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Show mX s8 1 Jm WLTER PRICHAH) BOON rvaiMT l DDUCLtOAy. CVKGC & CO- SYNOPSIS. I irrow tlr.-.l of my work as u Co!!.-):.-InBUui'l.ir uii.l l.iiv u. Ni'W Knuliiiiil farm on nli;lit. 1 lnspi t my farm and K' tuaini u.1 n.-rt T.-inpl.-'M. ln-rl lii-lim am t" lilrx a ciirp.-ali r aiul a larnn-r. Il .r.l I'lili-r, tlio i'ari.-nlT. i-stliaaOH llin rep a ri mill i-lmllKi-8 lU-ci-SHul-y l.n Ilia Ih,iik.. Mil;.-. Mil;.-. onim.-TH'.-s plowiai,'. I mart la nrviiai U"-or.'har.l U"-or.'har.l Iroa. llar.l Cl.l.-r taill'lH l...ok--aia annual lha iwln lln-lilarcn. Mrs, T.-mpIo hli .m Mrs. I'lllllf for mo lis a lio'jsck.-i-pi-r. aial aaianmci'S Ihn ronibi': .f a iifw Imiirdi-r from Ni-iv York, a Imlf slrk younif woman ulin ne.-ds tb coaalr' Or. 1 dls.-m.-r t hut . Kt.-llii (Jomlwln will make a il.il kIi I f al companion and b.-ll. v.-sha v.-sha oim-ht not to return to th hot nai ilnsly ellv for ii Ioiik time. I miuc-ztf her hand slyly. . ....................... ! The comfort of a rainy day T can you imagine anythino pleas- ? anter, after weeks of glaring ' Kunshine. than to en ioy the glow T f of an open wood fire In a big, I hospitable sitting room while j ? a cold gray rain takes the edge '. off things outside? Especially . f the girl you're falling In ? '. love with is playing the piano . ; to help make you happy? ; CHAPTER VIII Continued. "I guess we won't do any more rtrchos today," I replied, "or you won't, nt any rate. Yo'l'll so home and rest." She looked at me an instant with Just the hint of her twinkle coming hack. "I'm so unused to taking orders." or-ders." she said, "that I've lost the art of obedience. Move the post a little to the right, please." I ili.t so. and we worked on In si lence. We had built the wide central arch by the time tho sun be-an to drop down Into our faces. There were only five arches more to build. "I shall write tonight and have the ros.-s hurried along." said I. We walked back toward the house and looked over the lawn, past the sundial, sun-dial, ami saw the farm through the trellis, and beyond the farm the trees nt the edge of my clearing, and then a distant roof or two. and the far hills. The apple blossoms were fragrant In the orchard. The persistent song sparrows spar-rows were singing. The shadow of the dial post stretched far out toward the east. "It Is pointing toward the brook." said I. "Shall we go and ask the thrush to sing?" She shook her head. "Not tonight." she said briefly, and I walked, grieved and puzzling, up the road by her side. The next day she pleaded n headache, head-ache, and I went to the farm alone. "It will be you who will need a rest soon." she said the second morning, as she came down to breakfast and found me hard at work out on the front porch. "I'm going to take one with you!' said I. "I want to see the country, ' too." She smiled a little, and picked a lilac bud, holding It to her nose. She seemed quite far away now. The first few days of our rapid intimacy had passed, and now she was as much a stranger to me as on the 6rst meeting In the pines. I said nothing about her coming to the farm; I don't know why. Somehow. I was piqued. I wished her to make the first move. In some way, It was all due to my asking her to choose the paint for my dining room, and that seemed to me ridiculous. There was no sun to wake me in the morning, so that I slept till half-past six. Outside the rain was pouring steadily down, and I found Bert rejoicing, re-joicing, for it was badly needed. After breakfast V waylaid Miss Goodwin. "No work on the trellis today." said I, swallowing my pique; "so I'm going to fix up the south room. I'm going to make twin fires out of some of the nice, fragrant apple wood you haven't sawed for me, and hang the Hiroshlges and unpack the books, and have an elegant ele-gant time if you don't make me do it alone." The girl shot a look- around Mrs. Bert's sitting room, where a small owl stood on the mantel under a glass case and a transparent pink niuslln sack filled with burst milkweed pods was draped over a crayon portrait of Bert as a young man. I followed her glance and then our eyes met. "Just the same, they J dear, good souls," she smiled. "Of course," I answered. "But to sit here on a cold, rainy day! ra may read by the fire while I work. Only please come!" "May I read 'The Foundation of the Nineteenth Century,' Doctor Upton?" she said. "You may read the dictionary, If you wish," I replied. She went to get her raincoat. It was ;old out of doors, and the rain drove ji our faces as we splashed down the road. The painters had made a fire in ie kitchen range, and as we stepped in the warmth greeted us iu a curious, friendly way. I brought several logs if dead apple wood into the big room ind soon had the twin hearths cheerful cheer-ful with dancing flames. Then I went oack to the shed, and brought the two ushions which had been on my win-low-seats at college, to place them on the settle. But as I came into the room, instead of finding the girl wait-log wait-log u tit by the fire, I saw her with sleeves rolled up washing the west window. Her body was outlined against the light, her hair making an aura about her head. As she turned a little, I caught the snucy grace of her profile. She was ho Intent upon her task that she had not heard me enter, and I paused a full moment watching her. Then I dropped the cushions and cried, "Come, here's your seat! That I is uo task for a I'll. I)." "I don't 'want a seat," she laughed. "I'm having a grand time, and don't care to have my erudition thrown in n y face. I love to wash windows." "Itnt 'The Foundations of the Nineteenth Nine-teenth Century"" said I. I "The whole nini-ternth century is on I these windows," she replied. "I've got t.) scrub here to get at its foundations." ' "But you'll get tired again." I laughed, though with real solicitude. "I didn't want you to come to work only to be company." "I don't know how to be company. I'lease get me some fresh hot water." My piano, which IkkI stood In the dining room ever since the furniture had arrived, we unhoyed, wheeled in to lill the space between the small east windows, and took the covers off. I looked around. Already the place was assuming a homelike air, and the hmg room had contracted into intimacy. inti-macy. The girl dropped her rag Into the pall, and stood looking about. "Oh, the nice room'." she cried. "And oh, the dirty piano!" I went out to begin on the books, and when I returned I brought the piano bench, as well. The girl was busy with the east window, and I set the bench . f ' She Was Seated Upon It When I Arrived. Ar-rived. down in silence. She was seated upon It, when I arrived with the third load, and through the house were dancing the sounds of a Bach gavotte. She stopped playing as I entered, and looked up with a little smile of apology. 'Tlease go on!" I cried. She wheeled back and let her hands fall on the keys, rippling by a natural suggestion into the old tune "Amaryllis." "Amaryl-lis." The logs were crackling. The gay old measures flooded the room with sound. My head nodded in time, as I stacked the books on the shelves. Suddenly the music stopped, and with a rustle of skirts the girl was beside me. She began to inspect titles, pulling out books here, substituting others there, carrying some to other cases. I wheeled In load after load. "Iord," I cried, "of the making of many books, et cetera! I'll never buy another one, or else I'll never move again." "You'll never move again, you mean," said she. "Look, all the nice poetry by the west fireplace. Don't the green Globe editions look rrerty in the white cases? And Keats right by the chimney. chim-ney. Please, may I put the garden books, and old Mr. Thoreau, by the east fire?" "Give old Mr. Thoreau any seat he wants," said I, "only Mr. Emerson must sit beside him." "Where's Mr. Emerson? Oh, yes. here he is, in a blue suit. Here, we'll plant the rose of beauty on the brow of chaos!" She took the set of Emerson and placed it in the top shelf by the east fireplace, above a tumbled heap of unassorted un-assorted volumes, standing back to survey sur-vey it with her gurgling laugh. "What is so decorative as books?" she cried. "They beat pictures or wall paper. Oh. the nice room, the nice books, nice old' Mr. Emerson, nice twin fires!" "And nice librarian," I added. She darted a look at me, laughed with heightened color, and herself added, with a glance nt her wrist watch, "and nice dinner!" I brought back some of my manuscripts manu-scripts after dinner, in case the room should be completed before supper time. We attacked it again with enthusiasm, en-thusiasm, hers being no less, apparently, appar-ently, than mine, for It waa Indeed wonderful to see the place emerfB from bareness Into the most alluring ehnrni h s (he books lllli-d the shelves, an my two Morris chairs were placed before the fires, as my three or four treasured rugs were unrolled on Uie rather uneven but charmingly old floor which Just filled the old, rugged heniihsloiies, and finally ns the two blight HlroshlgeH were placed In the renter of the two white wood panels over the fireplaces, and the other pictures pic-tures hung over the bookcases. "I think it is wonderful," said I. "I have iny home at last! And how you have helped me!" "Yes, you have your home," said she. "Oh, It Is such a nice one!" She turned away, and went over to the east fire, linking It with her toe. I lit my pipe, sat down at my old. familiar fa-miliar desk, heaved a great sigh of comfort, and opened a manuscript. "It's only four o'clock," said I. "I can get In that hour I wasted in sleep this morning. Can you find something . to read?" "I ought to," she smiled. I plunged into the manuscript a silly novel. I read on, vaguely aware that the west was breaking, and the room growing warm. Presently I heard a window opened and felt the cooler rush of raln-fn-sheneil air from the fragrant orchard. Then I heard the painters come downstairs, talking, and trump out through the kitchtn. It was five o'clock. But I still read on. to finish fin-ish a chapter. The painters had de parted. The entire house was still. Suddenly there stole through the room the soft andante theme of a Mozart Mo-zart sonata, and the low sun at almost the same instant dropped into the clear blue hole In the west and flooded the room. I let the manuscript fall, and sat listening peacefully for a full minute. Then I moved across the floor and stood behind the player. How cheerful the room looked, how booky and old-fashioned! It seemed as if I had always dwelt there. How easy it would be to put out my hands and rest them on her shoulders, and lay my cheek to her hair! The impulse was ridiculously strong to do so, and I tingled to my finger tips with a strange excitement. "Come." I said, "it is after five, and I the sun is out. We will go to hear the I thrush." The girl faced around on the bench, raising her face to mine. "Yes, let us," she answered. "How lovely the room looks novs. Oh, the nice new old room!" She lingered in the doorway a second, sec-ond, and then we stepped out of the front entrance, where we stood entranced en-tranced by the freshness of the raln-wnshed raln-wnshed world In the low light of afternoon, after-noon, and the heavy fragrance of wet lilac buds enveloped us. Then the girl gathered her skirts up and we went down through the orchard, where the ground was strewn with the fallen petals, through the maples where the song sparrow was singing, and in among the dripping pines. The brook was whispering secret things, and the drip from the trees made a soft tinkle, Just detectable, on Its pools. We waited one minute, two minutes, min-utes, three minutes In silence, and then the fairy clarion sounded, the "cool bars of melody from the everlasting evening." It sounded with a thrilling nearness, so lovely that it almost hurt and lnstinctiveif I put out my hand and felt for hers. She yielded it, and so we stood, hand In hand, while the thrush sang once, twice, three times, now near, now farther away, and then it seemed from the very edge of my clearing. I still held her hand, as we waited for another burst of melody. But he evidently did not intend to sing again. My fingers closed tighter over hers as I felt her face turn toward mine, and she answered their pressure while her eyes glistened, I thought, with tears. Then her hand slipped away. "Don't speak," she said, leading the n-ay out of the grove. We went into the house again to make sure that the fires had burned down. The room was darker now, filled with twilight shadows. The last of the logs were glowing red on the hearths, and the air was hot and heavy after the fresh outdoors. But how cheerful, how friendly, how like a human thing, with human feelings of warmth and welcome, the room seemed to me! "It has been a wonderful day," said I, as we turned from the fires to pass out. "I wonder if I shall ever have so much Joy again in my house?" The girl at my side did not answer. I looked at her, and saw that she was struggling with tears. I did instinctively the only thing my clumsy Ignorance could suggest put my hand upon hers. She withdrew It quickly. "No. no!" she cried under her breath. "Oh, I am such a fool! Fool middle English fool, fole, fol; Icelandic, fol: j old French fol always the same I word!" She broke into a plaintive little langh, ran through the hall and lifted the stove lid to see if the fire there was out, and hastened to the road, where I had difficulty to keep pace with her as we walked up the slope to supper. "You need a rest more than you ! think, I guess," I tried to say, but she ; only answered, "I need it less!" and made off at once to her room. That night I didn't go back to my house to . work. I didn't work at all. I looked ' out of my window at a young moon for a long while, and then yes, I confess con-fess It, though I was thirty years old, I wrote a sonnet! j t Why Is it that a big, strapping j f man wants to write poetry when I ho falls In love? This seems to t f be one of the early symptoms of J ! tho "disease." J f ........ .t (TO BB CONTINUED.) |