The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, October 21, 1915, Page 14

T e —— e e e — THE NONPARTISAN LEADER CHAPTER VI. Deeper Thar Shoulders and' Ribs. ENRIETTA'S calmness under dire circumstances was a les- son to both Polk and me, for with two gasps that sounded as one we both raced across the poreh, down the path and out to the road where Polk's runabout stood by the fove to me we can get on such a sensi- ble footing with cach other. mand the situation then. 'l com- But suppose I do get Polk celmed down to a nice friendship after old Plato’s recipe, what if I want to marry him? Do I want to marry a friend? Yes. 1 do! No, no! AUTHOR OF *THE MELTING oF MOLLY* Copyright, *vug ¢ They have an electric plant; but, as have noted before, the lights there- grom show a strong trace of their pine knot heredity and go ont on all impor- tant occasions, whether of festivity or gagedy. Kerogene lamps have to be ept fllled and cleancd if a baby or a revival or a lawn festival I8 expected. They have a lovely, wide concrete pavement in front of six of the stores pround the public squares, but no two etches of the improvement join each other, and it makes a shopping pro- ession around the town somewhat g:ngerous on account of the sudden thange of grade of the sidewalk about pvery sixty feet. Aunt Augusta want- £d Uncle Deter to Introduce a bill in %he city council forcing all of the prop- erty owners on the square to put down khe pavement In front of their houses t small payments per annum, the own assuming the contract at 6 per ¥ent. Uncle Peter refused, because he maid that he felt a smooth walk around the square would call out what he call- ®d “a dimity parade” every afternoon. They have a water system that is wupplied by so much mud from ‘the river that it often happens that the #own has to go unwashed for a weelk, hile the pipes are cleaned out. There s: a wonderful spring that could be msed with a pump to supply the town, tAunt Augusta says. ~ The clty councll tied up the town for a $100,000 subscription to the new rallroad and failed to tle the shops down in the contract. They are to be built in Bolivar. A great many of the rich men have lost a lot of money thcreby, Cousin James the most of all, and everybody is sitting up in bed blinking. There are still worse things happen- Ing in the emotional realm of Glendale. Lee Greenficld has been in the state of going to ask Caroline Lellyett to marry him for fifteen years and has pever done it. Caroline has been heau- %iful all her life, but she is getting so ihin and faded at thirty.that she is a dragedy. Lee goes to see her twice a week, and on Sunday afternoon takes - ber out in his new and rakish run- about that is as modern as his behavior i 3s obsolete. Caroline knows no better § mnd stands it with sublime patience and lack of character. That is a situa- ton I won’t be able to keep my hands off of much longer. Ned Hall’'s wife has seven children with the oldest one not twelve, and she looks fifty.: Ned goes to all the €fances at the Glendale hotel dining room and looks thirty. He dresses beau- tifully, and Nell and all the girls like to- dance with him. Just ordinary tor- ture wouldn’t do for him. ° Polk Hayes wouldn’'t be allowed to run loose in London society. " Sallie Carruthers is a great big husky woman, with three children that she i8 responsible for having had. She end her family must consume tons of green groceries every month and a per- fectly innocent man pays for them. Mrs. Dodd, the carpenter and con- , tractor’s wife, is a Boston woman who came down here. Before I could write all about that Boston girl so that Jane rould understand perfectly the situa- tlon Polk came around from the side street and seated himself on the rail- ing of the porch so near the arm of my cchair that I couldn’t rock without in- ¢onveniencing him. I am glad he found me in the maod 1 #was in and I am glad to record the #trong minded—it came near being the “Me for & woman thut has a lot of spirit] She is so much sweeter when tamed, Hvelinal” ‘was one of the gen- “L thtnk it has been J ; mg armed—contest in which we in-’ _tie remarks with which he precipitat- gl e Pt S N M s st S e R L S e, - ‘omoany. v Ciecinating of fi)u‘t—o' come and tve by yourself in this old barn. It keeps me awake nights just to think of you over herc_qlone How long is the torture to go on?” Jane, I tried, but if I had frankly and courageously shown Polk Hayes what was in my heart for him at that moment I couldn't have answered for the results. From the time I was eighteen untll 1 was twenty the same sort of assault and battery had been handed out to me from him. He had beaten me with his love. He didn’t want me. He doesn’t want any woman except so long 3s he is nncertain that he can get her. Just because I had been firm with him wher even a child and de- nied him, he has been merciless. And now that I am a woman and armed for the combat, it will be to the death. Shall I double and take refuge in a labyrinth of subterfuge or turn and fight? 8o I temporized today. “It is lonely—but not quite ‘torture’ to me with the family so close across the street,” I answered him, and I went on whipping the lace on a piece of fluff I am making to discipline my- self because I loathe a mneedle so. “Please don’t you worry over me, dear.,” I raised my eyes to his, and I tried the common citizenship look. It must have carried a little way, for he flushed—the first time I ever saw him do it—and his hand with the ciga- rette in it shook. “Evelina,sare you real or a—farce?”’ he asked after a few minutes of ‘peace. “Um trying to be real, Polk,” I an- swered, and this time I raised my eyes with perfect frankness. “If you could define a real woman, Palk, In what terms would you express her?”’ I asked him straight out from the shoulder. ‘“Hell fire and a ballelujah chorus 1f she’s beautiful,”” he answered me promptly. I langhed. I thought it was best un- der the circumstances. - “I'll tell you, Evelina,” he continued stealthily. “A man just can’t gen- eralize the creatures. Apparently tliey are craving nothing so much as emo- tional excitement,”and when you of- fer it to them they want to go to housekeeping with it. Love is a busi- ness with them and not an art.” “Would you like to try a genuine friendship with one, Polk?” I asked, and again struck from the shoulder— with my eyes. ) “Help! - Not if you mean yourself, beautiful,” he answered promptly and with fervor. “I wouldn’t trust myself with you one minute off guard like that.” “You could safely.” “But I won’t!” “Will you try?’ “No!” ! “Will you go over and sit in-that chair while I tell you something calm- ly, quietly and seriously? It'll give you a new sensation, and maybe it will be good for you” I looked him straight in the face, and the hatitle of. our eyes was something terrific. I had made up my: mind to have: it out with him then and there. There was mnoth- ing else to do. courageous: and true to my vew and accept the.consequences. He slid along the railing of the porch and down fnto the chair-in al- most a daze of bewilderment. ¢ “Polk,” T began, concealing a gulp of terror, “I love you more than 1 can possibly”— “Say, Polk, I let the pup git hung by; ‘her apron to the wheel of vyour car. ~out in the road, and her h gersome kinder npsld' down loose fot me?" ’| watching the old gray coattails flap- I would be frank and ome and get her | worn old stone post that had tethered the horses of the wooers of many gen- erations of the maids of my house. But, prompt as our response to Hen- rietta’s demand for rescue had been. Cousin Juames was there before us. He stood in the middle of the dusty road with the tousled mite in his arms, soothing her frightened sobs against his cheek with the dearest tenderness and patting Sallie on the back with the same, comforting. P *Oh, Henrictta, how could you nearly kill your little sister like this?' Sallie sobbed. *Please say something posi- tive to her. Jawes!” “Henrietta,” began Cousin James with a suspicion of embarrassment at I’oik’s and my presence at the domes- tic scene. Polk choked a chuckle and 1 could have murdered him. “Wait a minute,” ‘said Henrietta, in her most communding voice. “Sallie. didn’'t you ask me to take that pup ‘from Aunt Dilsie, ’cause of the phthisic and keep her quiet while the kit got 4 nap and didn’t I ask you if it would be all right if I got her back whole and clean?” . “Yes, Heovletta, but you"— “Ain’t she whole all over and clean i “Yes, but”’— “Couldn’t nobody do any better than that with one of them twins. I won't try. If 1 have to 'muse her it has to be in my own way.” And with her head in the air the Bunch marched up | the walk to the house. At -this Polk shouted, and the rest of us laughed. - “Polk, please don't encourage Hen- | rietta in the way she treats me and her little sisters,” Sallie begged be- tween her laughs and: her half swal- lowed sobs. “I need my friends’ help with-my children, not to- have them malke it hard for me. Henrictta is de- voted to you, and you could influence ber so for the best. Please try to help me make a real woman out of her and- not some sort of a terTible—terrible suffragette.” Sallle is ‘the most perfectly lovely svoman I almost ever saw. She has great violet eyes with - black lashes that beg you for a piece of your heart, and her mouth is as sweet as-a blush rose, with cheeks that almost match it in resiness. She and the babies al- ways remind me of a cluster rose and rozes, flower and buds, and 1 don’t see why every man that sees her is not mad about her. They all used to be before she married, and 1 suppose they will be againh as soon as the crape gets entirely worn off her rlothes. As she stood with- the bubbly' baby in her arms and looked up at Polk I couldn’t see how he could take it calmly. “SQallie,”” he answered seriously, with a glint in his eyes over at me, “if you'll give me a few days longer 1 will then have found out by expericnce what a real woman is, and I'll begin on Hen- rietta for you accordingly.” “Don’t be too hard on the kiddie,” Cousin James answered him, with the ‘crinkle in the corner of his eyes that might have been called shrewd in eyes less beautifully calm. *“Let's trust a lot to Henrietta's powers of observation of her mother and—her neighbors.” “Isn’t that old mossback a treat for the sight of gods and men?’ asked Polk with a laugh as we all stood There are m'\ny fundamental differ- ences between men and- women which b strike: deeper than breadth of shoul- $ ders and number of ribs on the right side. Men deliberately unem"‘ matters of importance and women stumble on the same things in the dark. It is then a question of the individual as to the complications that result. * This has been a remarkablc after- nooin. and I wish Jane haC been in Glendale to witness it. *‘Say. Evelina, all the folks over at our house have gone crazy, and I wish ron would come over and help Cousin James. with ’em,” Henrietta demand- '‘ed as I sat on my side porch calmly hemming a ruffle on a dress for the kitten. Everybody sews for the twins, and, as much as I hate it, I can’t help doing it. “Why. Henrietta, what is the mat- ter?” 1 demanded as 1 hurried down the front wilk @nd across the road at her bare little heels. By the time I zot to the front gate I could hear sounds of lamentation. “A railroad train wants to run nght through the middle of all their dead “What'’s the matter?” | demanded wuth the second shake. people.‘and Sallie: started the crying. Dead’s dead. and _if Cousin James wants ‘em run over I’ wants 'em run: over too.”. She answered over her shoulder as we hurried through the' wide front hall. Sallie sat in the large aviichair in the widdle of the room weeping in the slow, regular way a woman has of starting out. with tears when she weans to let them:flow for hours, may- ; be ‘days, and there were just- five echoes to her grief, all done in difl’erent : S keys@nd characters. = 4 Cousin Martha knelt beside. the chair ] and held Sallie’s head on her nmple‘, ‘bosom: but I' must say that the expres- ' sion on her face was one of bewilder— ment, as well'as of grief. : The three -little Horton cousins snt ‘close together in the middle of the old hair cloth sofg by: the ‘window_ and ; were weeping as modestly and help— A lessly as they . did everything else tn]‘ “Hee, while Mrs. Hargrove, ir her ‘chair _under her son's _portrait. was.just plaln- Iy out and ont: howling.: 3 5 And on the ‘hearth rug. tmy fire of onk-chips that. dies llked~to keep buming ping in the warm breeze that was rol- licking across the valley. “1 don’t know. what I would do with- out him,” said Sallie softly, with tears suddenly misting the violets in her eyes as she turned away from us with the baby in her arms and went slowly up the front walk of ‘Widegables. “Please come stay with me a little while, Evelina,” she pleaded back over her shoulder. = “I feel faint.” . 1 hesitated, for, as we were on my side - of the. rond. Polk was' still' my guest, - i . “Go on with Ballie, sweetle.'f he an- swered my. hesitating. *I don’t want the snapped off fractionh of a declara- tion like you were about to offer me. I can bide my time and get my own.” With which’he turned and gotinto | is ‘car as I.went across the street. .