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Show WMTBt PRICHARD miON v coy.iotTT o ooueiecvw, M&e O co l SYNOPSIS. 12 I grow tired of my work as a college Instructor and buy a New England farm on sight. I Inspect my farm and go to board at Bert Temple's. Bert helps me to hire a carpenter and a farmer. Hard Cider, the carpenter, estimates the repairs and changes necessary on the house. Mike commences plowing. I start to prune the orchard trees. Hard Cider builds bookcases book-cases around the twin fireplaces. Mrs. Temple hires Mrs. Pllllg for me as a housekeeper, and announces the coming of a new boarder from New York, a half-elck half-elck young woman who needs the country air. I discover that Stella Goodwin will make a delightful companion and believe ehe ought not to return to the hot and dusty city for a long time. I squeeze her hand slyly. Together we dedicate "Twin Fires." I surprise her wading In the brook and enjoy a delightful thrill. Mrs. Pillig, my housekeeper, arrives with her eon Peter and his dog Buster. I wonder If I love her. We take a quiet walk by the brook. g!S!5T5iitlg;Mg'!igfc;ig!Kaiyly;rilgiHWigtlli Here's a question for young I folks who are keeping company: 5 If a fellow who Is susceptible to the Influences of moonlight, 1 soft music, the smell of lilacs, 5 the sly squeeze of a girl's hand a In the dark, the perfume of her g hair, the curve of her throat it M should up and kiss her, even g S against his own better judg- g ment as a bachelor, is It a sure 2 sign that he is in love and ready jj for the parson, the ring and the " I license? You'll enjoy the lit- I tie scene by the pool which Is I described In this Installment. i I CHAPTER XI. Continued. John and Stella have been up to see the pool for the last time before she leaves. They are walking hand In hand through the woods. They halt to wait for the thrush to sing. ' And then, aa we waited, onr eyes meeting, suddenly he sang, far off across the tamaracks, one perfect fall, and silence again. Her face was a glimmering radiance In the dusk. Her hand was warm in mine. Slowly my face sank toward hers, and our lips met met for an Instant when we- were not masters of onrselves, when the bird song and the whispering pines wrought their pagan spell npon ns. Another Instant, and she stood away from me, one hand over her mouth, one hand on her panting breast, and fright Her Eyes Looked Frankly Into Mine. In her eyes. Then, as suddenly, she laughed. It was hardly a nervous laugh. It welled up with the familiar gurgle from her throat "John Upton," she said, "you are a bad man. That wasn't what the thrush said at all." "I misunderstood," said I, recovering recover-ing more slowly, and astounded by her mood. . "I'll not reproach you, since I, a philologist, misunderstood for a second myself," she responded. "Hark!" There was a sudden sound of steps and crackling twigs In the grove behind be-hind us, and Buster emerged up the path, hot on our scent He made a dab with his tongue at my hand, and . then fell upon Miss Goodwin. She sank to her knees and began to caress him, very quickly, so that I could not see her face. "Stella," said I, "Buster has made a friend of you. That's always a great ompllment from a dog." v .. She kept her face buried In his neck an Instant longer, and then her eyes lifted to mine. "Yes John," she said. "And now I must go home to pack my trunk." "Let me drive you to the station In the morning," said I, as we emerged from the grove, in this sudden strange, calm intimacy, when no word had been spoken, and I, at least, was quite in the dark as to her feelings. She shook her head. "No, I go too early for you. You yon musn't try to see me." For Just a second her voice wavered. She stopped for a last look at Twin Fires. "Nice house, nice garden, nice brook," she said, and added, with a little smile, "nice rose trellis." Then we walked np the road, and at Bert's door she put out her hand. "Good-by," she said. "Good-by," I answered. Her eyes looked frankly into mine. There was nothing there but smiling friendship. The fingers did not tremble trem-ble in my grasp. "I shall write," said I, controlling my voice with difficulty, ''and send you pictures of the garden." "Yes, do." She was gone. I walked slowly back to my dwelling. I had kept my resolution. resolu-tion. Yet,how strangely I had kept It! What did It mean? Had I been strong? No. Had she made me kep it? Who could say? All had been so sudden the kiss, her springing away, her abrupt, ab-rupt, astonishing laughter. But she had not reproached me, she had not been righteously angry, nor, still less, absurd. She had thought It, perhaps, but the mood of the place and hour, and understood. That was fine, generous! gen-erous! Few women, I thought would be capable of It Stella! How pleasant pleas-ant it had been to say the namel Then the memory of her kiss came over me like a wave, and my supper stood neglected, neg-lected, and all that evening I sat staring star-ing Idly at my manuscripts and stroking strok-ing Buster's head. Yes, I had kept my resolution and felt like a fool, a happy, hopeless fool! CHAPTER XII. I Go to New York. I shall not here recount the events on the farm during the weeks which followed fol-lowed Miss Stella's departure. They did not particularly Interest me. My whole psychological make-up had been violently shaken, the centers of attention atten-tion had been shifted, and I was constantly con-stantly struggling for a readjustment which did not come. The post office appealed to me more than the peas, and I labored harder over my photographs photo-graphs of the sundial beds than over the beds themselves. I sent for a ray filter and a wide-angle lens, spending hours In experiment and covering a plank In front of the south door with printing frames. I had written to her the day after she had departed, but no reply came for a week, and then only a brief little note, telling me It was hot in town and conveying her regards to the roses. I, too, waited a week though It was hard and then answered, sending some photographs, one of them a snapshot snap-shot of a bird on the edge of the bath, one of them of Buster sitting on his hind legs. Again she answered briefly, merrily, conveying her especial regards to Buster, but ending with a plaintive little postscript about the heat. A few days later a box came addressed ad-dressed to Buster In my care. I opened it In Buster's presence. Indeed literally beneatb his nose. Ou top was a small package, tied with blue ribbon, and labeled "For Buster." It proved to be a dog biscuit, which the recipient at once took to the hearth and began upon. up-on. Benpntli this was n note, which I opened with enj;.-, Angers. It began: Darling Busier: Tour waggish epistle received and contents noted. The limits of the canine intelligence are probably responsible re-sponsible for your mistake in assigning the term glumness to what you observe in Master John, when it is really lack of occupation. You see, dear Buster, he has got Twin Fires bo far under way that he doesn't work at it all the time, so he ought to be at his writing of stories, made up of big dictionary words which I am defining or inventing for him down here in a very hot, dirty, dusty, smelly town. Tell him that's all the trouble. He has a reaction from his first farming enthusiasm, en-thusiasm, and doesn't realize that the thing to do Is to go to work on the new line, his line. For It Is bis line, you know, Buster. Underneath this you'll find something to give him, with my best wishes for sunshine sun-shine on the dear garden. I'd kiss you. Buster, only dogs are terribly germy. STELLA, P. B. That Is a nice pool. Isn't it? I sat on the floor wiyi the letter in my lap, smiling happily over It Then I took the last package out of the box. It was heavy, evidently metal. Removing Re-moving the papers, I held In my hand an old bronze sundial plate, a round one to fit my column, and upon It freshly engraved, the ancient motto: HORAS NON NUMERO NISI SERENAS. SERE-NAS. My first thought was of Its cost She couldn't afford it, the silly, generous girl! She'd bought it, doubtless, at one of those expensive New York antique shops, and then taken It to an engraver's, engrav-er's, for further expense. I ought not accept it Yet how could I refuse? I couldn't I hugged It to my heart, and fairly ran to the dial post, Buster at my heels. Yes, I had no longer any doubts. I wanted her. I should always al-ways want her. Twin Fires was Incomplete, In-complete, I was incomplete, life was Incomplete, without her. At six I stopped work, amazed to find the plot of a story In my head. Heaven knows how it got there, but there it was, almost as full-statured as Minerva when she sprang from the "You Mean My Farm," I Said. head of Jove, though considerably less glacial. I even had the opening sentence sen-tence all ready framed to me always the most difficult point of story or essay, es-say, except the closing sentence. Nor did tills tale appear to be one I had Incubated In the past, and which now popped up above the "threshold" from my subconsciousness. It was a 1 rand-new rand-new plot a perfect stranger to me. The phenomenon interested me almost as much as the plot The tale grew even clearer as I took my bath, and haunted me during 6upper, so that I was peremptory In my replies to poor Mrs. Fllllg and refused to aid Peter that evening with his geography. "Tomorrow," said I, vaguely, going Into my study and locking the door. I worked all that evening, got up at midnight to forage for a glass of milk and a fresh supply of oil for my lamp, and returned to my desk to work till four, when the sun astonished me. The story was done. Instead of going to bed, I went down In the cool of the young morning, when only the birds were astir, and took my bath la Stella's pool. Then I went to the dew-drenched pea vines and began to pick peas. Here Mike found me, with nearly half a bushel gathered, when he appeared ap-peared early to pick for market. "It's the early bird gets vhe peas," said I. "It Is shurely," he laughed. "Yon might say you had a tlllphone call to get up only these ain't tlllphones." "Mike!" I cried, "a pun before breakfast!" break-fast!" "Shure, I've had me breakfast," said he. Which reminded me that I hadn't. I went In the house to get It, reading over and correcting my manuscript as I ate. After breakfast I put on respectable respect-able clothes, tucked the manuscript In my pocket, and mounted the seat of my farm wagon, beside Mike. Behind us were almost two bushels of peas and several bunches of tall, Juicy, red rhubarb stalks from the old hills we found on the place. Mike had greatly enriched the soil, and grown the plants In barrels. "Well, I'm a real farmer now," said I. "Ye are, shurely," Mike replied. "Them's good peas, if they was planted late." We drove past the golf links and the summer hotel, to the market, where I was already known, I found, and greeted by name as I entered. "I'll buy anything you'll sell me," said the proprietor, "and be glad to get It Funny thing about this town, the way folks won't take the trouble to sell what they raise. Most of the big summer estates have their own gardens, gar-dens, of course, but there's nearly a hundred families that don't, and four boarding houses, and the hotels. Why, the hotels send to New York for vegetables vege-tables if you can beat that! Guess all the farmers with any gumption have gone to the cities." "Well," said I, "I'm not farming for my health, which has always been good. I've got more than a bushel of peas out there." "Peas!" cried the market man. "Why, I have more demands for peas than I can fill. The folks who could sell me peas won't plant 'em 'cause It's too much trouble or expense to provide pro-vide the brush. I'll give you eight cents a quart for peas today." "This Is too easy," I whispered to Mike; as we went out to get the baskets. bas-kets. I sold my rhubarb, also, and came away with a little book In which there was entered to my credit $4.16 for peas and $1.06 for rhubarb. I put the book proudly In my pocket for it represented represent-ed my first earnings from -the farm, and, mounting the farm wagon again, told Mike to drive me to the hotel. As we pulled up before the veranda, the line of old ladles in rockers focused fo-cused their eyes upon us. "Shure," whispered Mike, "they look like they was hung out to dry!" I went up the steps and Into the office, of-fice, where the hotel proprietor suavely greeted me, asked after my health, and Inquired how my "estate" was getting on. "You mean my farm," said L 5 jaj With some new money in his 3 j; pockets and prospects bright, It 2 looks like our young friend Is about ready to go get Stella. I Doesn't It strike you about that 3 S way? I gj Qg p-lgKIlIWl)8l;WitgL'ala!IKi)tiHIllliltlWIi;a (TO BE CONTINUED.) |