Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 185, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 August 1911 — ABE SHEARER’S RETURN [ARTICLE]

ABE SHEARER’S RETURN

By CARL JENKINS

(Copyright. Nr AaeociMed Literary Prete.)

Abe Shearer had been born on a farm. At six years old he was picking up potatoes as his father dug them. Between ten and twelve he put in two winters at the district school and learned to read in a slow. Uncertain way. He could also spell the easy words if not hurried. Arithmetic was almost a sealed book to him and he four together and was assured that bls sum of eleven was positively correct From the age of twelve it was all hard work and no chance. Abe was a goodhearted fellow and a hard worker, but he grew up a boor. * Mary Baxter was a farmer’s daughter. As soon as she was old enough to lift the churn dasher ft was placed in her hand. To be a farmer’s daughter meant feeding the chickens, peeling the potatoes,-using the broom and J|jg|ing otherwise. She also went to school for a term or two. She learned more and faster than Abe, who carried her dinner basket for her, and sometimes took her hand for the long mile walk. They were always in love, it seemed, but nothing was spoken of marriage until Abe had reached the age of manhood. In Intellect and intuition the girl was the superior, and yet Abe was strong and rugged physically and was looked up so. One day as Abe was working in a field by the roadside an auto in which four girls were riding met with some accident They were girls from the city stopping at a summer resort two miles away. The hired man was called to and he, responded. After half an hour he was lucky enough to find the cause of the trouble and remedy it, but that half hour had worked a change in him. Abb had never been in a city. He had never seen a handsome girl. He had looked into the face of Mary Baxter thousands of times, but never to ask himself if she were homely or goodlooking. He had seen her in many dresses, but he had never thought of style or harmony of colors. She had been just Mary to him. She was neither a flirt nor a coquette. Their talks as lovers had always had a sober tinge. The girls in the auto were full of talk and laughter. Abe wondered that God had made them so handsome, and that money could buy such hats and dresses. He came to them in a hickory shirt and overalls and with a rusty straw hat on his head and they flattered him. They praised his strength and admired his sunburn jmd freckles. They said if they ever married it would be to men like him. And as a climax , the handsomest and most mischievous of the quartette whispered in the hired man’s ear as the auto was ready to proceed:

“It Is a case of love at first sight with me. Meet me this evening at eight o’clock by the big willow tree just this side of the hotel. Don’t fail me.” Abe Shearer had never thought much of himself. He had dene some big days’ work and bragged of the record, but he wasn’t vain or egotistical. He was just a fanner’s hired man and was content with his lot But a new epoch had come into his life. He had been praised and flattered-by handsome girls. He had won the love of one of them without making the slightest effort on his part He knew for the first time that he was handsome as well as strong. Abe’s old straw hat was cocked on his ear for the rest of the afternoon, and the family wondered at his superior air as he sat at the supper table. It seemed as if. he had been lifted up Into another sphere. Abe was Farmer Baxter’s hired man, and he was therefore under the eyes of the girl he was going to marry. She noted this sudden change in him Quicker than the others, and she knew the reason of it She had been in the orchard while Abe was at the auto* mobile and she had heard the laughter of the girls. After Abe had finished the milking and put oh his Sunday suit Mary divined where he was going. She asked no Questions and made no comments. She of all the household was awake at midnight when Abe stumbled upstairs. He carried a puzzled, disappointed look next morning but she had no comments. At four o’clock that afternoon the rural mall carrier hailed the hired man from the road and gave him a letter with the remark: "You must be getting up among the high-toned, Abe. Bet you that’s a love letter from one of the good-looking girls at (he hotel." Abe sat down under a thorn-apple tree and opened, the little robin’s egg colored envelope. On the dainty sheet of paper within were written the words: "I was detained last night. Please be there at the same hour this evening.” “By hokey!" exclaimed Abe, as he flourished the note around his head; and that superior air came back. The girl had not kept the tryst last night but she was all right. She wouldn’t disappoint him again. p When darkness came Abe set out as before. Father and mother looked at Mary for an explanation, but she had none to make. It was an hour after midnight this time when Abe came in. He was sullen and moody all next day, and no letter waa received, but at night he went away for the third time. It was growing daylight when he came home and the watching girl saw him go straight to the barn. Every line

of his figure showed dejection and yet she seemed to read a certain determination in his step. She dressed and reached the barn to find him adjusting a noosed rope to a beam. “Abe, I know all about it,” she said, as she took the rope from his hands. “Come and sit down here.” "What—what you here for!” he demanded.- ' “To save you from making a bigger fool of yourself. Sit down and hear some plain talk. No, then, who are we? You are Abe and I am Mary. Neither of us Is educated and both of us are plain faced. We have lived a farm life all our years. We know nothing of the life lived in the cities. Our ways are different ways. Abe, you would hardly know how to ring a doorbell, and I’m sure Td be as awkward as a cow in a lady’s parier." "I say we are just as good as anybody!" shouted Abe as he wiped a tear from his eye. . "Just as good to live and die. Just as good while we stay in our own world. When we get out of it it’s a different thing. Abe, can you think of tne, with my crude education, with my awkward ways—with my plain face—with the little I knoW of the world, becoming the wife of a xicfe man and holding a place in society?” He was silent. "The other day.you repaired an auto in which four girls were riding. You got puffed up over what they said. Poor boy, you didn’t know that they were having fun at your expense. Your looks and talk were a joke to them." -. "Scat ’em!" growled Ah®“And you dressed up and went away to meet one of them by moonlight. She was just fooling you, Abe—she didn’t appear.” “But she said—she said—” “That she loved you. Oh, Abe, where was your sense! It was all fun and mischief to her. Why should she love you? Why mate with you? Your world is for you and hers for her. And and when you found that she was just laughing at you it was to hang yeurself! Abe, there are fools among women, but oh, the fools among men!” "It’s time to get the pails and do the milking,” said the young man as he rose. • /■" “Is that all?” asked the girl, as she looked up. "Why, if you want to be kissed you’d better stand up, and if you don’t know that I want our wedding day Jumped ahead three months then you’d ty&tter find out before another dinged auto comes chuggin* along with a lot of titterin’ gals for a' load!” '