mol 
Where Nothing Ever Happens. 
The first time we saw Brother Fred's 
wife was soon after their marriage, when 
they came on to Grandfather s funeral, and 
then Fred had to hurry back on account 
of his business, and they stayed only a 
part of the day. Estelle was greatly im¬ 
pressed by the quiet and loneliness of the 
farm. She had been born and brought up 
iu a big city, and she and bred had gone 
to housekeeping in a brick block where 
five streets came together; where the ele¬ 
vated trains went by every half hour, and 
you couldn't look out of a window without 
seeing three or four trolley cars; where 
the streets were alive from early morning 
till late evening with heavy wagons and 
light wagons, automobiles, bicycles, pedes¬ 
trians and dogs, and where the din was so 
deafening night and day, that you could 
hardly hear yourself think. 
‘'And you two have lived here all your 
lives!” she exclaimed, with pity and won¬ 
der in her tone. "How could you ever 
stand it? I should think you would have 
died of lonesomeness. Why! there isn’t 
a house in sight”—the leaves were on the 
T1IE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
antly given, 
in the Fall. 
It proved to be 
partly because of 
partly because we 
for ourselves anti 
with us, than we 
so we were glad 
that perhaps she would come 
?” she gasped, 
are going to keep 
on 
trees then—‘‘and it can’t be that you ever 
see a living soul to*speak of. Of course 
it is dreadful to lose poor, dear Grandpa, 
but I am so glad that now you can leave 
here and go where you can see people and 
where something is going on. ’ 
“But we’re not going away,” Matilda in¬ 
formed her. 
"Not going away 
“No, Laura and I 
here and run the farm." 
She gazed from one to the other of us 
in a bewildered way. “You do not want 
to stay?” she asked at length. It had 
occurred to her as a possible explanation 
that some cruel necessity forced up to 
remain in this desolate spot. 
“Yes,” I said, “we want to stay. It is 
our home and we love it.” 
There was nothing to be said after that, 
but we caught our young sister-in-law 
looking at us pityingly from time to time, 
“Poor things!' her expression seemed to 
say, “it is because they have never known 
anything different. 
So, after the funeral, tliev went home, 
and we began our new life. To be sure 
had always done more or less farm 
he had 
we _ 
work, helping Grandfather, for 
been rather feeble for a good many years, 
and hired help was hard to get, but now, 
we had all the responsibility, and it was 
very interesting. 
Fred is a good brother, and he wrote 
often, lie told us that Estelle worried 
about us a great deal. It was such a 
dreadful pity that two “nice voting girls” 
like us should bury ourselves alive sim¬ 
ply through ignorance of better things. 
She begged, she entreated, she implored 
us to come and make them a long visit. 
She set dates for us, and she pleaded with 
us to say when we could come, and if we 
could not plan ahead she wanted us to 
promise that we would drop down upon 
them whenever it happened that we could 
leave home, without feeling obliged to let 
them know beforehand. But we couldn t 
leave things very well, even for a short 
visit, to say nothing of the expense, with 
new clothes and one thing and another— 
though of course we didn’t mention any¬ 
thing about that in our letters. 
When at last she became convinced that 
we were hopeless cases, then Estelle began 
to urge it upon us that we should join the 
woman’s club at the Centre, go over to 
Whitneyville to entertainments, and enter 
into the social life of the two places— 
anything to save ourselves from utter stag¬ 
nation. ' She also called our attention to 
the statistics of the insane, showing what 
an enormous proportion of the women 
among them owed their affliction to hav¬ 
ing lived on isolated farms, never seeing 
anybody outside the family, one day the 
exact counterpart of all the rest, no least 
ripple of excitement ever stirring the dead 
monotony of their cheerless lives. 
Matilda and 1 laughed a good deal over 
these communications of Estelle’s. We 
tried to disabuse her mind of the idea that 
country life was so extremely unevent¬ 
ful, but she couldn’t seem to feel any dif¬ 
ferently, so finally we gave up trying. 
When Summer came again we invited 
Fred and Estelle to visit us. 1 hey wrote 
back that they were dreadfully sorry, but 
that Fred couldn’t leave his business. 
Then we wanted to know why Estelle 
couldn’t come alone. Fred could put her 
aboard the night boat, she would awake 
in Boston and take the first train out to 
Fairfield, where we would be at the station 
to meet her. It was her turn now to make 
excuses. We teased her a little, pretend¬ 
ing to feel hurt, and Fred joined in. de 
daring that her real reason for refusing 
was the “utter stagnation” and the “dead 
monotony.” He said she was afraid she 
would go to sleep and nothing would ever 
happen to wake her up. We saw that she 
was really very unwilling to come without 
Fred, and she took our joking so seriously 
that we very soon dropped the subject en¬ 
tirely and ceased to think about it. \V e 
even forgot Estelle’s half promise, reluct- 
a hard Summer for us, 
the excessive heat, and 
had planned more work 
Cousin Elias, who lived 
could comfortably do, 
when Fall and cooler 
weather came. When the silage had been 
put in the silo, and the apples gathered, 
and the cabbages got in, and the pigs sold, 
and the henhouses banked up, and the 
Fall plowing done, and 10 or a dozen loads 
of sawdust hauled from the mill for bed¬ 
ding, and the cranberries picked and the 
bushes in the further pasture cut, we could 
settle down to our regular work and take 
solid comfort, we told ourselves. 
It was one day toward the latter part 
of September that Mr. Robinson sent word 
that he was coming the next day to cut 
and put in our silage. We had not ex¬ 
pected him till a week later, and we had 
to scurry around and notify the men who 
had agreed to come and help. I went to 
West Fairfield to see two men who had 
promised to come with a horse and wagon 
apiece, while Matilda went over to the 
Gardner neighborhood to tell the two 
Gardner bovs and Job Pike. Cousin Elias 
stayed at home to get everything ready. 
Fortunately all the men could come, and 
they, with Elias and the men Mr. Robin¬ 
son would bring with him, would make a 
force sufficient to put the work through 
nicely. 
We were up at four the next morning 
to get a good start with our housework, 
for the men were all to stay to dinner. 
We had got breakfast out of the way, the 
men had come, and everything was going 
swimmingly, when one of the neighbors 
stopped to leave a letter the post-master 
had sent by him. It had a special deliv¬ 
ery stamp on it, but we were outside the 
limits and would not have got it any 
sooner if some one hadn’t happened to be 
coming our way. 
The letter was from Fred’s wife. “Dear 
Sisters,” she wrote, “I am coming for a 
week’s visit. Shall take the boat to-mor¬ 
row night, and come out to Fairfield on 
the early train. In great haste, your lov¬ 
ing Estelle.” 
“Day after to-morrow,” I said. “That 
will give us to-morrow to get ready in,” 
and Matilda put the letter away and we 
went on with our work. 
Perhaps a half hour passed when I sud¬ 
denly happened to think of something. 
“Matilda, when was that letter dated?” 
I asked. 
“Oh, dear! I never thought of that,” 
said Matilda. “Of course it couldn’t have 
been written to-day.” 
She hastened to get it. “It isn’t dated 
at all on the inside,” she said, “but it is 
post-marked the twentieth, at six thirty 
P. M.” 
“Night before last,” 1 cried. “Matilda 
Haywood, she’s on the train this minute, 
and" it’s due in less than an hour!” 
We gazed at each other in dismay. “We 
can’t possibly take our horse,” I said. 
“They can barely bring up the corn fast 
enough for the cutter now.” 
“No, it is out of the question to take 
ours,” Matilda agreed. 
We thought over all the horses within a 
mile. Mr. Otis, our next neighbor on the 
north, was using both his, mowing his 
second crop. Mr. Clapp, our .neighbor on 
the other side, had just gone by on his 
way to Whitneyville. The Parker’s horse 
was sick. Mr. Denbv never lent his horse. 
The Garrisons and Smiths were off on 
their milk routes with theirs. 
“There’s Old Folger’s horse,” Matilda 
said. 
1 groaned, hut we both knew it was that 
or nothing. 
“You go after him,” said Matilda, “and 
I’ll be changing my dress.” 
“There won’t be time to come back for 
our buggy,” I told her. “I can get ready 
in two minutes, and you can keep right 
on and not be bothered.” 
So I hurried into a fresh shirt-waist and 
black skirt and started. It took some time 
to get Old I'olger’s horse up from the 
pasture. I helped put on the harness, 
which was almost half strings, and wished 
I hadn’t told him I wasn’t going back- 
home. I wished so more when he backed 
out the democrat; I hadn’t thought it 
could look so disreputable. But it was 
too late now to change my mind, and I 
got in and took the reins. 
(To he continued.) 
No Dessert 
More Attractive 
Why use gelatine and 
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ANDREWS 
SCHOOL DESKS 
Church Furniture 
Opera Chairs 
Hall Seating 
None Better Nor Cheaper 
The Popular Anti-Trust House 
Established 1865 
THE A. H. ANDREWS CO. 
174 <Xk> 176 Wabash Av«. 
Department SF CHICAGO 
There are many kinds of love, as many kinds 
of light. 
And every kind 
ni gilt. 
There is love that stirs the 
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lint the love that leads life upward is the 
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—Henry Van Dyke. 
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MRTttWUTH'EWT'WEST 
TOWERS 
ABOVE 
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160 So. First Street. Brooklyn, N. Y 
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Don’t buy a stove or heater until you have 
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Butchering 
Time 
•V-.v.'firVAwi 
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SUIT, 
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JAYNE’S TONIC VERMIFUGE 
CURES DYSPEPSIA and BRINGS HEALTH 
