I
[Illustration: _The Matrimonial Bureau_]
Think you there was, or might be such a man as this I dreamed
of?—_Antony and Cleopatra._
It all happened in the most curious fashion to begin with. If Lieutenant
Adams had not sent to Miss Esther the particularly heavy box which
contained some sort of a plaster cast which he had picked up somewhere,
and which necessitated a great deal of packing-stuff to keep it from
breaking, Tekla never would have found the paper. Then, too, she never
would have found the paper if Michael had been about the place on the
afternoon the box came. But he wasn’t, and Miss Esther was impatient.
The box had to be unpacked, so she and Tekla, armed with a hatchet, a
screw-driver, and a monkey-wrench, went at it.
“I expect it’s broken,” said Miss Esther, after the protecting boards
had been removed, with that lack of dexterity but determined
effectiveness which characterizes the carpenter work of the average
woman; “I have no doubt it’s broken all to pieces.”
“Yes’m, I suppose it is; they always are,” said Tekla, cheerfully, as
she pulled out the bunches of paper which were stuffed about the cast.
“It was packed carefully enough,” said Miss Esther.
“Yes, indeed, ma’am. They must have used all the papers they had saved
up for housecleaning time. I don’t know what they’ll have left to put on
their pantry shelves.”
“I’m glad they did; this is a specially fine cast, and I do hope it
isn’t broken. It looks as if it were, though.”
Miss Esther took hold of the end of the cast and tried to lift it out.
She succeeded in extricating it from the mass of papers and carried it
off in triumph.
Tekla brought a basket and began picking up the crumpled papers from the
kitchen floor. Some large figures on one bit caught her eye.
“‘Circulation yesterday, 840,327,’” she read; “must have used ’em all.”
She went on picking up the papers, carefully smoothing out those pieces
which she believed might be of use for such purposes as suggest
themselves to the careful housewife. “I wish,” she thought, “that they
hadn’t crumpled these things up so much. They might just as well have
left them flat. We could have used them then.”
At the very bottom of the box she found several voluminous Sunday
newspapers that apparently had never been opened. “At least here’s a few
smooth ones,” she continued with a satisfied air.
As she laid them aside, a conspicuous picture attracted her attention.
“That,” said Tekla, after a long, steady stare at it, “is the kind of
place I’m going to live in. There should be cows—yes—like those,” and
she held the picture at arm’s length. “Chickens—yes—and dogs. Some
calves, maybe, and pigeons and pigs, the same like those! Ah!”
Again she held the picture out before her and gazed at it. “It is all
there, all—but the man—not!”
Taking down the big shears from their nail, Tekla cut out the picture
and pinned it up above the kitchen table. “But I will have the cow-sheds
nearer the house,” she said as she turned away. “They are not handy,
so.”
* * * * *
In the household of Miss Esther Adams, a Sunday newspaper was almost an
unknown quantity. To Tekla the discovery of three or four complete
sheets, with all the various “sections” carefully put together, was an
event of thrilling importance. She hurried through her work, and sat
down that evening to enjoy without interruption the unexpected windfall.
By a slow and laborious process of elimination she laid aside the
primarily colored pages, the reproduced photographs, the editorial
sections, and other interesting but unbelievable stories, and reserved
only the advertisements.
These she read eagerly, marking with her pencil such pictured glories of
feminine apparel as appealed to her somewhat barbaric taste.
Idly scanning one of the more uninteresting looking pages, she chanced
upon a sort of advertisement which seemed to her to be wholly new.
Nothing like it had ever fallen under her observation.