Rensselaer Republican, Volume 15, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 September 1882 — WHAT BECAME OF HER. [ARTICLE]

WHAT BECAME OF HER.

There was a great commotion in Foxville when old Parson Fox died. It was not only because he was the pioneer of the place, having come there When the woods were one primeval mass of green, and himself having erected the old stone parsonage around which the thriving yillage had grown up with almost incredible rapidity. It was not that he had preached the gospel to them for four-and-forty years; it was not that his footsteps had been instant on every threshold where sickness came or sorrow brooded. All this had been received as a matter of course, and forgotten as soon as the necessities were past. But it was because Foxville curiosity was on the qui vive about Joanna, his grandchild, the sole remaining blossom on the gnarled old family tree, who was left quite unprovided for. “I declare to goodness,” said Mrs. Emmons, “I don’t know what is to become of that girl!” “She liain’t no faculty,” said Sabina Sexton, the village dressmaker; “and never had.” “Books possessed no charm to her!” sighed Miss Dodge, who taught the Foxville district school. “She always cried over her parsing rhetoric, and 1 never could make her understand cube root!” "There’s no denyin’ that the old minister was as near a saint as we often see in this world,” said Mrs. Luke Lockedge, piously. “But he hadn’t ought to let Joanna run loose in the woods and fields the way he did. Why, I don’t s’pose she ever made a shirt or fried a batch o’ fritters in her life!” “Is it true,” said Miss Dodge, peering inquisitively up under her spectacle f lasses, “that she is engaged to your imon, Mrs. Lockedge?” Mrs.Lockedge closed her mouth.sliook* her head and knitted away until her ’needles shone like forked lightning. “Simon’s like all other young men, Miss Dodge,” said she “took by a pretty Jace and a pair o’ bright eyes. And they set on the same bench at school. And as long as we s’posed Par-, n'm Fox had left property, why there wasn’t no objection. But there wasn’t nothing—not even a life insurance. So I’ve talked to Simon and made him hear reason. There can’t nobody live* on air!" “But that’s ruther hard on Joanna, ain’t it?” said Mrs. Emmons, with a little sympathetic wheeze. “Reason is reason!” Mrs. Lockedge answered. “My Simon will have property. and the girl he marries must have suthin’ to match it.” So that Joanna Fox, sitting listlessly in her black dress by the! window, where the scent of June honeysuckles floated sweetly in, and trying to realize that she was alone in the world, had divers and sundry visitors that day. The first was Simon Lockedge, looking as if his errand were somehow connected with grand larceny. Joanna started up, her wan face brightening. She was only sixteen—a brown-haired, brown-eyed girl with a solemn, red mouth and a round, white throat, banded with black velvet. “Oh, Simon,” she cried, “I knew you would come when you heard ” Simon Lockedge wriggled uneasily into a seat, instead of advancing to clasp her outstretched haifd. “Yes,” said he. “Of course it is very sad, Joanna, and I’m awfully sorry for you. But—” Joanna stood still, her face hardening mto a cold, white mask, her hands falling to her side. “Yei,” said she. “You were saying “It’s mother!” guiltily confessed Simon. “A fellow can’t go against his ewn mother, you know. She says it’s nonsense our engagement, and we shou (ln’t have anything to live on! And so,” w th a final twist, “we’d better con ider it all over. That’s the sense of the matter—now ain’t it, Joanna?” She did not answer. “I'm awfully sorry,” stuttered Simon. “I always set a deal of store by you, Joanna.” “Did you?” she said, bitterly. “One would scarcely have thought it.” “And you know, Joanna,” he added, awkwardly, mindful of his mother’s drill, “when poverty comes in at the door, love flies out at the window!” Joanna smiled scornfully. “It seenis,” said she, “that love does not always wait for that." And she turned and walked like a . young Queen into the adjoining apartment; while Simon, slinking out of the door like a detected burglar, muttered to himself: “It’s the hardest job o’ work that ever I did in my life. Splitting stumps is nothing to it. But mother says it must be done—and mother rules the, roost in our house!” Next oame Mrs. Emmons. “Joanna,” said she, “Pm deeply grieved at this ’fire affliction that’s befell you!” “Thank you, Mrs. Emmons!” said the girl, mechanically.

“I’ve come to ask you about yonr plans,” added the plump widow. “Because if you hare no other intentions, Ell be glad to have yon help me with the housework. I’m goin’ to have a house full q’ summer boarders, and there’ll be a deal more work than me and Elviry can manage. Of course yon won’t expect no pay, but a good home is what yon need most, and ” “Stop a minute!” said Joanna. “Am I to understand that yon expect me to assume the duties and position of a servant, without a servant’s wages ?” “You’ll be a member of the family,” said Mrs. Emmons; “and you’ll set at the same table with me and Elviry, and ” “I am mnoh obliged to you,” said Joanna, “but I must decline your kind offer." And Mrs. Emmons departed in righteous wrath, audibly declaring her conviction that pride was certain sooner or later to have a fall. "I have plenty of friends,” said Joanna, courageously, “or rather dear grandpapa had. I am sure to bp provided for.” But Squire Barton looked harder than any flint when the orphan came to .him. “Something to do, Miss Fox?” said he. “Well, that’s the very problem of the age—woman’s work, yon know; and I ain’t smart enough to solve it. Copying? No, our firm don’t need that sort of work. Do I know of any one that does ? N-no, I can’t say I do; but if I should hear of an opening, I’ll be sure to let you know. Ahem!—4’m a little busy this morning, Miss Fox: sorry I can’t devote more time to yo'v John, the door. Good morning, my dear Miss Fox! I assuro you, you have mine and Mrs. Barton’s prayers in this sad visitation of an inscrutable Providence.” Old Miss Gringe, who had $50,000 at interest, and who had always declared that she loved dear Joanna Fox like a daughter, sent down word that she wasn’t very well and couldn’t see company. Dr. Wentworth, in visiting whose invalid daughter poor old Parson Fox had contracted the illness which carried him to his grave, was sorry for Miss Joanna, of course, but he didn’t know of any way in which he could be useful. He understood there was to be a kid glove factory opened on Walling river soon. “No doubt Miss Fox could get a plaoe there; or there could be no objection to her going out to domestic servioe. There was a great deal of false sentiment on this subject, and he thought But Joanna, without waiting for the result of his cogitations, excused herself. . She would detain him no longer, she said, and then she went away with flaming cheeks and resolutely repressed tears. When she returned home she found one of the trustees of the church awaiting her. He didn’t wish to hurry her, but the new clergyman didn’t want to live in such a ruinous old place; and it was their calculation, as the parsonage was mortgaged much beyond its real value, to sell it out and buy a new frame house near the depot, with all the modern conveniences, for the use of the Rev. Silas Speakwell. ' “Am Ito be turned out of my home ?” said Joanna indignantly. Deacon Biydenburg hemmed and hawed. He didn’t want to hurt no one’s feelings; but, as to her home, it was well known that to all intents and purposes the old place had long ago pa-sed out of Parson Fox’s ownership; and they were willing to accord her anv reasonable length of time to pack up and take leave of her friends—say a week. So Joanna, who could think of no remaining friend but her old governess, who had long ago gone to New York to fight the great world for herself, Went down to the city and appealed to Miss Woodin in her extremity; and Miss Woodin cried over her and kissed her and caressed her, like an old maiden aunt. “What am I to do?” said poor, pale J ,«anna. “I can’t starve!” “There’s no necessity for any one starving in this great, busy world,” said Mips Woodin, cheerfully. “All one wahts is—faculty.” Joanna shrank a little from the hard, steieotyped word which she had so often heard from the lips of Mrs. Emmons, Miss Sabina Sexton, and that sisterhood. “But how do you live?” said she. “Do you see that thing there in the corner?” said Miss Woodin. “Yes,” answered Joanna. “Is it a sewing-machine ?”. “It’s a type writer,” announced Miss Woodin, “and I earn my living on it.” “But what do you write ?” said Joanna. “Anything I can get,” said Miss Woodin. And thus, in the heart of the great wilderness of New York, Joanna Fox commenced her pilgrimage of toil. First on the type-writer, then promoted to a compiler’s desk in the “Fashion Department” of a prominent weekly journal; then by means of a striking original sketch, slipped into the letterbox of the Ladies’ Weekly with fear and trembling, to a place <sn the contributor's list; then gradually rising to the rank of a spirited young novelist, until enr village damsel had her pretty “flat*

furnished like a miniature palace, with Miss Woodin and her type-writer snugly installed in one corner. “Because I owe everything to her,* said the young authoress, gratefully. And one day, glancing over the exchanges in the sanctum of the Ladiesf Weekly, to whose columns she still contributed, she came across a copy of the Foxville Gazette. “Hester,” she said, hurrying home to Miss Woodin, “the parsonage is, to be sold at auction to-morrow, and I mean to go up and buy it; for I am sure—quite sure that I could write better there than anywhere else in the world.” Miss Woodin agreed with Joanna. Miss Woodin believed most firmly in whatever Joanna believed. In her loving eyes the successful young writer was always right. So Joanna Fox and Misa Woodin, dressed in black and closely veiled, went up to Foxville to attend the auction sale. 1 Everybody was there. They didn’t have an auction sale at Foxville every day in the week. Sqnire Barton was there, with a vague idea of purchasing the old plaoe for a public garden. “It would be attractive,” said the Squire. “These open air concerts are making no end of money in the cities. I don’t see why the Germans need pocket all the money that there is going.” Mrs. Emmons came because everybody olse did. Miss Dodge, who had saved a little money, thought if the place went cheap she would pay down a part, and give a mortgage for the remainder. “And rfiy sister could keep boarders," she considered, “and I could always have a home there.” But Simon Lockedge was most determined of all to have the old parsonage for his own. “I could fix it up,” he said to himself, “and live there real comfortable. It’s a dreadful pretty location, and I’m bound to have it—especially since mother’s investments have turned out bad we’ve got to sell the old farm.»Nothing hasn’t gone right with us since I broke off with the old parson’s granddaughter. It wasn’t quite the square thing to do, but there seemed no other way. But, let mother say what she will, it brought bad luck to us.” And the rustic crowd surged in and out, and the auctioneer mounted to the platform on an old kitchen table, and the bidding began at SSOO, and “hung fire” for some time. “Six!” said cautious Simon Lockedge, at last. „ “Seven!” piped Miss Dodge, faintly. “Eight!” said Simon, resolutely. “A thousand!” uttered the voice of a quiet, veiled lady in the corner. Every one stared in that direction. “ ’Tain’t worth that,” said the Squire, sotto voce; “all run down—fences gone to nothing.” But Simop Lockedge wanted it very much. “E—le—ven hundred!” said he, slowly and unwillingly. “Fifteen hundred!” spoke the soft voice, decidedly. “Fifteen hundred!” bawled the auctioneer. “I’m offered fifteen hundred dollars for this very desirable property. Fifteen hundred—fifteen—teen—teen—teen. Fifteen hundred, once —fifteen hundred, twice—.fifteen hundred, three times, and gene I What name, ma’am, if yon please?” And the lady, throwing aside her veil, answered calmly: “Joanna Fox/ The old parsonage was rebuilt, and studded with little bay windows and medieval porches. Laurels and rhododendrons were set out in the grounds, the little brook was bridged over with rustic cedar-wood, and Joanna Fox and Miss Woodin came there to live in modest comfort. But Mrs. Lockedge and her son Simon moved out of Foxville when the mortgage on their old place -yas foreclosed, and the places that had known them once knew them no more. And Mrs. Emmons said: “She’s done real well, Joanna has. I always knew there was something in her.” And Mrs* Wentworth and the Misses Barton tried desperately to become intimate with the young authoress, but without avail. For there is nothing in all the wide world so successful as success, and it is a fetish which has many worshipers.