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Show THE DIXIE OWL The True Story of Isaacs New Trousers Isaac Jensen danced noisily; clatteringly Lis huge feet beat time to the rollicking music of the quadrille. Above the whirling noise of scuffling feet, laughing voices and scraping violin, boomed his laugh, as he in the very recklessness of joy, swung dainty Jane Starling dizzily round and round, her feet scarcely touching the floor. The music ceased suddenly and the dancers laughingly scurried away to the corners of the big ugly room. Isaac approaching one of these y corners with Jane, felt that the buzz of conversation had suddenly ceased and still more uncomfortably that the gay crowd in the corner had been laughing at him. lie knew that they understood quite well his utter devotion to Jane; her seemingly utter indifference to him. He knew also that there were others utterly devoted to Jane, and, alas, on whom she smiled far more sweetly than on Isaac. For Isaac though very likable had not been kindly endowed by nature; his age was twenty and he was six feet three inches and as clumsily awkward as he was overgrown. Jane was immediately whisked away from Isaac and his eyes were soon following her trim blue homespun flitting its way through another quadrille. He groaned and then surveyed his long limbs sadly; his trousers were disheart-eningl- y short and perilously tight; the shirt, well the shirt would do, but the trousers! Morosely Isaac stooped and pulled at their fringy ends, just midway between his knee and ankle; sighed over the bulging knees and wondered bitterly why the devil the women couldnt put a little more cloth in uncom--fortabl- his breeches when they knew he was bigger than any other man in the Order. For it was in the United Order that Isaac lived, and in the order all clothing was made from homespun cloth by the women and girls. And it must be admitted that the pattern for mens trousers was quite shapeless, or rather of a shape that caused a home mader to blush whenever he found himself standing by a pair of store breeches. It was these order breeches which so 'sorely tried Isaacs soul. Too many times had he seen the trim Jane glance shudderingly at his half covered limbs and turn to someone less likable but more completely covered For the rest of the evening Isaac moped in a corner, his eyes following Janes every movement, and at last he sorrowfully watched her depart with an adoring young man whose baggy trousers touched his heels. He felt resentfully that he did not have a fair chance with Jane, his appearance and his work prevented it. He was the Order sheep-herde- r, and sheepherding kept him away from home. Moreover he felt angrily that, there were people who wanted to keep him away from home and Jane. To the sound of tinkling bells the sheep trailed slowly up the ridge, white dots against the gay autumn hillside. Behind them plodded Isaac. The glowing, golden beauty of autumn made no appeal to him as he t rudged bitterly up the steep slope, for in his soul was the deepest misery. He was leaving the Order for the winter instead of noisy in the big kitchen or coasts down steep hills, tingling he must spend the winter trailing sheep; but most of all he must leave Jane ah, who knew what would happen to Jane! For three deary months Isaac trailed wearily after his sheep by day and lay by night staring sad candy-pullin- gs ly into the coals of his camp fire. The pictures he saw in the red heart of the fire were many, yet with always the same center Jane. Day after day he grew more miserable; his diet was bread and molasses, he grew to loathe both: he had no books, nothing to keep him company but his thoughts, and they sometimes were almost tiringly of Jane. At last one glad spring day a messenger arrived telling him to move his sheep north. Joyfully Isaac did so. In two weeks he was in sight of Orderville. From the top of the mountain he could see the smoke puffing up from the pipes of the big Ol der kitchen. He imagined Jane with a crowd of jolly friends preparing huge pans of potatoes and great bubbling pots of gravy for supper. Me groaned; be longed both for Jane and a good supper and gladly would he have thrown Order discipline to the winds and gone straight down to the kitchen had it not been for his trousers. They hung in ribbons around his stout legs, and were pinned together where it was possible to make the pieces meet, with wooden pegs. Indeed so dilapidated were they that Isaac modestly tried to keep a bush between him and the members of the shearing gang. He was camped with them and their merciless jests tortured him; their glowing stories of good times going on in the Order made him gloomy and sad. How much Isaac suffered the sheep shearers did not guess. Night after night he would slip away by himself and watch the lights twinkling in the Order, mid over and over his heart ctied for the same thing until it grew into a constant prayer, Oh Lord, give me some new trousers and Jane. One morning when the teasing was exceptionally severe, Isaac broke away from the crowd angrily and strode to a distant spot in which to sulk. Flinging him- - |