OCR Text |
Show Kit Smith wants the job, 6ut ho ain't got any education and couldn't buy wheat or calculate on tolls." Being well satisfied with the surroundings sur-roundings and desiring to remain ia that section, I insisted that Kit Smith, with my assistance, could operate the mill; and In a few days Mr. Smith and I had the job. Mr. Buchanan was a homely old fellow, fel-low, his profile at a distance reminding remind-ing me of the picture of some great old man I had seen In history, and I hardly saw how he could be the father of a girl so pretty and sweet as Miss Fannie. In a month I was also assistant manager man-ager of the big farm, for Mr. Buchanan Buchan-an had decided that the greasy scum on a wet weathej spring back in the field was signs of an underground stream of coal oil and was figuring on organizing a stock company to drill. The smiles and kind words of Miss Fannie gave me a feeling a delightful thrill I had never before experienced. A young fellow accompanied her to church one Sunday, and when she returned re-turned that night I knew that I loved her. How lonesome I had been that day without her. The next night she invited me to the parlor to engage her in a game of social so-cial "seven-up." We had a pleasant time, and hardly before the hour to go to my room. I stopped the game, grasped her pretty hand and told her my feelings. I bowed my head to kiss her hand, but she pulled It back, said "No, no," and bade me good night. I said to her the next morning, "Miss Fannie, excuse me last night I couldn't help it, though. Let it pass and think no more of it, but I do lo " "Mr. Cobb, won't you leave? Go off and think no more of it, and let me forget you. It will be better, as nothing else can come of it. -Leave and let me forget you." Sadly I told her farewell Sunday morning and walked off down the road. again m my aimless wandering, wnen a half mile away I heard someone coming up behind me on a horse. I went to the side of the road to let it pass. But when the horse came up It stopped and as I looked around, Miss Fannie ran into my arms. "Come on back! You must not leave me! You cannot! The future looks empty without you." ' Tears of joy came to my eyes, and I bent my head over on hers. I kissed her, said, "God bless my angel,",, and kissed her again. " The horse she rode, seeing it was forgotten, turned and followed us home. A hungry-looking "razor-back" sow with thirteen young pigs, rooting in Under Dogwood Blossoms. BY GEORGE BINGHAM. (Copyright, 1901, by Daily Story Pub. Co.) Not far from Cadiz, on the crooked old Kentucky pike, an ox wagon covered cov-ered with a dingy sheet overtook me. A tall man, who looked lazy, sat on a broken chair in front and drove, while back under the cover five tow-heads were stuck out to watch the slowly changing scenery. .( Under the shackly, rattling vehicle walked a lazy old brindle dog he could walk nowhere else, being tied to the axle with a rope. A scrub milch cow vas tied, to the back szsi of the wagon; the skillets and paus, fastened fasten-ed to the sides of the wagon-bed, rattled rat-tled and bumped; and buckets and pots swung from the axles beneath, as the wagon slowly passed along the pike. I dropped from the splotch of shade on a rail fence corner where I had sat for some time, and spoke to the man. "Good morning," he answered. "If you are going our way, hop up and ride." He reached back, got a handy bucket, turned it over, and I sat down beside him. When I told him my name he said he knew a person in Arkansas by the name of Andy Cobb, but that he was a negro. Then he laughed. He asked me which way I was going, and when I told him I was not particular which way, he said to me: ' I've been livin' in Arkansaw for a good while, and am on my way to South Carolina to visit my wife's folks." which way I went, for I had nothing to do. Two months ;)revio'is I had heard the little town of Snortsville wanted a newspaper, and that being the favorite one of my several vocations, voca-tions, I went to the place and put forth the Weekly Post, with a dusty outfit that had been abandoned some weeks before. In a few issues I found that the people did not want a local paper as bad as they thought they did, so I wound up my business, whidh took but a few minutes, and walked out of town, and it was only a few mornings later that I was overtaken by the man going to visit his wife's folks. After leaving Mr, Botts I came to a cr5ek. The" bauks rrera pretty ith fragrant elder and dogwood blossoms, and birds fluttered over the clear, slowly-moving water, and chattered and chirped in the undergrowth. I heard the sound of rippling water, and going up-stream found a cool, clear, blue spring which rippled and tumbled over recks on Its way to the creek. I brushed the old acorns and sticks from a soft mossy slant end stretched out to rest. "Git up here, now, Pud! You derned old fool! Makin' like you air skeered o' this place when you come here ever' day. Quit that snortin' and git in there and drink befo' I larrup you with a hickory." I raised to my elbows and saw a barefoot man trying to persuade a mule to drink at the stream. The contrary con-trary animal pranced around and went behind a bank, leaving only the rider's head visible to me. Of a sudden it began be-gan bobbing up and down, and 1 heard him urging the mule to behave, in language unsuitable to reproduce. His head disappeared, his feet came up in the air, and something hit the earth with a dull sound. When I got to the bank he was brushing the dirt and gravel from his shoulder, and whoTi T asker! him the tivinhlo v.. Noticing the gait of his team, I asked him how long he had been en route, and in an easy manner he replied: re-plied: "Oh, little the rise of nine weeks." "When do you expect to get there?" - "Kain't tell. Ain t no mor'n ha'f way yet. Who-a-a boys! Sally you and the brats hold tight back there, for here's another creek. You know whut fools these cattle are about water." Then he addressed me. "Ever' "Come on back " the dirt and rocks nearby made an unusual lot of noise, and I raised up and found myself still lying on the mossy place by the spring. I had lain there and imagined I would figure in a romance something like the above. If the hogs had allowed me to finish the plot I imagine it would have wound up by me becoming owner of the farm and mill, and several oil wells. I washed my face in the cool blue water, smoothed over my hair and went with some anxiety to the Buchanan Buchan-an home on the ridge. There was no sweet girl Fannie, nor even a Mrs. Buchanan the old man kept "bach" on a small gully-washed gully-washed farm. But I went in, ate a dinner of beans and bacon, and went on off down the pike, very seriously thinking. " plied: "Nothin. Blasted old mule just tossed me off over her head. "Tuck Buchanan lives right up there on the ridge," he answered when I asked him where I might find some dinner. He spurred the mule in the flanks with his bare heels, and 1 watched the spry little animal pick her way up a rough path, sometimes leading under low branches, which caused the rider to duck his head or push them back. . Again I lay down on the moss. Scents of peach and apple blossoms came to me on the soft, lazy air. A farm-bell . clanged somewhere up the creek bottom and was followed by another an-other and another. Plow-mules brayed and hurried toward their rows' end, for ten ears of corn and an hour's rest was coming. "Don't you want to walk down to the mill? I don't hear it running. 1 guess that trifln' fellow I've got at-tendin' at-tendin' to It is piled up in the corn-box corn-box asleep as hp usually is," said Mr. Buchanan to me the day after I went to his house. We went to the mill and, as he expected, ex-pected, we found the miller dozing in the corn-box. "I'd let him go if I had another man. "Something hit the earth." creek we come to they break in a run for It." The steers struck a brisk pace and when to the bank made a lunge which nearly upset the wagon. After riding an hour with him in which time we raveled abou. three miles I wished them good luck and took the ether fork of the road. True, I was not very particular |