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Show THE MARKED PASSAGE A Story of Love and a Cobbler. 1: , (By K. K. Gibson.) If I could tell you how the sun comes a-neigh-boring through my shop window, afternoons, and how it puts a patch on this calfskin soul of mine and makes me tap more blithely, then I could tell you how cheery love has been to me. But if I could handle such slippery pegs as words, if I could hammer them in as easily as I do these wooden ones, d'ye think I'd-be sitting here in Main street cobbling cob-bling shoes I "Cobbling shoes!'' one lady said to me. "Dear me, such a smelly business !" Even so, my nose has creased a bit with long wearing, has sort of tanned itself in the leathery airs of m.v small shop. Then, too, I hold a pipe convenient to my nostrils and smoke a mixture stronger than leather. I chose it purposely, kind of substitute -to please my customers. Yes, I'm a cobbler. You can see for yourself my " bowed shoulders. How many shoes d'ye think I'd have mended, had I kept a stiff spine in my back? Xow you r.vou, too, I'll bet, have the marks of your calling. Give me your hand. Look at the ink on your lingers! I'm a cobbler one of the last. Shoes are too cheap these days to fetch much mending. The trade is dying, though it makes no odds to me. Short as its time is, mine is shorter. I'm an old man now an old cracked boot of a man, uppers warped and wrinkled,' run down at the heel, half-soled half-soled so often I'm only fit for the ash-heap. You wouldn't think, I was ever red-topped and copper-toed copper-toed with a boy in me. Here I go rambling from love to cobbling. You'd know I was a child again. Love it's love, I tell you, makes these last rheumatic years worth living. I have a daughter; never a man had a better bet-ter than Mina. She came late to me wife went early and now there's Mina and Mina's babies and Mina's Jim. Mina was only fifteen when she first met Jim age when they wear long braids, and their skirts to their ankles, and boys Walk home Avith them after school and hang about and giggle at the gate. Well, I scowled at Jim. Jim, little cuss, didn't flinch a mite, but "How d'ye do, Mr. Sniffin?" says he, as big: as life and twice as natural. It made me huffy, but I kind of liked it in Jim. "Mina," says I one night, clearing my throat to soften what I had to sputter. "Mina. you're don't you think pretty young for this here hanging round with Jim?" "Daddie," says she, and her face all flushed, "you forget I am 'most sixteen." I "Fifteen's young, Mina, ain't it?" says I, "I'm in High school," says she. "Besides, there's no harm in Jim." "I don't doubt that," says I, "but remember remember," re-member," says I, "you're all the little girl I'll ever have, Mina." "Daddie," says she, and I'm cussed if she wasn't t crying in my arms, poor little thing. Well, that was the beginning of Jim. I didn't spy or pry. but I watched unbeknown to them, and it wa3 as pretty a sight as you ever saw, I tell you, to see them plotting and planning at the gate Jim on one, foot, then on t'other, or walking cracks Mina beaming, but awful prim. Prim oh, my, that wasn't the name for it. the way she'd bold up her little round head sweet little head with the brown hair brushed straight back from her white forehead, and her eyes modest and shining, and her little red mouth just so. Could I blame Jim? And then to watch them, apart, just, kind of dreaming dreaming those lovely secrets that the whole blamed world could read, easy, in their eyes. Didn't just happen to strike them, someway, that Old Man Sniflin had ever been there, beforehand ever hung around gates or 3reamed any secrets. But how could they know? Pshaw, how many now how many of us old folks act or talk as if we were ever young. There were no visions of worldly life. Miss Jenks was worried Miss Jenks lived next door. "Mr. Sniffin." says she, "did you know Mina was a-hanging round with Jim?" "Well, I have noticed, something or other," says I. - . "Xotieed! Something or other!" says she, gasping. gasp-ing. "But what arc you going to do about it, Mr. Sniffin?'' "Well, as to that," says T. 'you'll have to ask Mina," says I, scratching my head. "Ask Mina!" said she. "Aren't you her father?" says she, scornfully. "True," says I. , "Then," says she. "will you not put a stop to1 what's going on beneath your very nose" "That's it," says I. "I kind of thought. Miss Jenks," says I, "that beneath my nose was better than behind my back," says I. ' "But that isn't the point," says she. "Tt' oughtn't to go on at all." says she. "And what's more, Mr. Sniftin, since Mina hasn't a mother or an elder friend, or anybody," says she, "to guide and guard her, I'm going to speak to her," says she. "That is, if you don't forbid me, Mr. SnifSn." "Oh, no," says I; "but" "But what?" says she. "Xothing," says I. And the next time I saw Miss Jenks : "Mr. Sniffin," says she, snapping-turtley, with her eyes blazing, "I never dreamed," says she, "that such a sweet-looking girl as Mina could be so impudent," im-pudent," says she, and flounced away before I could get a word in edgewise. "Mina," says I, that evening, "was Miss Jenks speaking to you recently?" says I, soft-like, so as not to startle her. ' "She was," says Mina, also snapping-turtley. "And were you," says I "did you " . .' "I did," says she. "I kind of thought so," says I. "Ought you, do you think, darling?" says I. "Miss Jenks is an old" "Fool, fool, fool, fool!" cries she. stamping her foot, and her cheeks the color of red geraniums. . "I wouldn't, darling. You'll break the dishes," says I. "And there's the door bell." "Why," says Mina, beaming again, "I declare if it isn't Jim." Xow I liked Jim. Plain, honest schoolboy, grea-a-t hand to argue. He and I and Mina, would eit there evenings by the fire, and ;"Jim," I'd say, "how's the election?" "Well," he'd say, "Cleveland'll win." "Thinkso?;1 . ; : ' "Know so." "Well, you're wrong Jim." ,And then we'd have it Great Scott! hot and heavy, back and forth, right and left, and he was level. Jim was. and he'd debated. Jim had. in school, and had the dates down fine. Well, we'd sit there- and argue I a-smoking between times and .Ii n I a-laying down -the law with his hand, and .Mii!;r . t Mina sewing and taking it all in, and ealimiik i; when it got too hot, and yawnimr when ir i;,.t ,, deep. Why. many's the time we've sat ami jirynt.! till the 'clock struck 11 yes. sir. and Jim he'd r; . and say: "Weli, good-nicrht, Mr. Snittin but Clvrb. win." ' ' ' And Mina Mina would see him politely !.. door, and I'd wait for her by the tire, ami, I k- . not. fall asleep just waiting. Xow, it was pleasant, evenings like tha!. ji n. : kind of got over any of those little t'eeliiiir I n j-i hqve had. toward Jim. And things ran e ; Mina was seventeen, and then, eighteen, and m teen and always en every birthday a I'.. 1 poems. V To Mina. from Jim. And Jim, he'd mark passages things lie . j her specially to see, things be seennd i i;. she'd somehow know were true and beautiful. , ; Mina, she'd mark verses; but you could aiun . - t ! her marks from Jim's for his were heavy and 1. were light faintest streaks, they were. a i: were half afraid ot telling what she knew. Xights, sitting alone there by the tire with Mi gone gone tired to bed. or out to partie-, m.v. i-along i-along with Jim, I'd take down one of rln-e ... of hers from the parlor shelf. Says I t,, my "What's good for her young heart, won't bur; v.;; old one," so I'd wipe my glasses and moke ,n ,j read; and, sir, do you know, reatlina: tho-e p..tp . and finding the lines she'd marked, seemed een in nearer to my little girl. Daughters don't say mm to their daddies about what's passing in their y,nm ; hearts. 'Minn, she'd never say much, even f, m. . about loving Jim; but there in those books of he .. books that they'd read and marked together, t!v whole story seemed written down and it broucir. back to me things I'd never dreamed of remembering. remember-ing. And it was wonderful, wonderful, too. I Ml yoi:. how those two young ones had picked-out, the true- things beautiful things tliat f learned by heart p ; ! I said over and over to myself there in the rireligh I here in the shop out in the street. And so. a-mu - tering those marked passages, and without their guessing it. I kept, just even with Mina and Jim. j So, to myself, "How then, old boy?" says 1. ai' I there not three of you in this here love-story?" I Xow I liked that. I liked that very well, I teH I you, and fell to thinking, and one day said to mysei i I again as I tapped away on my bench: I "I'll mark them a pretty passage," says I, "aye. in a book of poems, too," says I, and burst out. . ' laughing. And I did. Oh, it was a merry book. sir. that 1 gave them just laid in their trembling hands on n Christmas morning aye. a very poetical little book. I tell you, but bound plainly in a stifhsh paper of yellowy brown. And on the first page Avas. a lovely poem, copied in a fine and tlourishy Speneeriau hand; and just at the very end, this one marked passage : Balance $500.00. To Mina and Jim. Boston Republic. i . |