Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 February 1912 — DRESSING UP [ARTICLE]

DRESSING UP

By ELIZABETH ARMSTRONG

(Cecvricbh wax. to Aasoctosd Uieraiy Froro)

A rainy day in early summer sent Jim Bomar's motherless girls to the attic to rummage in the capacious chests tor old-fashioned dresses, in "Oh, but aren’t we fine?" cried Mamie. "Let's go down and show futfrcr " "Father might make us take’ em -off,” rejoined practical Grace; "he’s feeling sad anyway." "I ’spose the house bothers him ’cause it’s so kind of mussy since Mrs. Mott left, but I tried to scrub that kitchen just last Saturday, and father washes the dishes himself whenever we leave ’em long enough.” And Mamie sighed over a housetrials. Poor Jim Bomar was used to cold meals and a general lack of cheer. Even before his wife’s death, the house had borne a down-at-the-heels aspect, and Jim had been wont to escape to the harness room in the barn, where he could find order and peace. * As a refuge the harness room was exceptional. Besides being clean, it was warmed in winter by a small wood stove, and made airy in summer by two enormous windows. The west window had the advantage of which they arrayed themselves with looking toward the homestead where Mary Andrews had lived alone since the death of her mother, Mary’s younger sister Jennie was Jim’s wife. He had never understood just how it happened that she had supplanted Mary,-if not in his heart, still to all intents and purposes in his life. He and Mary had been sweethearts for years, and at last he had written asking; her gto tell him where he might see her tor a most particular talk. He knew that Mary would understand. and he had laughed, when he gave her the note, at his little subterfuge, when he might so easily have told Mary he loved her then fend there. But Mary craved romance. and Jim was doing his humble best ih arranging this dark plot for her entertainment. Mary ran up the steps with his note in her hand, waved her hand at him in good-by—and he had not seen her again in months. She did not answer the note, and gave Jim no chance to ask an explanation of her strange conduct. Deeply hurt, he learned the next day that she had gone for a long visit to her aunt in the city. Jim took his dismissal hard, and Jennie was full of sympathy when he came,.night after night, for news of Mary.' She did not tell him outright, but hinted delicately that Mary had been courting only tn fun and had taken this way of letting him down easy. And after a time Jennie’s sweetness won Jim to believe that her heart was pure gold, and it was his fault if he could not appreciate her as he should. So on the night she told him that Mary was to wed a man in the city whom she had known for several years, Jim asked Jennie if she would care for what was left of his life, and Jennie admitted that she would. Mary did not return for Jennie’s nor did she make any preparations tor her own: and when she had lived quietly with her mother for a number of tnbnths doubts assailed Jim concerning the truth of his wife’s story of her engagement During the ten years of Jim’s married life Mary went in and out of his home and his children took their griefs to her more readily than to their mother. But Jim had seldom seen her/ and for several years he had not crossed the threshold of the Andrews home. As he looked over the fields green with sprouting grain and saw the apple orchard at the homestead in bloom, he imagined that he could see Mary herself walking among the trees in the sun that had just come out and was coaxing the earth to bloom and laughter. He knew that her brown head would be bared in the breeze and her eyes filled with a love for all growing and blooming things. He recalled the last time he had walked along the orchard path, when, after Mother Andrews’s death, he had gone to Mary in an impulse of sympathy, but had unfortunately managed to convey some expression of his long repressed love. Then did Mary’s brown eyes flash and her gentle mouth stiffen to rebuke. “Jim Bomar, never . let ~mo hear such words from you. There can be nothing between you and me .after what has passed. And I cannot bear the sight of your deceitful face.” Jim. sorely wounded, was roused to reply in anger. “Very well, Mary. I will never enter your door until you send tor me.” While Jim was dreaming in the harness room, Mamie and Grace, disporting in their attic finery, had grown tired of admiring themselves “Let’s go over to Aunt Mary’s.” Mamie was adventurous. “Let’s wear ’em over.” •«I don’t believe father’d want us to.” Objected Grace. ' “Huh, father’s in the harness room, and it’s no harm if be didn’t ' tell us uot to. Desides, be don't care very much what we do, so long as we don't Bother him.” reassured Mamie. • So the girls trailed up the road and

surprised Aunt Mary in the orchard “telling secrets to che trees,” as Mamie called it. Ten or twelve years ago the silk gown which Grace wore had been familiar to Mary, for Jennie had worn it that fatal summer when she won Jim’s love-. Even now, with the gray In her hair, Mary felt the old pain fresh at the sight of the hated raiment Jennie had worn that very dress the night she delivered Mary’s note asking Jim to meet her at the foot of the orchard under their particular tree, where Jim had constructed a bench and where they often sat on summer evenings. On that summer evening Mary had gone to the trysting place and waited with her heart full of love and joy. But Jim did not come, and when, deeply hurt, Mary returned to the house, he was leaning over the front gate talking earnestly to Jennie. Later Jennie told her that Jim had dent her a message saying that he had decided he had nothing particular to say to her. “See, Aunt Mary, isn’t my dress full? It’s lots wider’n Grace’s.” "Maybe, ’tls, but my dress has got a pocket,” rejoined Grace, “a real deep one. You can’t B et tbe bot ‘ tom. Auntie, you feel and see if it has a bottom.” Absently Mary put her hand into the pocket of Jennie’s dress. Her fingers touched something that resisted, and she reached again to draw out two letters —Jennie’s love letters, no doubt. But no. She clutched them wildly. One was Jim’s note to her asking for a meeting. She remembered she had hunted in vain for it "after the evening in the orchard. But the other letter was her answer, and that answer had never been opened. Jim had not received it Suddenly a hundred little incidents crowded to her mind that made it clear what part Jennie had taken in her life and Jim’s. Then a rush of gladness came over her. How she had misjudged Jim! Mary could have laughed aloud as she thought of Jim and how she could make up to him for his years of puzzled wonder. Then she looked at the little girls staring at her abstraction and began to Unfold a plan that delighted them. When Jim Bomar came home from bis afternoon’s work he could hardly believe the evidence of his senses. An Immaculate kitchen gave forth the odor of such a supper as only a good housewife could prepare. In a swept and garnished living room his two girls were dancing about a prettily laid supper table. And beside the table stood Mary, his sweetheart, the woman he had always loved: Mary with a smile on her face and a light in her eyes as she stretched a hand to Jim and said: “1 came over to stay to supper, Jim. Am I welcome?” The light in Jim’s face was answer to that question even before his tongue stammered out eagerly a welcome in words. In the late twilight he went with Mary over the path that only the children’s feet had pressed for so long a time and bls eloquent eyes told the story. Silently they took their way along the fragrant path until Jim touched Mary softly on the arm and said: “Mary, this is our tree. See, it is all in glorious bloom. Won’t you sit down?” And the apple blossoms wasted their fragrance and their petals on two unheeding figures while the years of misunderstanding and pain were swept away to make room for the love that was to illumine all the future.