Year: 1877

'If he cannot love me when lie hear.
am poor shop girl, he cannot love
me at all"


All very well in theory, but very poor
in practice. | fold up Fred Langley's
offer of marriage, and sltdOwn to write
him that, before he makes any further
plans, with me for one of them, he must
know that | am one ofthOse supertuous
beings, girl who came into this world
with no especial place prepared for her
that | have clerked at Sharp q Sniper'>
ever since | was seventeen-and | am
now twenty-three; that | have two
young sisters depending on me for sup
port, growing upin gawky, ill-clad ug-
illness, shade palmer than myself
even.


Somehow, when | first met him at
that pleasant summer resort, the first
breath had had out of Sharp q Sniper's
store for two years, was so happy, |
forgot to mention the scrubbing life |
had left behind me at home, and | was
so sick of poverty and third-rate people
that l was glad to forget it.


How should he, being a man, know
that the dress | wore had been turned
twice; that trimmed my bonnet my
self; that the diamond ring | wore
had borrowed from my married sister,
being the unvalued relic of some for
gotten lover of hers; that the beauty he
said was in my face was due to my hap
piness in his society, For think the
old saying, "Be good and you will be
happy" ought to be reversed.


How did he know that charming
naivete of mine was learned trying to
induce customers to buy?


Old Sniper always says when he ex-
poets to sell large bill of goods to a
customer:


"Let Miss Joe manage him; she can
smile the dollars out of his pockets, if
any one can"


So smile and smile, and yet am no
villain, for they are enforced and i'm
pudent smiles for bread and butter.


How round and rosy l grew in those
few weeks of ecstatic joy What lovely
walks and rides we had up and down
the wood paths and ravines! What
charming sails through the dells,
through the Witch's Gulch, and about
the DEVILS Elbow.


How brilliant and agreeable, and how
handsome my Fred was Dare | call
him my Fred before he knows that
clerk at Sharp q Sniper's9


| am no strong-minded woman! !
frankly confess that do not like to take
care of myself. am no clinging vine,
however, having never had anything to
cling to. have grown up straight and
stiff all by myself, like weed in the
middle of bare, ten acre lot.


Perhaps | will not make such bad
wife, after all. | am good house
keeper, and have been no trouble or ex-
pense to any one since | can remember.
do not see why / should be so very
much trouble now, even with my two
sisters thrown in for ballast. Still, Fred
must know all about the poverty and
membranes, and make up his mind
accordingly. SO | waste a great many
sheets of paper writing an answer that
shall be frank and truthful, and yet
lady-like.


| inform him, in the most genteel
manner, that he must marry three when
he leads me to the altar.


send it off in a pink envelope, my
heart beating painful tattoo, as | think
of his elegant sister he has described to
me, and of him, a rising young lawyer,
and member of the legislature.


piece down my sister Sophia's one
summer silk for her, that bought at
such bargain, thinking peradventure
there may be wedding soon. do not
scold May when she comes home late
from the picnic with my best sash
drenched and soaked through, my lace
ilchu torn, and her toes through both
her boots, and creeps into bed beside
me. hug her in my arms instead,
with that hungry, unsatisted longing
always have for kisses and caresses; but
she only says, "You strangle me, 10,
you soft, mushy thingw and moves
along out of my reach.


My name was never Jo, but ! have
always been called this on account of
my enforced manly accomplishments.


For week sing aboutthe house like
lark; the next week | do not sing 80
much; the next week / do not sing at
all, but go ont, hoayy-eyed and slow,
and burst into tears when May sits