The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, October 28, 1915, Page 14

& i PAGE FOURTEEN AUTHOR OF * THE MELTING or M % l Copyrighy Yueg * v/ wr Please, God, if I seem to be calling you into a profane situation I can't help it. I must have beip! Show me gome way to assist Caroline to make TLee into a real man and then get him for herself. She must have him, and Be needs her. And show me a way guick! Amenl ; Jane, I hope you will be able to pick the data out of this jumble, but I doubt it. Anyway, I'm grateful for the lock and key on this book. As I stood at the gate and watched Tee.and Caroline saunter down the moon flecked street a mockingbird in the tallest of the oak twins that are my roof shelter called woolngly from one of the top boughs and got his an- swer from about the same place on the same limb. If a woman starts out to be a train- ed nurse to an epidemic of love mak- ing she is in great danger of doing something foolish her own self. I am even glad It is prayer meeting night for Mr. Haley. He is safe in perform- ing his rituals. He might misunder stand this mood. I wonder if I ever was really over In sunny France being wooed and happy! : Of course I decided the first nlght 1 was here that, as circumstances over which I had no control had decreed “What did Dodson have to say—is he . coming across?” \ that Cousin James should stand in the - position of enforced protector to me, ilecent, communistic femino-masculine “honor-demands that I refrain from-any maneuvers in his direction to attract ‘his thoughts and attention to the femi- mine me. I can only meet him on the ordinary grounds of fellowship. And A suppose the glad to see him coming .~ mp the street was of the neuter genter, tut 1t was very interesting. “Wht did Dodson have to say—is e coming across?” I demanded of ‘#im before he got quite to my gate. { ““Not if he can help it,” he answered n he came close and leaned against ipme of the tall stone posts, so that his| fi:uuy shaped head with its ante-bel- Bg uirls of hair was silhouetted % ggainst the white starred wistaria vine | locl ‘jn & way that made me frantlc tor % .bublic of gay Paris. I never see him ‘against the unsympathetic old stone l.so he can catch Sallie before she be- fomoany. severil Tnickets of Tonochrome, wa- tei celors aud a couple of brushes as : s those used for. whitewashing. In about ten great splotches I could have done a masterpiece of him that would have drawn artistic fits from the that I don’t long for a box of pastels’ or get the ghost of the odor of oil paint in my nose. “The whole thing will be settled in a month,” he continued, with a sigh that had a hint of depression in it, and an astral shape of Sallie manifested itself hanging on his shoulder. However, 1 controlled myself and listened to him. “There is to be a”meeting of the di- rectors of both roads over fn Bolivar in a few weeks, and they are te come to some understanding. The line across the river is unquestionably the cheap- est and best grade, and there is no chance of getting them to run along our bluff unless we can show them some advantage in doing so, and 1 can’t see what that will be.” “What makes it of advantage for a raflroad to run through any given point in a rural community like this, Cousin James?”’ I asked, with a glow of intellect mounting to my head, the like of which I hadn't felt since I de- livered my junior thesis in political economy with Jame looking -on, con- sumed with pride. “Towns that have good stock or grain districts around them with good roads for hauling do what is called ‘feeding’ a railroad,” he answered. “Bollvarcan feed both roads with the whole of the Harpeth valley on that side of the riv- er. "They'll get the roads, I'm thinking. Poor old Glendale!” “Isn’t there anything to feed the monsters this side of the river?” I de- manded, indignant at the barrenness of the south side of the valley of old Harpeth. “Very little unless it's the scenery along the bluff,” he replied, with the depression sounding still more clearly in his voice, and his shoulders drooped post in & way that sent a pang to my heart. “Jamie, i3 all you've got tied up in the venture?” I asked softly, using the name that as very small I had given him in a long ago when the world was young and not full of problems. “That's not the worst, Hvelina,” he answered in a voice that was positive- Iy haggard. “But what belongs to the rest of the family is all in the same leaky craft. Carruthers put Sal- le's in’ himself, but 1 invested the mites belonging to the others. Of course, as far as the old folks are con- cerned,-I can more than take care-of them, and if anything happens there’s enough life insurance and to spare for them. I don’t feel exactly responsible for Sallie's situation, but I'do feel the responsibility of " their helplessness. Sallie is not fitted to cope with the world, and she ought to be well pro- vided for. I feel that wore and more every day. Her helplessness is very beautiful and tender, ‘but in 8 way tragic, dor’t you. thlnk'l" 1 wish 1 bad dared tell-him for the second time that day what'I did think on the subject, but I denled myself such frankness. Anyway, men are 1ust stupid, faith- ful children—some: o! them falthful 1 mean, I felt that if I swod there talklng with the Crag any.longer I might grow pedagogical and teach -him a few things, o I gent 'him- home across the road. I knew all six women would stay awake until -they heard. him lock | “them in, come down to the. lodge al across the road to an emancipated wo- and it is sweet, though 1 don’t know one. Lights out! . Nell sighed gently as we sat on my “and it takes her all her time to think ‘| his playing a ‘watchidog of fradifion man like myself. The situation ‘both keeps me awake and puts me to sleep, why. God never made anything more won- derful than a good man-*even a stnpld CHAPTER VIiL. Man and the Asafetida Spoon. DO wish the great man who i3 dis- covering how to put peonle into some sort of metaphysical pickle that will suspend their animations until he gets ready to wake t,hem up would hurry up with his investigations, zins to fade or wilt. Sallie; just as she is, brought to.life about five generations from now would cause a seénsation. Some women are so feminine that they are sticky unless well spiced with deviltry. Sallie’s loveliness hasn't much seasoning. Still, 1 do love her dearly, and I am just as much her slave as are upy of the others. I can't get out-of It. “Do you suppose we will ever get all of the clothes done for the twins?” porch whipping yards of lace upon white rufies apd whipping up our own spirits at the same time, Everybody n- Glendale.sews for-Sallie’s children, up the clothes. “Never,” 1 answered. i “She's coming, and I do believe she has got more of this rufling. I see it floating down her skirt,” Nell fairly groaned. Nell ought to like to sew. She isn’t emancipated enough to hate a needle as I do. _But the leaven is working, and she's rising slowly. It might be well-for. some man to work the dough down a little before she runs over the pan. That’s a primitively feminine wish and not at all in accordance with my own advanced ideas. I was becoming slightly snarled with my thread, and I was glad when Sallie and her sweetness seated itself in the best rocker in the:softest breeze, which Nell had vacated for her. 4 “Children are:the greatest happiness in life and also the greatest responsi- bility, girls,” she said in ber lovely rich voice that always melts me to a solu- tion of sympathy whenever she uses it pensively on me. “Of course I should be desolate without mine, but- what could I do with tbem if I didn't have all of you dear people to help me with them?” Her wistful dependence had charm. I looked at the twin with the yellow fuzz on the top of its head that has hall marked it as the kitten In my mind, seated on Sallie’s lap with her head on Sallie’s shoulder, looking like a baby bud folded against' the full rose, and I couldn’t help laughing. Kit had been undressed - three times after her bath thisg morning, while Cousin Martha, Cousin Jasmine and Mrs. Hargrove argued with each other whether she should or shouldn’t have a scrap of flannel put on over her fat little stomach. Henrletta finally decld- ed the matter by being impudent and sensible to them all about the temper- ature. “Don’t you all ’spose God nnde the sun some to heat up kit's stomach?” she demanded scornfully as she grab- ‘bed the little roly-poly bone of conten- tion and marched off with her to finish dressing her on the front: porch in the direct rays of her instituted heater. The household at large at Widegables can never agree on the clothing of the twins, and Henrietta often. bas to fin- ish thelr toilets thus, by force. Aunt Dilsle being reduced -by her phthisic to a position that is almost entirely or- namental, Henrietta’s strength of char- acter is the only thing that has made the existence of the twins bearable to themselves or ogler people. ‘As 1. have sald before, T-do wish that 'some day in’the future ‘you will ‘come under the direet rays.-of’ Henr.'letm’s ln- fluence, Jane, dear., “Yes, Sallie, I should call them a re- sponsibility,” 1 answered her, with a laugh, as I reached up my arms for head snuggled in the hollow that was instituted in the beglnnlng between & woman's"breast and arms for the pur- pose ‘of ‘Just such nestlings, | pered ‘as I 1ald my lips agains heti llt:tlo ear, “and a happlness, too. the kitten. Then, as the little yellow. . “Are you gzoing to Jet us make an- other dress for the kiddies, Sallie, dear?” she finally was forced by her uneasiness to - ask.’ theugh with the deepest sweetness and consldemtion in her voice. : If 1T.am ever a widow with young chll(lren 1 hope they. will burn us all up withi'the deceased-rather than” keep me wrapped in a cotton wool of sym- pathy, as all of ‘us do, Sallie. “It's -lovely of.you, Nell, to want to do more for. the babies aftet all the beautiful things you and Evelina have made them, and T may be able to get another white dress apiece for them -after I give Cousin James the bills that are awful slready, but this is some rufiling that I just forced Mamie Hall to let me bring up to you girls to - do for her baby The poor little dear is two months old, and Mamie is just beginning on his little dress for him. He bas been wearing the plainest lit- tle slips. Mamie says Ned remarked on the fact that the baby was hardly presentable. when you girls-stopped in with him to see it the other day, Nell. I urged her to get right to work fix- ing him up: It is wrong for children not to be kept as daintily as their fa- ther likes to.see them.” How any woman that is as spiritual- Iy minded as I am and who has so much love for the whole world in her heart and such a deep purpose always to offer it to her fellow men accord- ing to their need of it can have the vile temper I possess I cannot see. “And the sight that would please me better than anything else I have even thought up to want to see,” I found myself saying when I became conscious—I' hope I didn’t use any of the oaths of my forefathers which must have been tempting niy refined foremothers for generations and which: I secretly admire Henrietta for in- dulging in on occasions of impatience “With Sallie—“would be Ned Hall left entirely alone with that squirming baby that looks exactly like him when it is having a terrible spell of colic and Ned is in the midst of a sick head- ache, with all the other children cold. hungry and cross, the cook gone to a funeral and the nurse in a grouch be- ‘cause she couldn’t go and—and he knowing that Mamie was attired in a ‘lovely, ‘cool muslin ‘dress, sitting up ‘here ‘'on the porch with us'sipping a mint julep and smoking a ten cent cigar, resting and getting up an appe- tite for supper. I want him to have about: five years of such days, and then he would deserve’ the joys of parenthood that he now does not ap- preciate.” “Oh, Mamie ‘wouldn’t smoke a ci- gar!” was the exclamation that show- ed how. much Sallle got, of the motit of my eruption. “Glorious!”” exclaimed Nell, with shining eyes. I must be careful about Nell. She is going' this: new gait too fast for one 80 -young. - Women must learn to fletcherize freedom if it is not to give them indigestion of purpose. *‘8tili Ned provides everything in the world he can think of to help. Mamie,” said Caroline. who had come up the walk just in time to fan the flame in me ‘by -her sweet wistfulness, with a soft -judiciousness in her voice and eyes.” “And Mamie adores the children and him.” : If one.man is unattainable to a wo- man all- the other creatures take on the hue of being valuable from the re- flection. - Caroline is‘pathetic! ! “It ‘'would be robbing a woman of a ‘| privilege not: to-let her trot the coiie -out of her own baby,” Sallie got near enough in sight of the discussion to shout softly from the rear, -# I have often seen Cousin Martha on one side of the fire trotting the pup and Cousin Jasmine on the other min- istrating likewise to the kit, so ‘Sallie could take a good nap, which she didn’t atall need, on the long sofa in tho ‘iving.room at Widegables. “Ned is ‘a delightful man, and, of course,’Mamie adores him,” Nell ‘agreed ‘with ‘an.attitude of :mind like to the attitude of a body sustxrlned on tho top rail of a shaky fence. ‘He doubtless' would be just as de- Tlightful to Mamle standing by drop- ping asafetida into a. spoon to admin- ister to_ the baby as he is dancing. with you at the assembly, Nell"’ l said, s'tfll frothy around the temper. ' - “He'll never do it nguin,’{ was the prompt: Tesult 1 =ot f.‘rom my shot.. tro \}'ith yon, Evelina,” said