The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, October 14, 1915, Page 13

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R e O S S S o e A " PAGE FOURTEEN . AUTAOR OF *THE MELTING OF M 2 Copyright, *-.. Jemes watches outside her window u. »ight. Evelina feels a revival of her for- mer interest in Polk Hayes. {" «¥ou know I want you, but Jasper’s le the privilege of looking after you,” foe answered calmly. “I want you to (s happy, Evelina,” and I knew as I IraiSed my eyes to his that I could con- mider myself settled in my own home. 1 “Well, then, come and have dinner No. 2 with me,” I answered with a daugh that covered a little happy sigh #hat rose from my heart at the look in the kind eyes bent on mine, . I felt, Jane, you would have approv- ®d of that look. It was so0 human to thuman. He came over mth me, and that was one jolly party in the old dining room. They all stayed until almost sunset, and almost everybody in town dropped In during the afternoon to welcome me tome and ask where 1 was going to Mve. Jasper and Petunia hovering in the background, the tea tray out on fthe porch set with the silver and Wamask all of them knew of old and #he appearance of having been in- wtalled with the full approval of Cousin (Martha and James and the rest of the emily, stopped the questions on their Wps, and they spent the afternoon much enlivened, but slightly puzzied. Tme doesn’t do much to people in a ®lage like the Harpeth valley, that is wut of the stream of modern progress, med most of my friends seem to have i i bl 1 I “You don’t need another vine.” -gust been sitting still, rocking their @ves along in the greatest ease and mmfort. + 8tll, Mamie Hall hag three more which added to the four she faed when I left makes a slightly high, ¥ charming, set of stair steps. Mamio miso looks decidedly worn, though pa- Bhietically sweet. Ned was with her ’ Sl S | i [ | i [ T T 2 e S SRS B e of the {Lwusand-little honeysuckle blos- soms clinging to the vine on the:trellis until they poured out a perfect sym- phony of perfume to mingle in a halle- lujah froor the lilacs and roses that ascended to the very stars themselves. I bad dropped my head on my arms and let my eyes go roaming out to the dim hills that banked against the ra- diant sky when somebody seated him- self beside me and a whiff of tobacco blew across my face, sweet with hav- ing joined in the honeysuckle chorus.: Nobody said a word for a long ‘time, and then T looked up and laughed into the deep, gray eyes looking tenderly down into mine. With a thrill I real- ized that there was one man in the world I could offer the chalice to and rrast. him to drink—mbderately. “'amie,” I said in a voice as young as it used to be when I trailed at his her : *“hank you for letting me be co .. “adependent and puz- zling, : .. '~ been busy adventuring with life ¢ > rlaces-and with peo- Atn-nat wi Now I want a tth f rews evine and to think--and foc' May I~ * 20 may, Jour, 2 the Crag answered in a 'ig, comfortable voice that was a bened ction in itself. “I understood last night when you told me that you wanted to come home alone. I can trust Jasper with you, and I am going to sleep down at the lodge room, right across the road here, so I can hear you if you even think out loud. No one shall worry you about it any more. Now will you promise to be happy?”’ I could not answer him, I was so full of a deepness of peace. I just laid my cheek against the sleeve of his queer old gray coat to show him what I could not say. He let me do it and went on smoking without noticing me. Then, after a little while, he began to tell me all about father and his death, that had come so suddenly while he seemed as well as ever, and how he had woerried about my probably not wanting to be left to him and that he wanted me to feel independent, but to please let him do all that I would to tovoany. any oune ot the bu wvilts women, but t1ke men bloom 1 e 3o e +*it.. Ned showec. o the buoerl s ir he had produced t . all, while Mamie only smiled lik - = angel in the background. Y A slight bit of temper rose in a flush to my cheeks as I watched Caroline Lellyett sit on the steps and feed cake to one twin and two stair steps with ag much hunger in her eyes for them as there was in theirs for the cake. Lee Greenfleld is the responsible party in this case, and she has been loving him hopelessly for fifteen years. Lots of other folks wanted to marry her, but Lee has pinned her in the psychic spot and is watching her flutter. Polk departed in the trail of Nell Kirkland's fluffly muslin skirts, smol- dering dangerously, I felt. Nell has grown up into a most lovely individual, and I felt uneasy about her under Polk’s administrations. Her eyes fol- jow him rather persistently. On the whole, I am glad Jane committed me to this woman’s cause. I'll have to be- gin to exercise the biceps of‘ Nell’s heart as soon as I get some strength lto my own. And after they had all gone I sat for an hour out on the front steps of my big, empty old house and enjoyed my | own loneliness, if it could be called en- joying. I could hear the Petunia’s hap- py giggle, answering Jasper’s guttural pleasantries, out on the cabin porch behind the row of lilac bushes. I do hope that Petunia gets much and the right sort of courting during this week that Jasper has allowed her! With the last rays of the sun I had found time to read a long, dear letter from Richard Hall, and though I had transferred it from my pocket to my desk, while I dressed for the afternoon, its crackle was still 'in my mind. I wondered what. it all meant, this dis- satisfied longing that human beings send out across time and distance, one to and for another. - If a woman’s heart were really like a great big golden chalice, full to the brim with the kind.of love she is taught God wants her to bave in it for ail mankind, both men and women, why shouldn't she offer drafts of it to every one who.:is thirsty, brothers as well as sisters?2 I wonder how that would solve Jane's problem of emotion- al equality! I do love Dicky—and—and I do love Polk—with an tnclination to dodge. Now, if there were enough of the right sort of love in me I ought to be able to get them to see it and drink it for their comforting, and have no trouble at all with ‘them about their wanting to seize the cup, drain all the love there is in it; shut it away from the rest of the world, and then neg- lectit. _ Yes, why can’t I love Polic as I love you, Jane, and have him enjoy it? I think if I bhad Dicky off to myself for a long time, ‘and.very gently led himn up to the question of loving him hard in this new way, he might be induced to sip out of the cup just to see if he liked it, and it might be just what he craved for the:time being, but I doubt it. He wonld _ptorm and blnster |.at the idea. Of course the Ctag( would let a wo- man love him in any, “old kind of new or experimental way she wanted to if it made her happy. Heé “would take her cup of tenderqess and drink it as if it were sacramental wine on his knees. But he doesn’t count. He has to be man to so many people that there is danger of his becoming a kind of superman. alone with nobody to love me, that he was always there and would be forever and ever. And he did stay so late that Jasper had to send him home! There is such a thing as a man's be- ing a father and mother and grown sister and brother and a college chum and a preacher of the gospel and a family physician to a woman—with no bossibility of being her husband ei- ther. She ‘wouldn’t so drag such a man from his high estate as to think of such a worldly relation in connec- tion with him. I have certainly tollected some phe- nomena in the reaction of a woman’s heart this day. Did you choose me wisely for these experiments, Jane? It takes a woman of nerve to go to housekeeping in a tinder box when she is when she sees it and might strike out a spark without intending it at all. CHAPTER V. Sweeter When Tamed? WONDER if men ever melt sud- denly into little boys and try te squirm and run back to hide their heads in their mothers' skirts. It is an open secret that starchy, modern women “often long to wilt back into droopy musk roses that climb over gates and things, but they don't let each other. When I feel myself get- ting soluble I write it out to Jane, and I get a bracing cold wave of a letter In reply. The one this morning was on the subject of love, or, at least, that is what Jane would have snid it was on. She wrote: Yes, it i3 gratifying to know that Mary Elizabeth is sc happily engaged to the young teacher who has been in her work with her. She. writes that she was en- couraged' by our resolution at last to be her best self while in his presence, as she had not had the courage to do last year. You see, Evelina? And also, you are right in your conclusion that there is not enough abstract love in this world of brotherhood and sisterhood; that the doctrine of di- vine love calls us to give -more and more of it. We cannot give too much! - But, also, considerations for the advancement of the world call for experiments by the more illumined women along more defi- nite and concrete linés. How old s this Mr. Hayes on whom you have chosen'to note the reactions of sisterly affection? for your consideration in the matter of a choice for a mate? Remember to: be as frank in your expressions of regard tu: him as he 1§ in his of regard for you. That is the crux of the whole matter: Be be courageous! Let a man look fréely into your heart, and:-thus encour- 3 thought and puz- gled the mobnllxh got richer n.nd more. will both- have an opportunity to judge _each other: with reference to a lifelong ‘unlon. 1: is. t_he_qnly w-m u.xi remember |- SRS S e R S P r 2 what rests on you In this mafter. Tho ‘bustion. help me and not to feel that I was | isn’t sure she even knows what flint~ h fi ; Are you sure that he s not a fit subject; | Tot ot space to- cnuy Bh iy Sk ;nnsweted him, with the words I have : aged he will open his to you. Then you| destinies of many women are involved. I don't say this in’a spirit of levity, but 1 do wish Polk- Hayes and Jane Mathers were out on the front steps in the moonlight after a good supper that has made him comfortable, Jane to be attired in something soft that would flont against his arm whéther she wanted to or not. I believe it would be good for Jane and make things easier for me. Be frank with Polk as to how much he asphyxiates me? I know better than to blow out the gas like that. No, Jane! i But what is a woman going to do ‘when she is young and hearty and husky, with the blood running through her vefns at a two-forty rate, when her orchard is in bloom; the mocking birds are singing the night through’ and she is not really: in 'love with: anybody? The loneliness does. fill her heart full of the solution of love, and she has got to pour off some.of it into some- ndy’s life.- There is plenty of me to be both -abstract and concrete at the same ‘time, and I thought of Uncle Pe- ter. Uncle Peter is the most e;ploslve and crusty person that ever ‘happened in Glendale, and it takes all of Aunt Au- gusta’s ~energy, . common- sense and force of character to keep him and the two chips he carries on his-shoulders as a defiance to the world in general from being in a constant state of com- ‘He has been ostensibly the mayor- of Glendale for twenty-five years, and Aunt Au"usm has done the work of the office very well Indeed, while he hag'blown up things in gen- eral with great energy. He couldn't draw._a long breath. without her, but of course he doesn’t realize it. ‘He thinks he'is in a constant feud with her and her sex: ' His ideason the wo- man question are so terrific that I have always run from them, but ¥ concluded that it would be a good thing for me to liquefy some of my vague humani- tarianism and help Aunt Augusta with him while she wrestles with the clty council .on the water questwn ~Any- way, I-have -always had a guarded fondness_for the old chap. . - - s I -chose a time. when . I knew Aunt Augusta had. ‘to -be” busy with his re- port.of ‘the ‘disastrous: concrete. pavlng frade” the ‘whole town. 1ad been sold out on, and-I lay in wait to capture him -and. the chips; -This morning. I waited behind the-old purple:lilac at the” gate, which. immediately got into the game by sweeping.its purple plum- ed arms all around me, so that not a tag of my dimity alarmed him as he came slowly down:the street. “Uncle Peter,” I sald as I stepped out in front of him suddenly “please, Uncle Peter, won't you come in and- talk’'to me?” “Hey?. Evelina?” “Yes. Uncle Peter; it's Evelina,” and I hesitated with terror-at the snap in his dear old eyes back under their white brows. Then I let my eyes tun- cover my heart full of the elixir I had prepared for him and offered him as much as he could drink. “I'm lonely,” I said, with a little catch in my voice, “Lonely, hey?” he grumbled, but his feet hesitated opposite my gate. In about two and a half minutes I had him seated in a cushioned rocker on the south side of the porch. Jasper had given us both a mint julep, and Uncle Peter -was much less thirsty than he had been for a long time. Aunt Augusta is as tempemte in all things as a steel ramrod. “You see, Uncle Peter, 1 needed you so that I just had to kidnap you,” I said to him as he wiped his lips with 8 pocket handkerchief as stimy starch- ed as was his wife herself. “Why didn’t you go over and-live in James’ hennery—live - with James— hey?” he snapped, with the precision of a pistol cap. ¢ To: be just, I suppose Aunt Augus- ta’ss adamant: disposition accounts to some ‘extent for Uncle Peter's explo- sive way of thinking and speakln'g A husband “would have to knock Aunt Augusta’s nature down: to make-any fmpression whatever on it. ‘Uncle Pe- ter always bas the air of firing an idea and then ducking hjs head.to avoid the return shot,. : “His house is 80 tull aud I need a ugcd 80 often in the last two . Weeks that they start to.come when the Petu- ‘nia asks me if' I want wames or cakes for. supper.: “Well, Sallie (Jarmtheru g . Tieasure. over—chudrenq-hefl (Continued on page 15) \ 1 get’ him ,and ‘then ‘there'll be a' do;gl more to. - ¢

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