Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 January 1910 — TRUE TO HIS PROMISE. [ARTICLE]

TRUE TO HIS PROMISE.

He Got Ready to Hake Her Shelve* ha Sooa a* Possible. When Mrs, Horton engaged Homer Riggs to make her a set of shelves for her summer kitchen, she endeavored to extract from him a promise that he would do the work within two weeks. But this, although she tried hard, she found to be an impossible task. ' “I can’t be pinned down to a certain day; ma’am,” said Mr. Riggs, with dignity, “for nobody can tell what may befall ’em. I’ll do the best I can for ye, that’s all,” sad Mrs. Horton was forced to content herself with that. When, two days later, Mr. Riggs accosted her on the postoffice steps, and said that he had “been over to Leighton’s sawmill, and seen jest the boards for her work,” she felt somewhat encouraged. But after that day of hope five weeks slipped by with no news from the shelves, and only toftr nods and elusive replies from the one carpenter in Bushby. Then Mrs. Horton ventured to inquire how her work was progressing, but she got scant satisfaction. At the beginning of the sixth week she was summoned to the door one day to see Mr. Riggs, whose wagon, in which reposed several boards, stood at her gate. “I’m expecting to get at your shelves this afternoon* if ’tisn’t too hot,” said Mr. Riggs, “I thought maybe you’d like to know. I’ve got the boards I spoke to ye about in now,” with a jerk of his thumb toward the wagon. “May I ask why you have waited six weeks before getting them?” inquired Mrs. Horton, in her most freezing tone, which was wasted on Homer Riggs. “Why, ’twas like this,” he said, placidly. “I see ’em, as I tpjd you, an’ I kep’ my eye on ’em. They were at the bottom of a pile, an’ trade’s been slack oyer to Leighton’s this spring, same as everywheres else. But the boards did work off gradual, an’ day before yesterday, when I was over there, Leighton said to me, ‘You come over in a couple o’ days, Homer, an’ those boards’ll he clear.’ And so’s not to keep ye waitin’ a minute more’n was needful, I harnessed up to-day just on the chance, an’ theluck was with me.” —Youth’s Companion.