Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 141, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 June 1913 — WINKING OF SARAH [ARTICLE]

WINKING OF SARAH

Jonas Swift, the Hired Man, Finally Won the Farmer’s Pretty Daughter.

By JUNE GAHAN.

"Jonas, let’s rest our backs a few minutes," said farmer Jackson to his hired man one fall day as they dug potatoes in the field. Jonas Swift, the hired man, had been' working for farmer Jackson for four years and more, and this was the first time he had ever heaird his boss suggest a moment’s rest. He therefore stood leaning on his hoe and his mouth open, when the farmer tinued:"I have got that little bill made out." “Bill? Bill?” “Yes. Sit down. I think you will find it all right. I don’t s’pose you can pay it all today, but I’m willin’ to give you time. You can pay*it on the installment plan, the way folks buy things in the city." “But I don’t owe you anything,” said Jones as he sat down. “Oh, yes, you do, as I shall soon show you. You came here to work about four years ago, didn’t you?" About that.” .“And three years ago you took a shine to my gal Sarah Jane?" “Y-yes, I fell In love with her.” “But you haven’t married her yet." “Noap! When my grandmother dies I’m to have S7OO, and that’s what I’m waitin’ for.” “But I’ve nothin’ to do with that. Folks that are not ready to marry shouldn’t go and fall in love." “But Sarah Jane is so darned nice,” pleaded Jonas. “And that makes your debt all the bigger. Jonas, up to and includin’ last night, you have set up and sparked Sarah 984 nights. Is there any disput about that?” i “I guess not” “I think it is worth $3 per night to spark a good-looking girl, don’t you?" "Yes." “Well, I have figured it that way; 984 night at $3 per night is $2,952.” “And I'm to pay it!” almost shouted Jonas.

“That’s only the first item. Courtin’ comes high, Jonas. You have had fire, light, cider, doughnuts and mince pie. I shall put the value of these things at $500.” “Lord save me!” “Before you began sparkin’ you always woke yourself up at 5 o’clock in the morning. Not once did I have to call,_you. After you got to sparkin’ I had to turn out of bed to call you, and most every morning I had to threaten to discharge you to get you out by 6. I figure you have lost a thousand hours and I’ve put it down at $100." “Why, you never said anything before!” wailed Jonas. “Oh, I was just, waitin’. For the 984 times I have got out of bed to call you I shall charge you SIOO, and that’s dogcheap.” “Another hundred!” “But for you Sarah would have been married two years ago. The callers would have come around fast enough if you had been out of the way. We must value on what she’s lost—about $2,000.” “My soul, but I can’t pay you in a thousand years!” exclaimed the hired man as his teeth began to chatter. “It Will take quite that —quite that. How much can you pay a week?” “A dol-lar, mebbe.”« "Well, I’ll take that and I won’t ask you to pay anything after you have reached the age of ninety. No one shall ever have cause to say that I don’t use my hired mep right.” . "But about me’n Sarah getting married?” asked Jonas.

‘‘Why, how iii thunder can you get married with a debt of several thousand dollars hanging over you!” “That’s so—that’s so. Can I go to the house and tell Sarah?” "Why, yes, and you need not come back. You can turn In and cut wood ’till supper time.” Jonas went to the house and called Sarah out to the woodpile and told •her what her father said. “Why, he’s meaner than pizen!” exclaimed the girl. “but we can’t do nothin’.” “Yes, we can. We can elope!” ‘‘Gosh, hut he’d toiler us.” “Then we can walk over to ’Squar* Johnson’s this evening.” “But what we goin’ to do about that awful debt?” “It hain’t no debt. Father couldn’t collect a cent if he sued you a hundred times over.”

“He’s a hard man, Sarah. You orter Been him sot his'Jaw when we was talkin’.” “But can’t you sot yours? Jonas Swift, you don’t seem to have no more grit than a grasshopper. I guess I don’t want to marry any such man!” With that Sarah Jane turned; and flounced into the house to be asked by her mother: “What you and Jonas all excited over?” "Nothin’.!*, “Don't answer me that s way! Somethin’ has happened. What is it?’" “Father’s a fool,” snapped the girl. “What!” “And Jonas’s a fool.” “What! What!” “And I’m a—a—" ' “And you’ll call me a fool next thing!" “ Y-yes! ” “Then take that! You are not too old to be licked, and when I ask a question I want it answered.” Sarah Jane whirled about and flew upstairs tb her room. She was called

.■r 1 : and called, but she made no answer. Her first impulse was to set the house afire; her next was to go down and brain Jonas; her third was to write some sad verses to be left behind to make folks feel all cut up. In the end she climbed out of her window in the dusk of the evening and slid to the ground. Her father had come up from the field, and Sarah dodged him and Jonas and took refuge in the granary of the barn. <; .y:, ''j ■-» ■■ It Seemed to the girl that there were forty things to be mad about and to sulk over. She sat down on the floor in a corner of the little dark room and tried to plan. It was hard to find a way out of her troubles. She was ready to defy her father, and she didn’t so much mind, the box on the ear, but there was Jonas. He had been scared stiff. She felt like pounding him with a club. It was when husband, wife and hired man sat down to supper that Sarah Jane had a crying spell all by her lonesome. Not quite, however. She had a score of rats and mice for company and sympathizers. She was still weeping when she heard the menfolks come out after supper. Two minutes later something happened to burn up her tears. Some one entered the barn with soft footsteps. It wasn’t her father, and it wasn’t Jonas. Who, then, could it be? It was utmost pitch-dark in the barn, and the man had to feel his way. It was the fact that most farm barns are constructed after the same plans that enabled the stranger to head for the granary. He got down on his hands and knees, but the girl could follow his approach every foot. It could be no tramp, or he would have sought the haymow. He came along almost inch by inch, and when he had gained the granary he rose up and lifted the cover of the oat-bin and left something inside. Then he stood listening. Sarah Jane held her i breath for ten seconds and then uttered a scream that jumped him a foot high. The intruder ran for the door, and was just in time to meet Jonas outside. The hired man didn’t waste time wondering where he was at. He reached out and seized the other, and they went rolling over the ground. The farmer came up, and his wife came out, and Sarah Jane found her way to the door and kept up a-scream-ing; but Jonas had the fight all to himself. In time he won It, but not before he had been cut twice with a knife. When they had the fellow trussed and tied they took a good look at him and found him a stranger and a mighty ugly one, too. He claimed to be a tramp for lodgings, but the package_he-had left in the oat-bin settled that. He was one of the trio who had robbed the county treasurer’s office, twelve miles away, in broad daylight, and had been dodging and hiding for hours. There was $15,000 in the package, and there lay one of the robbers, cursing and struggling and waiting for the constables. Jonas had been been pretty badly knifed, and as soon as it was known Sarah Jane cried out: *■ “Father, you go after the ’squar’ at once.” “Fdr why?” “That he may marry Jonas and me!" So it came about that it was Jonas’ very own wife that bound up his wounds and fed him chicken soup until he could go back to pork and beans. When he could talk business he said to the farmer: “I’ve got a bill agin’ you for $5,000.” “What for?” “For marrying Sarah Jane 'two or three years before we was ready!” (Copyright, 1913, by ,the McClure Newspaper Syndicate.)