these
came to her. These young girls, just
out Of high school, had not time to
prepare themselves for the better
things; the banquet-things of lifes
table.
When Lottie was eighteen, she was
graduated with honors from her high
school.
There were three months between
her and the time she was to enter
college; months that were heartburn
ing and terrible to Sibbie in many
ways. as the time of her separation
from this child approached, and yet
months that were lit with the fame
of fulfillment.
To add to the excitement and the
fine quality of her anticipations, Lot
tie won travelling scholarship of
two months in Europe, on the strength
of an essay she wrote for a local
newspaper. 1t came out of clear
sky, because Sibbie had not even
known that her daughter had entered
the competition. Two months in Eu-
rope! Two months among the art gal
leries, the palaces and the capitals of
England. France, Germany and Italy.
Why, that in itself was enough TO
give a girl running start in crl-
tural life that was limitless in its
possibilities.
More than that, think what it would
do to jerk the pretty Lottie, tired
from the arduous activities of her
graduation. out of the apathy which
had come over her of late.
But as a matter of fact, the effect
was just the contrary. Like a flow
er dropping Of its own weight, Lot
tie somehow failed to respond to the
incredible good fortune that had be-
fallen her and for some reason, all
the old enthusiasm about her entrance
into college had flowed out Of her,
leaving her a wan and listless girl
who was puzzling to her mother.
After all. 1t was impossible to &C
count for a lasSitude so deeply root
ed as Lottie's. merely by the strenu-
Gus activities attending her gradua-
ton. Something fundamental was to
be reckoned with I'm Lottie.
1t all became startlingly clear, just
one week before she was to sail for
Europe. She eloped with Lon Brown.
The effect upon her mother, the sub
sequent happy setting-up of the two
young people into small homestead,
and the resultant years of good for
tune and tribulation, happiness and
heartache, are precisely what would
be expected Sibbie, with the uncon-
querable resiliency of the human be-
ing, recovered from the shock of her
disappointment and learned to accept
in good faith the really pleasant des.
tiny that had overtaken her daugh-
ter. Lon was good fellow, indus
trious, ambitious and capable. Their
first child was born on Lottie's birth
day.
She is six years old now, her name
is Sibbie. The nest-egg toward her
college education has already been
cfartod In tho SAVINGS hank