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Show ' a" sPv.bRO pfHs ass Bi EDNA FE1BER , Doubltdar, Fm ft ) WNU Harriet. . CHAPTER X Continued 1J She told him all this ingenuously, Imply. Dirk felt drawn toward her, sorry for her. Ills wus a nature quick to sympathy. - He told his mother about her. Sellna was deeply Interested and stirred. "Do you think she's" spend some Saturday and Sunday here with ns on the farm? She could come with you on Frlduy and go hack Sunday night If she wanted to. Or stay until t . aloud a train of thought, "all but bet hnnds." Sellna made her voice sound natural, not shnrply Inquisitive. "What's the matter with her hands, Ptrk?" He pondered a moment, his brows knitted. At last, slowly, "Well, 1 don't know. They're brown, and awfully thin and sort of grubby. I mean It makes me nervous to watch them. And when the rest of ber Is cool they're hot when you touch them." He looked at his mothers hands that were busy with some sewing. The years hence whs there. Simeon Peake, dapper, soft-spoken, Ironic, In his shiny j boots and his hat always a little on one side, Pervus DeJong, a blue-shlrted giant with strong tender hands and little fine golden hairs on the bucks of them. In strange contrast to these was the patient, tireless figure of Mnnrtle Tool standing In the doorway "Oh, her. Vh well I haven't been seeing her lutely." "Oh, Dirk, you haven't quarreled with that nice girl!" He decided to have It out. "Msten. mother. There are a lot of different crowds at the U, see? And Mnttle doesn't belong rt any of 'em. You wouldn't understand, but It's like this. stuff on which she was working was a bit of satin ribbon; part of a hood intended to grace the head of Geertje I'ool Vandcr Sljde's second baby. She had dllfioulty In keeping her rough fingers from catching on the soft surface sur-face of the satin. Munual work, water, wa-ter, sun, and wind hud tanned those hands, burdened thein, enlarged the knuckles, spread them, roughened them. Yet how sure they were, and strong, and cool and reliable and tender. ten-der. Suddenly, looking at them, Dirk said, "Now your hands. I love your hands, Mother," She put down her work hastily, yet quietly, so that the sudden rush of happy gruteful tears In her eyes should not sully the pink satin ribbon. She was flushed, like a girl. "Do you, Soblg?' she said. After a moment she took up her sewing again. Her fuce looked young, eager, fresh, like the face of the girl Monday morning and go back with you. There's the spare room, all quiet and cool. She could do as she Uked." Mattle came one Friday night. It was the end of October, and Indian summer, the most beautiful time of the year on the Illinois prnlrle. About the countryside for miles was the took of bounteousness, of plenty, of prophecy fulfilled at when a beautiful and fertile woman having borne her children and found them good, now slta serene-eyed, gracious, ample I bosomed, satisfied. , Into the face of Mattle Schwengnuer 1 there came a certain glory. When 2 she and Selina clasped bands Sellna f stared at her rather curiously, as $ though startled. Afterward she suld to Dirk, aside: "I5ut I thought you ' laid she was ugly I" ; "Well, she Is, or well, isn't she?" She Bhe's smart and Jolly and everything, every-thing, but she Just doesn't belong. Being Be-ing friends with a girl like that doesn't get you anywhere. Besides, she Isn't a girl. She's a middle-aged woman, when you come to think of It." "Doesn't get you anywhere H Se-llna's Se-llna's tone was cool and even. Then, ns the boy's gaze did net meet hers-"Why, hers-"Why, Dirk DeJong, Mattle Schwengauer Schwen-gauer Is one of my reasons for sending you to a university. She's what I call part of a university education. Just talking to her Is learning something valuable. I don't mean that you wouldn't naturally prefer pretty young girls of your own sge to go around with, and all. It would be queer If you didn't But this Muttle why. idie's life. Do you remember that story of when she washed dishes In the kosher restaurant over on Twelfth street and the proprietor used to rent of Roeirs little shed, her arms tucked In her apron for warmth. "You make fun, huh?" she suld, wistfully, "you and Koelf. You make fun." And Roelf, the dark vivid boy, misunderstood. misunder-stood. Koelf. the genius. He was always one of the company. Oh, Selina DeJong never was lonely on these winter evenings before ber fire. She and Dirk sat there one fine sharp evening In early April. It was Saturday. Of late Dirk had not al-wayg al-wayg come to the farm for the weekend. week-end. Eugene and Paula Arnold hnd been home for the Earner holidays. Julie Arnold had invited Dirk to the gay parties at the Prairie avenue house. He had even spent two entire week ends there. After the brocaded luxury of the Prairie avenue house his farm bedroom seemed almost star-tllngly star-tllngly stark and btire. out dishes and cutlery for iristi ana Italian neighborhood weddings where they had pork and goodness knows what all, and then ue them next day In the restaurant, again for the kosher customers?" Sellna wrote Mattle, Inviting her to the farm for Thanksgiving, and Mat-tie Mat-tie answered gratefully, declining. "I shall always remember you," she wrote In that letter, "with love." Chapter XI Throughout Dirk's Freshman year there were, for him, no heartening, Informal, mellow talks before the wood-Are In the book-lined study of some professor whose wisdom was such a mixture of classic lore and modernism as to be an Inspiration to Sellna frankly enjoyed Dirk 1 somewhat some-what fragmentary accounts of these visits; extracted from them as much vicarious pleasure as he had bad In the reality more, probably. "Now, tell me what you had to eat." she would say, sociably, like a child. "What did you have for dinner, for example? Was it grand? Julie t.?H me they have a butler now. Well I I can't wait till I hear Aug Uempel on the subject" He would tell her of the grandeurs of the Arnold menage. She would Interrupt In-terrupt and exclaim: "Mayonnaise! On fruit! Oh, I don't believe I'd like that. You did! Well, I'll have It for you next week when you come home. I'll get the recipe from Julie." He didn't think he'd be home next week. One of the fellows he'd met at who had found cabbages so Deautirui that night when she bounced along the rutty Hulsted road with Klaus Pool, many years ago. It came Into her face, that look, when she was happy, exhilarated, excited. That was why those who loved her and brought that look Into her face thought her beautiful, while those who did not love her never saw thJ look and consequently considered her a plain woman. There was another silence between the two. Then: "Mother, what would you think of my going east next fall, to take a course In architecture?" "Would you like that, Dirk?" "Yes, I think so yes." "Then I'd like it better than anything any-thing in the world. I It makes me happy Just to think of it." "Look at her 1" Mattle Schwengauer was talking to I Meena Bras, the luiuseworker. She : was standing with her hands on her I imple hips, her tine head thrown back, ber eyes alight, her lips smiling so I that you saw her strong aquure teeth. Something had amused Mattle. She I laughed. It wits the laugh of a young girl, care-free, reluxed, at ease. I For two days Muttle did as she l pleased, which meant she helped pull 4 vegetables In the garden, milk the cows, saddle the horses; rode tbem i without a saddle In the pasture. I "It got so I huted to do all those I things on the farm," she aald, laugh-I laugh-I Ing a little shamefacedly. "I guess i It was because I had to. But now It 4 comes back to me and I enjoy it because be-cause It's natural to me, I suppose. Anyway, I'm having a grand time. "It would cost an awful lot." "I'll manage. I'll manage. . . What mode you decide on architecture?" architec-ture?" "I don't know, exactly. The new buildings nt the university Gothic, you know ore such a contrust to the old. Then Paula and I were talking the other day. She hates their house on Prairie terrible old lumpy, gray stone pile, with the black of the I. C. trains all over It. She wants her father fa-ther to build north an Italian villa or French chateau. Something of that sort. So many of her friends are moving mov-ing to the North shore, away from these hideous South-side and North-side North-side Chicago houses with their stoops, .lw.l l.nir ti'lrwl.iii'a unil their ter- hls listeners. Midwest professors delivered de-livered their lectures in the classroom as they had been delivering them In the past ten or twenty years and as they would deliver them until death or a trustees' meeting should remove them. The younger professors and instructors in-structors In natty gray suits and brightly colored ties made a point of being unpedantic in the classroom and rather overdid it. They posed as being be-ing one of the fellows ; would dashingly dashing-ly use a bit of slung to create a laugh from the boys and an adoring titter from the girls. Dirk somehow preferred pre-ferred the pedants to thew. When these had to give on Informal talk to the men before some university event Mrs. DeJong. The grandest time I aver had In my life." Her face was radiant and almost beautiful. i "If you want me to believe that," i said Sellna, "you'll come again." But Mattle Schwengauer never did ..: come again. ' Enrly the next week one of the unl- I veritity students approached Dirk. He ' was a Junior, very influential in his clu8S, and a member of the fraternity - to which Dirk was practically pledged. J A decidedly desirable frnt. ' "Say, look here, DeJong, I want to taU to you a minute. Ch, you've got to cut out that girl Swlnegour or whatever her name Is or it's all off I with the fellows In the frat." and their bay windows, and their terrible ter-rible turrets. Ugh !H "Well, now, do you know," Sellna remonstrated mildly, "I like 'em. I suppose I'm wrong, but to me they seem sort of natural and solid and unpretentious, like the clothes that old August Hempel wears, so squarecut and baggy. Those houses look dignified digni-fied to me, and fitting. They may be ugly probably are but. anyway, they're not ridiculous. They have a certain rugged grandeur. They're Chicago. Chi-cago. Those French nnd Italian gim-cracky gim-cracky things they they're Incongru- , f "What d'you mean! Cut out! I What's the matter with her?" I "Mutter! She's Unclassified, isn't 1 she ! And do j ou know what the story i I is? She told It herself us on economy hint to a girl who was working her I way through. She bathes with her t onion suit and white stockings on to " nave laundry soap. Scrubs 'em on her ! 'S the God's truth." " Into Dirk's mind there flushed a pic- ", iure of this large girl In her tight i knitted union suit nnd her white stock- ' . Ings sitting In a tub half full of water they would start by saying, ".-sow listen, lis-ten, fellahs" At the dunces they were not above "rushing" the pretty coeds. Two of Dirk's classes were conducted con-ducted by women professors. They were well on toward middle age, or past It; desiccated women. Only their eves were alive. Their clothes were of some Indefinite dork stuff, brown or drab-gray; their hair lifeless; their hands long, bony, unvltal. They had seen classes and classes and classes. A roomful of fresh young faces that KrioflB nnlv to he rerlaced ous. It's as If Abraham Lincoln were to appear suddenly In pink satin knee j breeches and buckled shoes, and lace ruffles at his wrists." Dirk could laugh at that picture. But he protested, too. "But there's no native architecture, so what's to be done! You wouldn't call those sinoke-blackened old stone and brick piles with their Iron fences and their conservatories and cupolas and gingerbread ginger-bread exactly native, would you?" (TO BB CONTINUED.) appeared briefly only to be replaced by another roomful of fresh young faces like round' white pencil marks manipulated momentarily on a slate, only to be sponged off to give way to other round white marks. Of te two women one the elder was orcnslon-ally orcnslon-ally likely to flare Into suddn life; a flame In the ashes of a burned-out grate. She had humor and a certain cnustlc wit, qualities that had managed man-aged miraculously to survive even the deadly nnd numbing effects of thirtj years In the classroom. A fin!? mind, nnd Inoclastle. hampered by the re- nd scrubbing them and herself aim- ultuneously. A couilc picture, and a I revolting one. Pathetic, too, but he 1 would not admit that. "Imagine!" the frat brotlier-to-be ' I was saying. "Well, we can't have a ' fellow who goes around with a girl ) like that. You got to cut her out, see! . Completely. The fellahs won't stand ' tor It." ' 1 Dirk had a mental picture of himself ' . striking a noble attitude and saying, r i "Won't stand for It, huh ! She's worth ' ! more than the whole caboodle of you During the Early Spring Dirk and Selina Talked Things Over Again, Seated Before Their Own Fireplace In the High Prairie Farmhouse. the Arnolds' hud invited hlra to their place out north, on the hike. He had a hont. "That'll be lovely!" Selina exclaimed, after an almost unnotlceable moment of silence silence with panic In it. "I'll try not to fuss and be worried like an old hen every minute of the ,i put together. And you can all go to v h 1 1" 1 Instead he said, vaguely. "Oh. Well. , Uh " Dirk changed hla seat In the classroom, class-room, avoided Matties eyes, shot out of the door the minute class was over. One day be saw her coming toward Mm on the campus and he sensed that he Intended to stop and speak to him chide hlm laughingly, perhaps. ? He quickened his pace, swerved a 11-I 11-I tie to one side, and as he passed lifted I bis cap and nodded, keeping his eyes strlctlons of a conventional community and the soul of a congenital sp'nster. Under the guidance of these Dirk chafed and grew restless. Mlr.s Eu-phemla Eu-phemla Holllngswood hnd a way of emphasising every third or fifth syllable, sylla-ble, bringing her voice down hard on 14 He found himself waiting for that emphasis and shrinking from it. as from a sledge-hammer blow. It hurt his head. Miss Lodge droned. She approacred . Mi with a maddening uh-uh-uh-'ih. time I thlnK you're on uie wmrr. . . . Now, do go on, Soblg. First fruit with mayonualse, h'm? What kind of soup?" He was not a naturally talkative person per-son There was nothing surly about his silence. It was a taciturn streak inherited from his Dutch ancestry. This time, though, he was more voluble volu-ble than usual. "I'aula . . ." came again and oguln into his conversation. "Paula . . . Paula . . ." and again ". . . Paula." He did not seem conscious of the repetition, but a word with a maddening uti-uii-un-'in. In the uh-uh-uh-uh fuce of the uh-wh-uh-uh geometrical situation of the Uh-uh-uh-uh He shifted restlessly In his chair, found his hands clenched Into fists, and took refuge In watching the shadow shad-ow cast by on oak branch outside the window on a patch of sunlight against the blackboard behind her. During the early spring Dirk nnd Sellna talked thlugs over again, seated before their own fireplace In the High Prairie farmhouse. Sellna had had that fireplace built five years before and her love of It amounted to worship. She had It lighted always on winter utralght ahead. Out or the tail oi m eye he could see her standing a too- I nient irresolutely in the path. rf , He got Into the fraternity. The fel- ! . hs liked hlm from the first. Sellna ,aid once or twice. "Why don't you bring that nice Mattle home with you jgaln some time soon? Such a nice girlwoman, rather. A fine mind. too. She'll make something of herself. You'll see. Bring her next week, h'm?" Dirk shuffled, coughed, looked away. Oh, I dunno. Haven't seen her lately. Guess she's busy with another crowd, or something." He tried not to think of what he had ... n.aa hnnmrttv nshnmed. Sellna's quick ear caught It. . T haven't seen her," Sellna said, "since she went away to school the first year. She must be let's see she's a year older than you are. She's nineteen going on twenty. Last time 1 saw her I thought she wus a dark scrawny little thing. Too bad she didn't Inherit Julie's lovely gold color-Ing color-Ing and good looks. Instead of Eu-frene, Eu-frene, who doesn't need 'em." "She Isn't !" said Dirk, hotly. "She's dark and slim and sort of uh sensuous" sensu-ous" Selina started visibly, and raised her hand quickly to her mouth to hide a smile "like Cleopatra. Her eyes wi. ot vin.i nf slnnrlnz not done, for he was honestly ashamed. Terribly ashamed. So e said to him-elf. him-elf. "Oh, what of If!" and hid his ibume. A month later Sellna again said, "I . wish you'd Invite Mottle for Thnnks-llvlng" Thnnks-llvlng" dinner. Unless she's going some, wnlch I doubt. We'll have turkey tur-key ana pumpkin pie and all the rest of it. Shell love it." "Mattle?" He had actually torgot-ten torgot-ten ner name. Te. ot course. Isn't that right? Mattle Rchwengeoerr I are big and kind of slanting not gqulnty I don't mean, but slanting up a little at the corners. Cut out, kind of, so that they look bigger than most people's." "My eyes used to be considered rather rath-er fine," said Selina, mischievously; but be did not hear. "She makes nil the other girls look sort of blowzy." He wus silent a moment. mo-ment. Selina was s'.lent. to, and it was not a happy siler.oe. Dirk sooke again, suddenly, as thou.h continuing J evenings and In the spring wnen u.e nights were sharp. In Dirk's absence she would sU before it at night long after the rest of the weary household had gone to bed. High Prairie never knew how many guests Sellna entertained enter-tained there before her fire those winter win-ter evenings old friends and new. So-hlg So-hlg wos there, the plump earth-grimed baby who rolled and tumbled in tf.s fields while bis young mother wiped the sweat from her face to look at him with fond eyes. Dirk DeJong of ten |
