Crawfordsville Weekly Journal, Crawfordsville, Montgomery County, 4 March 1898 — Page 7

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ERN 5T0RY ANTE BELLUM DAYS

^wTjetTE h-WA\^9^X^

[Copyright, 1S97, by the Author.]

They wore smoking their morning cigars on the sielo veranda where ho Lamarque rose interposed sweet smelling clusters of blossom and leaf between them and the sun's direct rays. Adrien leaned slightly forward as he asked that question and flipped the ash from his cigar down upon the border of white violets that clothed the roso tree's gnarled roots. His mother was there, too, with her large key basket sitting on tho floor by the side of her chair. She was putting a delicate patch in a damask tablecloth that was too precious an heirloom to be lightly flung away. She could only see Adrien's beautiful profile from where she sat, and the pink carnation he had pinned 011 the lapel of his drab velveteen shooting jacket wafted its odor toward her. It was the peacefulest, happiest hour of all the day to her. "To bo sure, why should yon? it is very commendable of you preserving such reticence about a man who inn once been your schoolmate, but think 1 am entitled to know what you know You need not hesitate. Redmond had put 1110 possession of the whole story. I simply wanted your view of the ease. What was Strong's trouble at Shingleton?" "If Redmond has put you in posses' sion of the whole story, you don't need to hear it afresh from me, grandpa, think Strong made a fool of himself and damaged his reputation irretrievably. No one regrets it more than I do. "But what did be do?" "Invited suspicion. A lot of trumpery had disappeared from various rooms in the college, stolen by the servants, of course, but when it came to $50 in cash and Professor Redmond's watch a stir was made and the faculty took it into their sapient heads that one of the boy» was the culprit and must he made an example of. A devil of a muss they kicked up too." "Preposterous!" the governor ejaculated excitedly. "Absurd!" Mrs. StroDg murmured breathlessly. "Of course, but, preposterous and absurd as it may appear, they had Lawyer Seepliar out to harangue the fellows and his eloquence acted upon poor old Strong like a revival sermon. It stirred him almost to the pitch of turning talebearer—that is, if he really knew anything. He held his tongue, however, sitcceeeling only in convincing everybody that if there was a criminal theio unwhipped justice it must bo Strong Martin himself. I talked to him, but I could mako no headway against old Seephar's forensic eloquence. That is ail there is to tho business. I had rather not have spoken of this, grandpa, for suspicions once voiced rapidly crystallize into convictions, and a strong case against a man can sometimes be worked up from the most impalpable nothings.''

A moment of admiring silence followed this expression of line feeling. The governor removed his spectacle* and rubbed them absently. Mrs. Strong passed her gold thimble caressingly owr the daintiest of patches in her fine damask. Adrien was a great comfort to them both. "Very true and very creditable to you, boy," said tho governor, having fully digested Adrien's remarks, "but. given your impalpable nothings, individual bias must have something to

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with building up your case, and the bias was with Martin, if 1 understand matters." "Yes—but"— "He was not a gentlcm m. That explains it all. Tho plebeian strain permitted him to feel uneasiness for fear that suspicion might rest upon him."

This explanation of Strong's attitude was delivered by Mrs. Strong in her mellow soprano. She could accredit any amount of gaucherio and moral obliquity to a plebeian strain in man or woman.

After that Adrien had flung hiscigr.r away and, taking his cap and gun, hud goue down to tho stables to counrcimand his orders for the drag. He had lost all desire to renew his acquaintance with Amy Cliambliss immediately. He had struck a discordant note in the harmony of the day and was out of tune with the mild refulgence of the October skies, tho searching fragranco of the Mespilus plums, tho vivid beauty of the goldenrod, tho nutty pimgence of the pecan grove, one and all of which challenged his languid notice in that short walk from the big house to the harness room.

He had been reared in the school of polite observances, however, so he had turned a.t. tho foot of the steps and, holding his cap in his band, notified his mother of his change of programme. "I shan't go over to the Chamblisses this morning, dearest.'' "I am sony. I think they are rather expecting you. You will find Amy very much improved. She Ls one of tho nicest girls we have. His mother's voice was gently reproachful. "I remember her as a gray faced little thing wir.h big owlish eyes, a large head full ot brains and a maximum of freckles. Is my memory correct?" "Don't leave out the large heart full of constancy, son." "iViid she's 110c one of your modern girls, sell' reliant :uid courageous. A grasshopper among her petticoats will make her scream feminine to the core, sir. Your true woman is always a bit of a coward, bless her heart. I love her for it too." This from the governor. "I imagine men always love the women best who oftcnest givo them an opportunity to show their own superiority, don't tlicy, grandpa?" "Off with you, sir. You are an impudent rogue. If I was 20 years younger, I would court Amy myself and outwalk you for a shot at the partridges too."

And now the distant peafield lay

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trampled ancl despoiled before mm, its gray, green and russet repose all in a mellow tangle. Dolbear lmd told liim to penetrate the brambly footpath as far

lie UtUd the rod for a suvrcmc effort. as tho family graveyard if he would start the birds in number. He had followed the old man's directions, stopping at tho foot of the crumbling brick stops that led up to the elevated inclosure, by which time his enthusiasm was entirely spent and desire fled. It was always so with Adrien fruition and indifference went hand in hand.

He flung himself down 011 the lowest step to the graveyard inclosure. Pale mosses and dark grasses were forcing their way through the crevices of the bricks. Some time or other he would go inside and see what order tho graves were in, but not jus 1 then. From where he sat he could see how the laurea mundis had grown and spread iking a shadowy arbor over and about the clustering marble stones byrj-jath. Gabriella's was the newes: one there. A crumbling brick wall surmounted by a rusty iron railing circled tho sacred spot. Creepers of every descrijrtiou twined clinging fingers in the iron tracery. A spray of ga^dy nasturtium flowers fell near enough for him to have grasped it if l\n lnul sn illed.

It was as quiet as Robinson Crusoe's island, not even a mocking bird stir rin^ the branches of the dark leaver laurea mundis. ipnrc hi^n-n-ayainst the vineclad wall and gave bimsei up to a rather somber tinted 1 v.-ru

Strong Martin intruded to it witl exasperating persistency—and O He 10 )k a package of letters from pocket and passed the supert-ci lpnoi slowly in review -There was one with unbroken seal. Mis mail had bet-n handed him by his grandfather with a jocular a! iusian to this rather strongly seemed euve'ope. "No usi dodging- it. It is a violatiot of the contract, however

He said tais aloud, as he ran his forefinger impatiently under the flap. His face darkened as he read it, and he promptly tore it in half. Short as it was it completed his discomfiture for that day. He laughed unpleasantly and drew his gun toward him. "Better make wadding of it."

At sight of the drawn ramrod and the white wad of paper disappearing down the black throat of the shotgun, Sarah Jane drew in her lolling red tongue and sprang to her feet. Evidently she had mastered one opinion in her short life and made it securely her own. Guns and birds were tho corollary of each other, and her hour for self assertion had iirrlved.

With the zealous indiscretion of ambitious ignorance she leaped in among the trampled pea vines, and with her slender nose held close to the ground careered wildly over the field, setting at defiance .vdrien's harsh demand for her return. If her disobedience had borne 110 fruit, it might possibly have gone unpunished, but when a promising covey of birds wheeled, startled and terrified, close to Adrien's head and scudded off to take shelter in the more distant cornfield, the measure of his wrath was complete.

Evidently Sarah Jane and he took differing views of the situation. With the triumphant mien of a conqueror who had routed the enemy she came leaping back to his side. Instead of laurels a rod awaited her. Crestfallen, with soft deprecating eyes lifted to the stormy face above her, the setter crouched to receive her first lesson.

Quick and fast fell the blows from the ramrod held in Adrien's firm fingers. He had been defied—the Decalogue held no darker crime. Sarah .Tane was to receive the overflow of the discontent that had been accumulating all that morning. With one hand he held the silken brown head in a merciless grasp. His handsome face w:is empurpled with the violence of his rage and the exercise. Sarah Jane's yelps of agony were mingled with his short panting breathings. His strength was almost spent. High in air he lifted the rod for a supremo effort. "'One mor.e, d—11 you, and then perhaps you will know who is master."

But the did not descend. It was caught i'ro .i' his grasp by an invisible hand behind him and a girl's clear voice i.i denunciation was added to the discord. "You are a cruel v.-retell, Adrien Stron .r, and it would only be serving you right if you could be paid back in your own coin. There, and there, and there!"

A crackli ig brol'en wood, and the fragments pi his iv.xrcd f!ew piecemeal from ir. 11 1 of the fence against wli„li Lad bvon struck with furious loivc.

Adri 11 fared about hurriedly. He knew of no ue :o would thus dare to {intcricrj with Jnsdis.viijline. surely not

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his mother, scarcely his grandfather. Standing 011 the moss grown brick wall behind him was a vision altogether out of keeping with its surroundings. It was Liza Martin, silhouetted in gray serge garb and red fringed turban against, the dark greenery of tho graveyard. Her eyes and cheeks were aflame with indignation as sho flung the last splinter of his broken ramrod at his feet and brushed her reddened palms against each other to free them from dust and splinters.

The stormelouds on Adrien's face gradually passed away. It wras such an exceedingly comical turn ho was ready to laugh. Such transitions came easily to him. But the girl's face was too stern yet awhile for him to venture upon premature mirth. Of course this must bo Eben Martin's daughter. He regarded himself as a good judge of female beauty, and this girl, who stood there calmly adjusting her displaced cuffs, filled his most rigid requirements. "Who are you?" he asked, quite unnecessarily. "I am Eliza Martin, Governor Strong's overseer's daughter. I have been prowling about here. The views are pretty from this point. My brother Seth left 111c hero when ho went by with tho wagon to haul cotton to the gin. I am waiting for him to pick me up on his return. 1 come here to sketch very often. You nave spoiled it for me. J, am telling you this so that you need not think 1 went out of my way to interfere. I was in there with Gabriella when I heard your murderous blows. At school I was vice president of a society for the prevention of cruelty to animals. We don't have such societies here at home, but I know of no place where one is more needed than in this plantation. Poor, poor doggy!"

All this time Adrien was thinking much more about the girl herself than about what she was saying.

Yes, sho was pretty, tho prettiestgirl by long odds he had seen since leaving college. Rather self possessed—that was the strong mindedness, he supposed, that his grandfather complained of. Her voice was marvelously sweet, however, and clear. Ho should liki to hear it again. Even when denour.cing his brutality it tiatl never 01100 risen To shrillness. "I think you need not chance your sketching ground, Miss Martin. I am at homo very little and hunt still less. I was trying to walk off a fit of ill temper this morning."

Liza flashed a mocking smile at him. "And succeeded admirably. Poor old doggy, didn't he, now'.-"

She was 011 her knees, with one hand softly smoothing the hair over the welts made by the ramrod 011 Sarah Jane's quivering flanks. "I imagine you have spoiled your dog for a hunter," she said more gravely. "She will never be anything but a miserable coward after this. See how she cringes when you make one step toward her." "I fancy Sandy has lied to me. The dog is a miserable, cringing cur by nature. Blood will tell in man or beast." "True. And as this is nothing but a miserable cringing cur by nature, fit for the quarters only, suppose you give her to me.

She wns standing up now and without a tinge of cowardice was looking him placidly in the face. His mistake was irretrievable. Ho flushed and stammered and made matters infinitely worse. If she would only turn those mocking eyes away from his crimson cheeks for half a second! All the wrath that had been accumulating through the sunlit hours of that serene October morning turned inward with fierce self denunciation, forcing him to blurt out: "1 am a cad, a brute, an imbecile, not worthy to stand in the presence of any good aud geutle woman."

Liza regarded him in reflective silence. It was as if she wero trying to get him in proper perspective. "Not quite as bad as all that, I imagine. You are simply the product of your environment It was not that poor dog's shortcomings you were punishing. She happened to be the only safety valve at hand. Her helplessness was your vindication

Adrien gaped at her like a chidden charity school culprit. She was altogether a new order of womankind. If Eben Martin's daughter had been 40 years old and himself 10, the absurdity of his present position would have been less apparent. She hail reduced him tc a condition of absolute wordlessness. Retreat was the only thing left to him. Even that was attended with disaster.

He had flung his coat aside in order to give his arms freer play with the rod of discipline, aud the contents of one pocket lay scattered among tho bushes. He recovered the coat with a jerk, flung himself into it, and, seizing his gun, ho doffed his cap surlily to Liza and turned his face homeward. A bitter sense of defeat was his only company. Sarah •lane still crouched at the feet of her deliverer.

Liza sat down on the brick steps to await St tIrs coming. Her sketching mood Wits broken up, tho serenity of her day shattered. Signs of the recent conflict lay about her in tho downtrodden grass and the broken ramrod. There, too, were bits of paper that perhaps she had herself carelessly dropped from her portfolio

She reached over to possess herself of the papery litter, asking herself when she had destroyed a letter and cast its fragments to the winds. To assist her memory she smoothed the crumpled fragment across her knee. Two unbroken lines revealed themselves startlingly at a glance: "Adrien, you would not be ashamed of your wife if you could see her with''—

That was all. Liza crumpled tho paper up once more and flung it from her as if it had been some loathsome reptile.

With scorn bright eyes she looked across tho broad flat fields to where Adrien, his gun resting across his shoulder blades, was just disappearing hehind a knot of pecan trees. "So that is the sort of coward he is!"

The glittering clasp of a Russian leather wallet caught her eye. It was ly

ing on tho ground lieside the brick steps. Sho stooped to pick it up. Its contents were scattered loosely about, flung out by the violence with which he had jerked his shooting jacket, from the tree These Liza gathered up promiscuously and shoved into the wallet.

Once only did she pause 111 her task. It was when lier lingers came 111 contact with tho stiff leather case of a small ambrotype it- was impossible not to look. Impossible not to wonder.

A small, plain, face, with sad, largo eyes and a sensitive mouth. That was all. "Scarcely the sort of face to mako a man forget to bo a gent leman," said Liza, clasping tho wallet over tho pictured face and consigning it to her own deep dress pocket.

CHAPTER VTIL

Presently there was 110 one left in sight and tho battlefield was all her own.

It was high noon, as sho knew by the northward slanting shadows of the elder bushes that were tracing a delicato pattern of lace against the crumbling brick wall behind her. On tho knoll that had just swallowed up Adrien's fast moving figure the torch of a crimsoning sweet gum flared brightly among the rusty green of the pecans and tho vivid verdure of the magnolias a soft rustling in tho oak trees which disputed territory with the pines and the laurea mundis 111 the graveyard was all the sound she heard. I11 the cool sustaining currents of tho upper air some pigeons wero circling ambitiously. Tho sumach was kindling its autumn fires in tho fence corners. A blue jay dressed his elegant plumage with dandified fastidiousness as he swayed easily among tho russet tassels of the dead corn. A sereno still world above, below, all around about herl After a little Sarah Jano lifted her brown head and pointed alert ears, while a loajk of animated interest eamo into her soft eyes. Tho musical note of a hound in pursuit broke in upon nature's noteless madrigal, floated ucarer and died away, munched in the Boundl&'w distance.

Liz* put out a hand and laid it caressingly 011 the silken head at her feet. "Poor beastie! It has been a day of scourging to us both—stripes for thee, a haircloth shirt for me."

Things had been ('.specially exasperating that morning. The flies had been more than ever populous about the open mouth of the molasses jug which formed the central ornament of the red table cover three times a day. Charlie had appeared at the breakfast table with an unkempt look, laughing nervously over the admission that he "couldn't find his comb and brush nowheres. 1 le reckoned "Duke'd done made way with 'em." Her father, fresh from the humane but unpleasant task of drenching a sick mule, had composedly taken position behind the dish of fried chicken without any intermediate ablutions, lier mother had "clean disremembered" that "sissy didn't like her to come to the table without somcthui whito about her threat.

Only Seth had vigorously adhered to the new order of things and taken his place at table, red in the face from recent conflict wiili the coarse roller towel, his wavoless, sandy hair irreproachably smooth and his stalwart arms painfully compressed into the coat which, before Liza's advent, had been conscientiously reserved for state occasions.

As for .Strong, he was only an occasional visitor now. who came more and snore rarely to the overseer's house. He had "cut loose," Charlie called it.

Liza's fastidious taste was sorely outraged at home scores of times each day

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"WhiU tens Slroixi th ini t)U) or,'" Self rebuke always followed closely 011 the heels of her silent condemnation of the shortcomings of those who loveil her so well. "It does not matter, ft must not matter. It shall not matter. They are my people. 1 am theirs. If they made a mistake in sending me away, it was the blunder of loving, ignorant ambition, and it shal1 not be visited 011 them. But it galls, O my dear Lord, it galls! Give 1110 strength to bear it and to hide it from every eye but thine!"

This, her prayer, she had jioured out afresh that morning, kneeling among the fallen leaves that earpcted the earth about Gabriella's tomb. You loved me, sweet, when we were two ignorant little girls, knowing nothing of the social bars that herd all humanity into different pens for different, service. If only you could have staid and I gone, Bella mine!"

Having thus quieted herself "like a weaned child, her sketching had proceeded very satisfactorily until the iliad of Sarah Jane's woes had pierced her ears and broken up her working mood, not to be recovered that day.

Seth would be coming for her presently, and together, perched high 011 tho wagon, with its cargo of seed cotton rising in a dazzling pile behind their backs, they would ride home under tho faraway blue of tho October sky, crushing the plumes of tho goldenrod that lined the narrow rutted road beneath tho ruthless iron tires of their clumsy wacrou wheels, and while tho mellow

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song of tho care free cotton pickers floated to her cars, punctuated by tho short, stertorous breathing of tho steam engine at the gin, Seth would entertain her with the "weights" picked by each hand, and toll her how the race between the champion pickers progressed. Sho must be very much interested in it. Sho owed it to Seth.

From where she sat 011 the moldering brick steps sho could see tho willow fringed pond near by the ginliouse They were ginning that. day. Woolly white clouds of steam escaped in swift jerks from the short, black pipe that pierced the ginliouse roof and lost themselves ill the upper blue. Tho whir of tho machinery, tho whizzing of the great rubber bands, the tearing teeth of tho saws, were all mercifully deadened to her ears. She was glad they had put tho family burying ground as remote as possible from all that rattle and clatter. It seemed an especial intrusion into tho holy calm of that October day.

Another long, quiet hour passed. Tho laco patterns of the elder bushes were losing their nice exactness of out lino and growing blurred. What a pile of cotton Seth must bo weighing! She settled her turban more securely 011 her head and retraced her steps to where she had left her drawing materials all scattered about 011 the low flat stone that covered the remains of some long forgotten Strong. She gathered her crayons and sketchbook into her sateh el with reluctant fingers. "Here, and hero only, tho peace that passeth all understanding abides with me.''

Sho clasped her small hands and stood looking out over the gentle landscape with yearning eyes. "Graveyard point," as tho promontory sho was standing 011 was called, lifted its green head full 200 feet above the water level. Across the many tinted vines that wrapped the tall forest trees in royal mantles of scarlet and gold she looked down upon tho flat bottom lands that lay green and moist at the foot of tho cliffs. It was down thero that Strong was making a hermit of himself. Why, 110 one knew.

Sho was thinking of him. Sorrowfully, pitifully, tenderly. Perhaps no 0110 could come as near comprehending his dark mood as she could. Ho had found it impossible to take up tho old life just whero he had dropped it beforo going to Shiugleton. But why should he liavo tried to do it? Ho was a man. The world was all before, him. He could have gone out to grapple with it. Sho was a woman. That meant, so much in tho way of restriction md limitation. She could only stand and wait.

Neck or Nothing looked desolate enough from whero sho gazed down npon it. Faithless worm fences crawled in decrepit crookedness about its few acres of cleared land. A solitary forlorn cabin, shutterlcss and unpainted, was his home. A starveling pair of mule s, browning 011 tho stiff crab grass within the inclosure a shadeless, hard beaten dooryard, with half a dozen chickens in full possession a ragged patch of cotton crowding close up about the crooked fence one noble sycamore spreading wide, sheltering arms over all this dreariness. Sho took in tho details one by one. "What was Strong thinking of?"

Into this dissatisfied reverie came a heavy, crashing footfall, and Seth stood before her, staggering under the weight of two rough hewn willow posts. He flung them down with a laugh and dried

forehead his shirt

his streaming sleeves. "What now, Seth?" walking around the long tively. "Why, what a are!" "1 been thinkin 'bout you, sissy, ever senco we parted this rnornin, and it come to me. if you was bent on (loin ail your picture makin in this pertickler spot, I'd better be providii: ag'inst accidents. The rainy season is connn on. and w'en it rains hero it don't make bones about it. So.ti"times we has regular chunk floaters. I'it, goin to put you np a storm shed. Them's '.ia: posts for it."

Liza asked, posts inquisiHercules you

Liza looked affectionately up at the great sunburned fellow, with his moist. yellow hair and his loving blue eyes 3he had pronounced him "common" in her heart that very morning, for which she did repent her "Seth, you are entirely too good to me. I don't deserve one-half that you do for me." Sho patted his stooping shoulders caressingly. "Yes, you do, honey, you deserves lots more. 1 sometimes thinks it mighty rough 011 you—mighty rough. And I'm sorry for you, b'dogged if 1 ain't."

Liza stooped and loosened a silver}' lichen from the bark of one of the post s, now intervened between Her eyes were shining and she did not that flying terror.

want Seth to see it. "What is rough 011 me, buddy Seth?" It was the first time she had ever fallen into the old childish form of address. "All of it.," said Seth gently, "all of it. Me and pa and the niggers and tile quarters and—well, everything in a lump. I sorter feel like we all had trapped a little hununin bird and was rumplin its purty feather:, all the wrong way with our clumsy liandlm. 1 do, for a fac*. You needn't to laugh." "Nevermind my plumage. Iwill try to keep it smooth. It will be lovely to have a storm shed out here, Seth Aud will you put me up a shelf too? One that will hold all my boxes and brushes, so that I need not bring them backward and forward every day? That is ouo of my greatest bothers." "A dozen, if you wtuit em, ..said Seth delightedly. "One will do. Whero is your hat, Seth?" lie put a long, sunburned hand up to his lank, yellow hair and laughed uuconcernedly. "It's out yonder in tho wagon, full of pussiruuions. But maybe you've out1 growed your love of pussimmous. I seen a fine lot of ripe ones. Frost, you know, 1 last Tuesday, and I thought maybo .you'd like to eat 'em aswednv' home." "Which I expect wo ought to bo doing now. I promised mother to help her

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with the sweet potato pies. Indeed pies. ui.y persimmon

have not outgrown taste." Seth waved his hand vaguely.

Whenever it suitsyou. If you want to draw some 1110', I can wait. So can tho sweet potato pics, lean be diggin them post holes by way of savin time. Don't mind me, sissy." "1 don't believe I want to draw anymore. My morning has been all spoiled. I am quite ready to go home. "Who sp'iled your morn in?" "Mr. Adrien Strong. What an Adonis he is, Seth 1"

A veiled but daiigerous light came into Scth's mild blue eyes. "Is Adr'11 Strong been pesterm you?" "I think I pestered him more than ho did 1110.''

Such an unaffected ripplo of laughter broke from Liza's parted red lips that Seth's threatening aspect melted instantaneously into one of the most abject adoration. "I'd ruther hear ouo laugh like that from yon, sissv, than to lis'u to tho brass band of Uan Rice's circus, b'dogged if 1 wouldn't, for a, fao' But what's that about Adr'11 Strung sp'iliiv your mornin?"

Then, as together they traversed the. peafield toward whero the wagon waswaiting for them, Liza told him about Adrien and Sarah Jano and the broken ramrod. About the revelation contained, in the crumpled pieco of paper which Adrien bad meant to cram into tho barrel of his gun she did not speak. Tho wallet sho put into Seth's hand, saying briefly: "Ho left this behind. Givo it back to him, please." "Did you think I warn't never coinin back for you?" Seth asked, lifting her lightly into position on the wagon and putting ins mm one ring into nor lap. "I thought you were staying longer than usual, but I suppose it, was tho posts or an extraordinary good picking to weigh. Which was it?" "No, it warn't the posts, nor tho cot--?-: ton, nuther I found the pickers was so close to Nrck or JNotnin tliat 1 jus' stepped over to see how Strong waa. makin it." "Well, how is he making it?" "Po'ly enough, poor boy. I'm troubled 'bout him, sissy. He's gertin mighty sour 'bout everything. Strong didn't use to ho ouo of tho sour sort.. I think ho'* got a biggerconlrac.' on hand than he bargained for in runnin that place, but he won't own up to it. I wisht I could help him some way, I do, for a fac'."

Liza put her hand caressingly otv Seth's rough coat sleeve and left it there. "Seth, you've got the tender heart of a gentle woman under this rough coat somewhere. You arc worth all the Martins put together."

Serb looked down sidewi'^o at her uncomprebendingly. The instinct of helpfulness was simply one way of breathing with him. Liza's outspoken praise made him uncomfortable. "Are you makin fun of me, sissy?'* "The idea! You are a simpleton, Seth. But wlurt was going 011 to say was more complimentary to myself than to you Strong needs me. lie does not need you. He very politely requested me to stay away from Ins cabin, and have respected his wishes so far. Mother is afraid of Strong. Any one can seotli at. Then, with a quick gesture of impatience, "What does it mean anyhow? What has in,bittered the boy? Does any one know? Do you know Setli?" "Parsliullv, said Seth mysteriously."I reckon I know more'ii anybody elsodoes, but that ain't say in much"— lie broke off suddenly, shading his. eyes from the sun glare with one long-, brown hand and stared intently across tho broad, flat fields which spread for more than a mile in unbroken cotton culture on cither side the narrow wagon road. "Look a yonder! Good Lawd! A rtmaway» or I'm a Dutchman. Kin you hoi' these reins, sissy? Tho mules is steady as milk cows.

Ho flung tho heavy reins int.o her lap, and, springing from the wagon, ran with tho fleetness of an Indian straight toward a thick rolling cloud of dust that was approaching with the impetuosity of a whirlwind.

Liza, following his flying motions with wide eyes, saw him plant himself squarely in tho road directly 111 tho pathway of the advancing danger, saw him clutch wildly with futile courage at tho foam flecked head stall of a maddened brute, saw him dashed aside liko a storm tossed autumn leaf and knew that but a lew rods of the wagon road herself and

With swift decision she twisted the heavy leathern reins about lur slim wrists and turned tho clumsy cotton wain broadside to the runaway. He was. already close enough for her to see the swaying traco and tho loosened single--: tree that had caused all the trouble Seth was limping hi Iplossly toward her, lar in the rear. He was shouting something at her, with both hands held to his mouth. His worels were lost on the air, swallowed up in the clattering of infuriated hoofs and the terrified snortiu« of the brute so near at hand.

to e.'ONTiNci i.

Grant'H Way.

Once after several days of hard fighting Gen. Grant called a council of war. One after another told how he would retreat, what road he would select for falling back finally, Grant, who ha3 been listening In silence, arose, and taking from his pocket a bundle of papers, handed one to each olilcer present, saying: "Gentlemen, you will execute these orders at dawn." Every paper was an order to advance "Forward by tho left flank," and with tho morning san the army moved forward to victory.

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