OCR Text |
Show 0tiS st'BviclW yjJlL'ir $10 V COPYRIGHT BY- yr-j- DODD.MEAD ANit) ' CO.V IsJ. J3U?IJ1 RMOrtin ' STORY FROM THE START Handsome. fastidious and wealthy younp; St. Croix Creleh-ton Creleh-ton awaits his sweetheart at their trystlng place. She Is fifteen fif-teen minutes late, this ordinary little Pennsylvania Dutch girl Meely Schwenckton, but he awaits her eauerly. She Is so demurely beautiful, he thinks but so out of his "class." CHAPTER I Continued 2 "Rut look hero," he said, puzzled, "I'm sure the Pennsylvania law lias, for ttie past ten years or more, re-nuirecl re-nuirecl children to attend school up to the age of fourteen years, and recently re-cently longer. Don't tell me you are over twenty-four years old only a year younger than I am!" "But you see," Meely offered in explanation, ex-planation, "l'op he was a school director di-rector and could do what he liked. He's awful determined. That's why our Jake he won't live at home no more. Top he's so determined. Leave him think a thing's right and he wouldn't listen to even Hoosevelt or or even you yet!" "Po you know," he said after an instant's silence, "I am seriously displeased dis-pleased wilh you today?" "What for, Mr. Creighton?" she asked plaintively. "What did I done did?"- "You were fifteen minutes late! When T say I'll meet you at half-past four I don't mean a quarter to five." "Rut but I was here before you. Mr. Creighton," she answered in surprise. sur-prise. "I didn't keep you waiting I waited." "That's not the point. The point Is you weren't here at half-past four. Pon't let it happen again !" "Rut how do you- know I wasn't here seein' you wasn't here your own self?" "Never mind how I know. I know a lot more about you than you think I do. my little girl !" "Oh!" She looked at him queerly almost as though she were trying not to laugh. "Now, then, why were you fifteen minutes late?" "I had to mind my step-mom's baby whiles the others helped Fop with his cider-makin'. "And then," she continued, "till 1 was through all I had to wait till Pop was out of the way; I darsen't leave him see me come away! Well, ) guess anyhow not !" "lie is 'determined' with you, too. is he?" "Well. I guess anyhow then !" "You use five words, Meely, where two or three would sntlice. Instead of 'Well-l-guess-anyhow-then,' just answer an-swer yes." "I know I talk awful dumb!" Meely humbly admitted, looking abashed. "I don't see why you bother to make dates with a common thing like me! that I don't." " 'Make dates?' " he repeated dubiously. dubi-ously. "Yes. and listen oncet, Mr. Creighton" Creigh-ton" Meely lowered her voice, though the nearest human being was two miles away "that there crabbed old-tnaid sister of my step-mom's that's come to help out over my step-mom's step-mom's conlinement, she's susplcioning me!" "Of meeting me?" he asked a bit uneasily. He had such a very strong reason for being afraid of an awkward awk-ward entanglement, or of Its being known that he philandered with a farmer's common daughter. "Ach, she don't go so far as to suspicion sus-picion my Date Is a swell like you. Mr Creighton. She says to me. she savs, 'I know who your Pate Is. he's that there blond young man at Zent-myer's Zent-myer's farm!' she says. And me. I just left her think It was him." "But " St Croix demanded. Instant-W Instant-W leal'ous. and himself as suspicious as the "old-maid sister." "what reason rea-son does she have for thinking your Date' Is 'the blond young man'? You must have given her reason." "eh well!" Meely cast down her eye's and looked self-conscious. "To be sure, Mr. Creighton, there's others that admars me besides yrJ-tliat's yrJ-tliat's only to he expected. t it . "And do you have 'dates' with this blond young man?" "Well, to be sure, since 1 knowed you. Mr. Creighton, other ones does seem awful common to me. that they do!" , St. Croix had a passing twtnge or conscience for his own responstlul ty In possil.lv spoiling this girls c"""" for a' contented married lite . I, a husband of her own class. e reassured himself with the rolled that from the Hrat she had sou ht him out quite as much as he hud P-' sued her. Seducing a,. innocen u n was certainly not one of the things he. was capable of doing! "What I have afraid of." satd M n b. "is that my step-mom's old-maul s,.ter will take a sneak on me some day and follow me up here unknowns! she's just that mean-dispositioned 1 And you see, Pop he'd say you wasn't keeptu' comp'ny with me fur really; not to marry me; a swell like you yet! Well, I guess anyhow not!" "Is your stepmother's sister a permanent per-manent fixture at the farm?" St. Croix uneasily inquired. "No, thanks be! Till my step-mom's step-mom's well again, her sister goes and good riddance!" St. Croix had often noticed with a slight surprise that in spite of her awful English, Meely was never at a loss when he used words of several syllables not in her own vocabulary. "Do you like your stepmother any better than you like her old-maid sister?" "Well, she ain't so crabbed and bossy like her sister, but she's awfully aw-fully sulky to my little sister and brother and me. If it wasn't that I But Meely Was Always as Fresh and Fragrant as the Morning Dew. hate to leave Sammy and Lizzie," said Meely mournfully, "I'd do like our Jakey dene I'd take and run off, too !" "But," said St. Croix hastily, "you wouldn't go so far that I that you couldn't see me, would you? Come here!" She sprang up, her face alight, as the permission was given, and went to him. He held her close as they sat together on the broad flat stone, his arm about her waist, her head on his breast. Girls of her "class" had always been to him, hitherto, untouchable, un-touchable, so fastidious was his distaste dis-taste for any contact with the un-bathed. un-bathed. But Meely was always as fresh and fragrant as the morning dew 1 His fingers caressed her hair, her white slender neck, her delicate sweet face. But though he could never quite understand just how she did it, she had always somehow managed man-aged to hold him 01T from kissing her lips. He kissed her hands, her throat, her bare arms her lips ever eluded him; in spite of the fact that she seemed as much enamored of him as he of her. "Do you know, Meely, ever since 1 first met you, that night at the barn dnuce, I've bad the queerest feeling of something familiar in your face I'm sure I never saw you before that night" he knew he could not have seen her and forgotten It "yet I can't get away from the feeling of something familiar about you." Meely shook her head over It. "I ain't familiar with you," she said. "I believe." said St. Croix, frowning frown-ing thoughtfully, "that there's surely some psychic reason for my feeling!" "How do you spell that?" asked Meely. "Another thing" he ignored her question "your Pennsylvania Dutch accent- is a hit different " , "I know I don t talk so dumb like some talks for all I do talk pretty dun.h. Rut some 'round here gives awful funny sounds when they talk! Did you ever take notice to it u'readv?" "'Did I? Gosh !" "Say. Mr. Creighton, you've been sayin' what you think is queer at me, darst I tell you what wonders me at you ?" "Shoot It !" "You are the first swell I ever knowed have knew though I have saw 'em a'ready but not to keep comp'ny with 'em, you understand. Well, you're awful diff'runt to what I'd conceited a swell gentleman was like!" St. Croix looked amused. "No doubt !" "You see, when Pop first brang home his young wife I was that mad I run in town and hired myself fur a week to a family where the son was the high-toned-est party I ever have saw! and he was awful diff'runt to what you are. He was so polite to the ladies that way he belittled his-self his-self pickin' up fur 'em and fetchin' and carryin' fur 'em and hoppin' up to give 'em his seat my goodness! It looked awful nice ! Ach !" said Meely, with a long sigh of pleasant reminiscence, "wouldn't it he grand to have your Mister act that polite to you even when there wasn't no comp'ny ! This here gentleman to which I make reference to, he acted just that polite when no one was 'round to see him do it ! Yes, mind you! Why, he acted just that polite to me yet and me only one of the "help !" "Oh, he did, did he?" St. Croix murmured mur-mured jealously. "He was only stringing string-ing you, Meely " "Ach, no ! Fur to all the other help, too, old and young, he was just that polite. And so, till I met up with you a'ready, Mr. Creighton, I conceited con-ceited all high gentlemen was like that there." St. Croix was surprised to find himself him-self piqued uncomfortably by this ignorant girl's intimation (unconscious (uncon-scious though it was) that he did not measure up to her funny standard of a "gentleman" just imagine 1 Yes, grotesque it might be, but it pricked him. A sudden suspicion flashed on him was she unconscious of what she was implying, or was she actually giving him a sly dig? Her amiable patience under his bullying had sometimes some-times seemed "a bit thick" I "Say, Mr. Creighton," she continued, "I'd like awful well to see you in the comp'ny of swell ladies oncet! I bet you'd be just as polite as that there party to which I made reference refer-ence to. For to be sure, you couldn't boss swell ladies 'round like you do me, could you, now? And you'd have to fetch and carry fur 'em and hop up and give 'em your chair just that nice ! ach 1 Wouldn't I like to see you at it! I bet you'd look nice!" She fetched a long breath. "I wisht I was nice educated that men would treat me like that 1" St. Croix was smitten with compunction. com-punction. "You poor kid !" he said, patting her cheek, "you'd like to be treated 'like a swell lady,' would you ?" "No, it's the other way 'round I'd like a man to treat me like as if he was a fine gentleman." She said It so innocently he could not suspect her of guile. "And you think," he smiled, "that I don't treat you as if I were 'a fine gentleman'?" "Well, you can Judge of that bet-ter'n bet-ter'n me, you know the ways of gentlemen gen-tlemen better'n me. Anyhow," she conceded, as though offering him consolation, con-solation, "you look awful swell anyhow, any-how, with all the different tony suits you're got with hose and neckties to match ach !" "Meely !" he exclaimed, trying to kiss her on the mouth, but achieving only a peck at her chin, "sometimes I think you're just a sly little cat!" As her head was on his shoulder and his cheek against her hair, he did not see the sudden flash of her eyes which momentarily transformed her face from its usual vacancy to a sparkling vivacity. When, however, as she did not reply, he turned up her chin to look at her, the dullness which now veiled her countenance like a mask effectually dispelled his momentary doubts. (TO BE CONTINUED.) |