Democratic Sentinel, Volume 22, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 February 1898 — MEG’S VALENTINE. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

MEG’S VALENTINE.

MEG was only one of the “hands” in the great factory of Weaver & Co., and with about the some regularity ns the machinery she performed her daily tasks. Nobody in the fnetory had over given her so much as a sympathetic glance; the ■whirr of wheels, the grind of machinery, the everlasting hum of moving belts and singing of spindles do not encourage sympathy, and besides Meg was quiet, even timid, and her companions, after the first day of now and then a half curious, half critical inspection, paid no attention to her. And yet Meg's “trouble” had been a romance; a sort of a flower which blooms sometimes along the hedgerows with the came beauty and sweetness as in the cou•ervatory. Born was all Meg knew about her origin: brought up, at first in a charitable institution, later as the chore girl in a boarding house, which always smelled of dirt and rancidity; and still later as a boarder at the same place, because it was more like home to her after her long, hard day’s work at the factory, where she bad secured employment at the age of 15. Meg’s life had been nn uneventful one. 7 Meg was ignorant, her “schooling” having been encompassed by a six months’ course at a grammar school in the neighborhood, and for which “educational nuvantage” she had toiled for the mistress of the boarding house until her health threatened to give way under the strain. But since somebody, back in the past of Meg's unknown ancestry, had sent a drop of ambitious blood flowing through her veins, within the six months she hud learned to rend easy words, both in print and writing, and she was proud of the fact. She did glory in her power to rend and ■Pell out the meaning of such cheap books as came in her way, and .once, having watched a postman deliver a letter across the street, she was seized with a wish that was somewhat nkin to pain to receive a letter from somebody—just to see if she could frame an answer. She had never received a letter nnd thinking it over from this standpoint, Meg felt that she was very lonely and she vaguely wondered how it all came about that nobody in nil the thousands which made up the big city—the big city was Meg’s world—had cared whether she lived or died. Once a sweet little girl, who was walking with her nurse, had looked up int# 1 her face and with thnt'free-fasonry which knows nothing of rules and which has in it the element, hay, the very essence of fraternity, had pressed a tiny cluster of violets into her hand. And so the days went on, to-day as yesterday, to-morrow as to-day, until one morning Meg overslept herself, by some method of calculation which did not consider time in the light of dollars and cents added to her income, nnd she went to her breakfast late. The landlady was usually pleasant when a boarder happened to be late at breakfakt and, as became one in her exalted position, she made an offense of this kind on Meg's part an affair of great importance. Not that Meg in all the years she had worked for W eaver & Co. had been late to breakfast more than three or four times, but the landlady never quite forgot that Meg had at one time been her willing slave and any dereliction on her part which was savored of independence was not a thing to lightly pass over. On the morning in question, the landlady, much to Meg’s surprise, greeted her in an affable manner a-nd her grim mouth quivered with something which might, under favorable conditions, have been mistaken for a smile, but which had had

so little practice that it merely succeeded in being a grimace, us she told her to take ter seat at the table and then'proceeded to introduce her to a new boarder who had just paid a month’s board in advance. Meg acknowledged the introduction, and after the landlady had gone out ventured to look at her vis-a-vis, and discovered that he was a tall young man with a bronzed complexion and a pair of brown eyes which met hers frankly, and seemed to look right down into her foolishly beating heart, and after the tough steak had been served and he had gallantly filled a glass of water for her Meg made up her mind that he was different from those whom she constantly met beneath that roof, and was undeniably “nice.” The young man, whose name was Atwood —“Mr. Thomas Atwood,” as he was called by the landlady—was disposed to talk as he went on eating his breakfast, and as Meg was the only one at the breakfast table he naturally talked to her, and she soon learned that he was head brakeman on- one of the trains which rolled out of the city on the iron rails belonging to a great railway line, and that bis home was in an Eastern city. She told him that she also belonged to the tolling masses, and before breakfast was finished they became very well acquainted, and Meg, as she pihned her veil down close over her plain little hat, thought Mr.. Atwood the very nicest gentleman wboan she had ever met

And so Meg's love%tory began, and as the time flew away it was apparent to everybody that she was growing absolutely pretty —happiness having much power in this direction—and that the time was approaching when the honest young brakemnn and herself would cease to be lovers and become husband and wife. Indeed, they had talked it all over, and Meg had told Tom that she had saved .SIOO from her meager salary, and Tom had confessed that “before he had known her he bad spent all his earnings, but since that time he had begun to put by a little, and now had S3OO, nnd that he meant to work hard and get a promotion, so that they could some time have a home of their own,” etc., just as humble, happy lovers always have done and always will do, and then they decided that they would put the SIOO and the S3OO together, nnd, as that was the Ist of February, they would get married Feb. 14— a “valentine wedding,” ns Tom said, and then, when she said “she never had had a valentine,” he laughed out of a heart just bubbling over with sweetness, and love, and merriment, and told her “he would be her valentine and she would be his,” and then he kissed her, and Meg was in such u state of delight that she forgot she ever had been lonely, and she wouldn’t have changed places with a queen, even if the latter had insisted upon' it.

As the time drew near for the wedding Meg had a pretty new dress made and, somewhat softened by the love affair which had gone forward directly under her supervision, the landlady had made preparations for a wedding supper which was to outdo any previous effort of the kind in the neighborhood. Indeed, she had resolved that for once she would be extravagant, and she got out several ancient receipts, which were headed “Uride's Cake, ’ and set to work beating eggs and weighing sugnr in a way which made the kitchen scullion to declare, in a confidential manner, to the garbage man, that “Missus ’peared to be a little teched in her upper story,” and gave as her reason for her conclusion that “She was a-mnk-in’ cake to beat sixty.” A few days before the time set for the wedding the weather, which had been in that condition known as “muggy,” turned cold, and when Tom came around to bid Meg good-by before going out on his run for the last time before he claimed her ns his bride, he had a powder of snow on his collar and that strange, indescribable smell of cold on his clothing which made Meg snuggle up to him and say she “was sorry he had to go out in the cold,” and then, ns she kissed him in that motherly way that comes natural to women when they love, she asked him to “be very careful and watch his footing ns he ran across the tops of the cars, which were sure to be slippery because of the snow,” and, at last, she let him go. St. Valentine’s morn dawned clear and bright, although snow lay like bleached linen wherever a heavy team or an early pedestrian had not marred its purity, and Meg arose light of heart and light of foot to make the final preparations for her union with the man she loved. She had told the foreman on the previous evening that she would not return to the factory, and that hireling of men, who considered humanity of her kind as merely adjuncts to money getting, had deigned to say in an interlocutory fashion: “Going to git married, hey?” Meg did not answer, but she felt such delight at leaving the huge building, where she had been merely as a piece of the machinery, that it seemed to her she had never known freedom and vaguely wondered if it really were she— Meg—who walked ou air and was so happy that now and then she caught at her heart lest it should beat aloud. No. 207, which was Tom’s train, would be in at 3:20 o’clock, and at .6, in the presence of only one or two of the boarders and the landlady, the ceremony was to be performed. Meg watched the clock, but when the hands pointed to 4:30 she concluded that the train was an hour late and she “would don the pretty gown so as to be all ready when Tom came. She smiled at her image in the glass as for the twentieth time she shook out the rustling skirt and then ran hastily down to again look at the clock. It was 5 o’clock now, and still Tom had not come, and all at once something like a cold hand grasped Meg's heart and she trembled as one with

a chill. Then the door bell rang and, with the glad cry of “There he is!” upon her lips, she sprang to meet—not Tom, but n stranger, and he looked odd and uneasy nt poor Meg, nnd somehow she knew when he handed her an envelope containing a letter—her first letter—that something had befallen her lover, nnd she felt her way back to the little parlor and with shaking hands tore the letter open and slowly spelled out its contents. It was ,not long, but was written by Dr. , of the company’s hospital, and it stated that Thomns Atwood, n brnkeman, had fallen between the cars while on his regular run nnd had been so badly injured that he had died shortly after being brought to the hospital. Before his death he hod asked for pencil and paper and had writ-

ten the inclosed, and requested that it be sent to its present address.” Meg dropped the let’ter, and with the calmness of one who has fast hold of despair she read Tom's last message which, with many breaks nud almost illegible tracery, ran as follows: “Deer girl: I—have made my last —run and—have got to say good-by—keep a tite hold on the brakes, and with—love forever and ever, I am—your valentine.” That was all; only the story of two humble lovers, and to-day Meg is again in the factory. But, as I said, back of her soft gray eyes is a something which is too sad for speech, too deep for tears, and it will go with her all her days, and —who knows?—will fade only when she is no more lonely, no more heart-hungry. Death is not the end; it is the beginning. —Utica Globe.

A TINY CLUSTER OF VIOLETS.

AND, AT LAST, SHE LET HIM GO.