Show the old settler editors Edi tois note the first installment I of an eight week serial begins this week in submitting his copy for this continued story the I 1 I 1 old settler also sent good wishes ito to us and to all of you f for ar a happy new year i a my dear san Jua ners old henry was violently allergic to women he wanted them to I 1 keep out of his sight and off his I 1 I 1 reservation and it was always an oversight on their part if they failed to do just that ile he do declared blared that the individuals of of female persuasion are responsible fat all the trouble in the world their fussy ways their idiotic customs in dress in general and everything else in particular their crimps and fringes and furbelows fur belows he shook his head in disgust they had an in for snooping into and upsetting business he grew rabid as he talked about it and he declared he would live and die in the peaceful remoteness of his obscure cabin where he had spent five years of what he called uninterrupted happiness oh yes oh ah yes he admitted impatiently 1 I lon aw w this human breed of animals would run out if there no women but we dont have to let em run at large i with freedom to blat and gab and fill the world with trouble they ort tobe always limited ia their capacities and abilities trouble is they always have more liberty than they km w how to handle old henrys grizzled hair hung in a mop on the shoulders of his ragged leather coat and his beard was of the extravagant santa claus style henry was a hermit and forty nine he wanted no one to trespass on the remote area of solitude he claimed for his own yet in spite of all the things he had declared to himself and to others in the last five years he was not absolutely impregnable impregnable nabie to the charms of women and when julia jane blonde and beautiful and nineteen appeared there on the path to his tree hidden cabin he thought she was an apparition he rubbed his old eyes and stared at her while his bearded lips fell apart in amazement and then whether it was a dream or a reality he fell all over hini himself self try trying ing to be kind and sympathetic and assuring and appealing and anything but the grizzly bear he be had become he forgot entirely that he was a stoic a hermit a woman hater and in continued on page 8 the old settler nar naf ai 1 stead lie hs was suddenly kin kind d of godfather to some wonderful fairy of the pines julia jane was pale with fright she had been crying she had got separated from the hunting patty party on that part of the mountain where outsiders ventured nearest to the old hermits reservation and when in her fever of fear she had stopped at a spring to get a drink her horse had run away leaving her afoot an afternoon she had walked and run in frantic pursuit of her fancies fan and PW after sunset she had follow followed edw what i nat corned to be a path to this strange dwelling at the foot of the ledge at first sight of it her hart had stopped short and she hesitated in terror whether to appeal to its strange occupant or to fly back int the forest before her presence should be discovered while she hesitated with bated breath old henry appeared with his rags and his whiskers in the rudo rude doorway his appearance seemed to freeze her to the spot as when you see a ghost in a bad dream dram and are unable to retreat a step continued next week weck ALBERT R LYMAN |