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big clump of tickle grass and flung
 

                  This
                                    where I have to ask some one to buy me
She took down in shorthand and typed
                  was due largely to the “puttering around”
                                   a little smokin’ tobacker. That’s begretch
this report .
                  of the little old man at work in the gar-
                                    ed me
 

— OCR cross-column misread in snippet —

— involving “Helping the Blind to Work,” and Frank H. Sweet, “A New Start” in Family Circle column, The Presbyterian Banner 95:6 (Pittsburgh; July 16, 1908) : 187-188, and 188-190 (189) respectively
189 (same, at hathitrust)

First paragraph of “A New Start” (whose entirety is a nice read) —

      Old Man Lane was down on his hands and knees, pulling weeds in his son’s vegetable garden. The garden was directly back of a large, rambling farmhouse, suggestive of comfortable wealth within. Everything about the place was neat and orderly. This was due largely to the “puttering around” of the little old man at work in the garden. Although sixty-nine years of age, he was very active and worked steadily, but his son and daughter-in-law always spoke of him as “puttering around,” and they never gave him the credit of really working. Indeed, he was supposed to be free to do just as he pleased, but, as he sometimes said with a good deal of bitterness of spirit, “I take notice that they keep me at something all of the time.”

Frank H. Sweet (1856-1930 ?)
a good writer. some books, stories, often of a Horatio Alger mold?
his Going into Business (1903) : here
 

20 April 2022