José — page 16: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

JOSE. g CHAPTER I. JOSEPH AND PEPITA. The Apple Farm was tenanted by a German family named Bottcher. They had struggled hard to clear the farm of its incumbrances, and were unable to do so till their son Joseph returned from California with a hand- some capital, which he had wrested from the mines by patient industry and hard work. Joseph did not return alone with his gold, but brought a beautiful, dark-skinned maiden, who was his bride. There was a romance attached to the wooing, but this the sturdy German parents failed to see, but their young daughter, who was about to be married to a young farmer, understood it all, and had at once clasped the Mexican girl in her arms with true sisterly affection. When Joseph was ill, and far away from friends and kindred, Pepita had taken care of him and saved his life, and became attached to him with all the impetuous warmth of her nature. Touched by her tender devotion, and from a characteristic German instinct of gratitude, the young man made her his wife. Snatched from bitter poverty by the timely return of their son, the parents did not ven- ture to object to Pepita’s presence openly, but they were sadly disappointed in Joseph’s choice. Reared without restraint, or a proper sense of domestic propriety, the young wife flitted among the family of strict German notions as a filly does Gomicboo cS (E(o)