Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 August 1886 — Her Sentimental History. [ARTICLE]

Her Sentimental History.

A woman from her earliest consciousness inclines to reminiscence. As she grows up she stamps each notable adventure and each pleasant friendship upon her mind by some token. Our dime museums, with their meager collection of odds and bits, would pale into nothingness when compared with the bottom drawer of a girl’s Bureau/ This she generally devotes to her keepr sakes. At 5 she begins storing it with horse-chestnuts and broken bits of colored pencils given her by dear friends. Some of these are the mysteries of the “secrets” which are the life of childhood’s freemasonry. By 10 she has a gold-piece, generally bestoyed by a bachelor uncle, and perhaps some tokens from friends that are dead. There are pressed. Tour-leaved..clovers, pincushions with -zoological tendencies, gray-flannel rabbits and such, a few carefully-preserved valentines, some. bottles that once held perfumery and now present only a fading recollection to the nostrils. At 17 she has some faded violets, some locks of hair, a few scraps of dried orange-peel, a collection of dancing programmes, and, carefully tucked in the furthermost corner, a bundle of notes tied with a blue ribbon. As the years pass still the treasures increase. By and by the wedding slippers are laid away in the drawer which holds the velentines, and still, as the years pass, comes a pair of the wee’st shoes kicked out at the heel, and a silken curl, which show a silvery gold in the light. After this the keepsakes are fewer, and are oftener the souvenirs of sad days than of glad ones. Finally, after a long time, some one lays away in the drawer a thumbed red testament, with a lock of gray hair, and a threadthin wedding ring. Then the drawer is locked. — Chicago News.