The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, November 11, 1915, Page 14

AUTHOR OF - °THE MELTING fl,,MOL!y' I #0h, Polk, how could you have mis: understood me like this?’ I moaned from the depths of an almost broken heart. But as I moaned I understood ~I understood! I'm doing it all wrong! I had the most beautiful human. love for him in my heart, and he thought it was all dastardly, cold coquetting. An awful 8park has been struck out of the flint. J’m not worthy to experiment with fthis dreadful man and woman ques- ytion. I just laid my head down on my arms, resting on my knees, and cowered At Polk’s feet. “Don’t, Evelina. I didn't mean it,” he said quickly in a shaken voice. But he did! : I couldn’t answer him, and as I sat still and prayed in my heart for some twords to come that would do away jwith the horror I heard Sallie’s voice from my front walk, and she and Mr. {Haley, each carrying a sleeping twin, jeame around the corner of the porch. That interruption was a direct an- Bwer to prayer, for God knew that I Just must have time to think before having this out with Polk. I some- ¥Don’t, Evelina. 1 didn’t mean it,” he . nt:iguicldy in a shaken voice. But | hedidl #imes feel ashamed of the X bave to pray quick about, but what would I do if I couldn’t? I don’t know how I got through the Fest of this evening, but I did. I pray ifor sleep. Amen! =T v Seevoan), liordered with flowers that-the sun had wooed to.the swooning point. But this week, early as it is, there has been a hint of autumn in the air, and a haze is beginning to creep over the whole world, especially in the ear- ly mornings, which are so dew gemmed that they seem to be hinting a warning of the near coming of frost and snow. My garden has grown into a perfect riot of blooms, but for the last two weeks queer slugs have begun to eat the tender buds that are forming for October blooming, and I have been mourning over it by day and by night and to everybody who will listen. Aunt Augusta insists that the only thing to do is to get up with the first crack of dawn and carefully search out each glug, remove it and destroy it. She says if this is done for a week they will be exterminated. I carefully explained it all to Jasper, and when I came down to breakfast he was coming in with three queer green things, also with an injured air of having been kept up all night. I didn’t feel equal to making him go on with the combat and ignored the ques- tion for two days until I saw all the buds on my largest Neron done for in one night. I have always beén. able to get up at the break of day to go sketching. It was at daybreak that I made my sketch in the Defleury gardens that captured the French art eye enough to get me my salon mention. If 1 could get up to splash water colors at that hour I surely could rush to the protection of my own roses, so I went to bed with gray dawn on my mind and the shutters wide open, so the first light would get full in my eyes. I am glad that it was a good bright ray that woke me and partly dazzled me, for the sight I had after I had world why it should have been. I can’t remember that I ever speculated a8 to whether the Crag wore pajamas or not, and I don’t see that I should g & g : E | prospect: of his embarmassment: when: kind-of sudden emotion. R And queer as it is I have to positively the Tow of roses next to mine, squatted .opposite to where I was kneeling by the bushy, suffering Neron and began to examine the under side of each leaf carefully. He was the most beautiful thing I bave ever seen in the early light with his great chest bane and the blue of the pajamas melting into the bronze of his throat and calling out the gray in his eyes. I had to foree myself into being gardener rather tham artist, as we laughed together over the glass bowl and silver spoon I had beought out for the undoing of the slugs, Bome day I'm going to paint him like shat! - I found out about the pajames fzom: questioning Aunt Martha diseseedly. They seemed so incongruous im wela- tion to the usual old Henry Olay oeat and stock collar that I had #0 mow the reason why. ' Mrs. Harguovels son was a very worldly man, she sageg, and wore them. It comforts her o make them for the Crag to wear im memo- rinm. . He wears the collazss Cousin Martha makes him with her osn fin- gers after the pattern she made his father’s Ly, for the same reason, and lets Cousin Jasmine cut his hair be- cause she always cut her father's, Colo- nel Horton’s, until his death. That ac- counts for the ante-bellum ocwws and the irregular tags in the back. I al- most laughed when Cousin Martha was telling me, but I remembered how a glow rose in my heart when I saw that he still had father’s little odd Con- federate comrade tailor cut his ooats on the same pattern on which he had cut father’s, since the days of recon- struction. © Sometimes it startlee me to find that with all my emancipation I am very like other women. But 1 wornder what I would.Go i Sallie attired him in any of the late Henry’s wearing apparel? “What do you suppose f& the why of such useless things as siugs?” I speculated to stop that thought off sharp as we crawled down the row to- gether, he searching one side of each bush and I the other. “Well, they brought on this nice companionable hunt for them, d%in't they?’ he asked, looking over inéo mg eyes with a laugh. ' “I wanted to see you early this morning anyway,” he hastity resumed. “Sallle and the dominie sat talking to you 80 late last night that I didn’t feet it was fair to come across after they left. But I wanted you so I could hardly get to sleep, and I was just half awake from a dream of you. when I came into the garden™ “My evenings don’t belong to eny- body if you need them, Jamie, and you don't have to be told that,” I an- swered crossly when I thought what a grand time I might have been having talking about real things with the Crag instead of wrestling with Polk's romantics or Sallle’s and Mr. Haley’s gush. “Go on and tell me all about tt white I crawl after you like a worm myseelf,” I snapped still furthen “Well, here goes] In the city cown- cil meeting last night your Uncle Pe- ter told us about the plans that they have made up at Bolivar for enter- taining the C. and G. comandssion, and the gloom of Polk and Lee, Ned E the rest of them . could.have easily been cut in blocks and used for oold storage .purposes. They are just all flown and out about it and no fight left. Of course they all lose by the bond issue, but I can't see that & is bad enough to _knock them aH out lke this. Y got up in mighty wrath and— and I have got myself into one job. My eloquence landed me right. into i one large hole, and I am reaching for a hand from you.” ; CHAPTER . Lending a Hand. . “ ERB i 15," and I reached over and left a smear of loam across the back of his hand, while I brought away a brown : . sive.grasp of his fingers left. “Do you | night about fts seeming inhospitable of ! I'with Ewelina this “time~of day for be here us the guests ol & private citl- zen, Glendale ought to entertain” them publioly. There is no hope to get the '| Boe for us, but I would like thoge men at least to see what the beauty of that biuff road would be. The line across * the river runs through' the. only ugly ° past of the valley, and while I khow fo the balance between dollars and Bsonery, scenery will go down and.out, sl i would be good for them to see i and ,at least get a vision of what might have been to haunt them when they take thelr first trip through the swamps across the country there.: Now, a3 youm are to have them anyway, I want %0 have the whole town enter- tain the whole commission and Bolivar what is classically called among - wa a barbecue rally, the countryside %0 be fnvited. Bolivar is going to give shem ' a 'banquet. to be as near like what the Bolivarians imagine they have In Mew York as possible, and Mrs. Dr. Henderson is to give them a pink #ea reception to which carefully chosen puesontables, like you and me, are to | be mwised. You remember that cir- eus day in July? A rally will be like that or more so. - What do you think?” “0Od, I think you are a genius to think about it,”.I gasped as I sat down on a very cruel Killarney branch.and Just as quickly sat up again, receiving comforting expressions of sympathy from across the bush, to which I paid no heed. “Those blase city men “will g0 crazy about it. We can have the barbecue up on the bluff, ‘where we have always had it for the political rallies, and a fish fry -and the country people in their wagons, with children tumbling all over everything, and—and you will make & great speech, with all of us looking on and being proud of you, because nobody in New York or beyond can do ag well. We can invite a lot of people up from the city and over from Bolivar and Hillsboro and Providence to hear you tell them all about Tennessee while things are cook- ing, and”— “This rally is to show off Glendale, not the Crag,” he interrupted me, with a quizzical laugh, Now, how did he know I called him the Orag in my heart? I suppose I did # to his face and never knew. I seem %0 think right out loud when I am with bhim and feel out loud too. I ignored: hig levity, that wag out of place when he saw how my brain was beginning t0. work weil and rapidly. “You mean, don’t you, Jamie, that rou want to get Glendale past this Déace that is humiliating, swimming with her head up?” I asked goftly past o rose that drooped against my cheek. Perfoctly justifiable tears came to my lashes as I thought what a humil- passed by an opportunity like that and left to die in their gray moldiness off the main line of life— shelved. “That is one of my prayers, to get pest humiliations, swimming with my head up,” 1 added softly, though I blmhedfi'ommytoestomytopcurlat the neoessity that had’called out the prayer the last time. It's awful on a woian to feel herself growing up stiff and sturdy by & man’s side and then to get sight of a gourd vine tangling itself up between them. I'm thedryad out of one of my own twin oaks down by the gate, and I want the other twin to be— ; I wonder if his eyes really look to other women like deep gray pools that you can look deeper and deeper into and neyer seem to get to the bottom, no matter if the look does seem to last forever and you feel yourself blushing and wanting to take your eyes away or i i is just X that get so drowned fn them{ R ; “You've a gaHant stroke,” Evelina,” beuldooftlyaslatlastgainedpo& session of my own sight. . “And here I am with a hand out to.you for as- sistance in' carrying out your own gn that seems to be just .the thing -~ Mearty .| sa¥s for you to.come home.to break- Last right away;. . Mis': Hargrove woa't' let nobody . begin until you' says ‘the blessing, and. Cousin Jasmine have got the headache from waiting ‘for her ooffes.. What do you' want to fool aaywey?” And with the .delivery of which - message ‘and!reproof Henrletta |8t00d on the edge of the path looking down upon us with-great and scorn- ful interest. . *You've got on your nightshirt and baven't combed- your hair or: washed your face,” Bhe continued sternly. : be —— to_pay with all' the (Continued on page 15) - PR i all was to him and the rest of be &