Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 January 1915 — COURSE OF TRUE LOVE [ARTICLE]

COURSE OF TRUE LOVE

By JENNIE H. OLIVER.

(Copyright.)

It was a storm quite notable in history. It came out of a blur of angry, evening red, with wild sheets of screaming, white rain from the murky, boiling river. Under it the little cabin cowered like a beaten hound —even the three shadows within looming grotesquely backward from the fireplace, shrinking and flaring fitfully aa the eddying flame sprang upward and strung itself like rubles on threads of cobweb srfhying from the blackened rafters

Between crashes of deafening thunder two of the shadows talked doggedly and persistently. “Yes, Steve,” said one, lifting his shrewd, calculating features In a vain endeavor to suck Into life his neglected pipe, “yuh ricollict whut I told yuh last time yuh ast fer Retta-May. Conditions is jist th’ same now, and alius will be. “Cur’us, Steve, yuh kain’t remember that old Ike Pedigrew don’t Bay things fer th’ fun of hit. Twenty year I be’n wantin’ that north forty. Yer daddy and I fit hand tuh hand over hit; but he died a year too soon. Lived, an’ I’d a had him. Reckon I’ve got yuh, Steve, instid —fer hit’s that north forty, er no Retta-May.” “They ain’t no jestlce in hit, Ike,” cried the young man hotly. “Hit’s plum’ robbery. How’m I goin’ to take keer o’ Retta es I give up the only part o’ my land that’s wuth workin’?”

“I hain’t astin’ yuh to take keer on her; Jest tuh Agger on that land with me. Es thar’s iny other way tuh do hit, so much the better, fer I’ve got other plans for Retta-May. Not that hit fialn’t fltten fer her tuh bring me somethln r TerT»er raisin’, as her sisterß never done. ’’They was sailer and skinny; but, land, look at Retta-May; Blue and peenk and gold—slim and straight; strong as a young pant’er. Es she hain’t wuth more tuh yuh than the north forty, why, yuh don’t hev tuh take her —that’s all.” There was a sudden, fierce outburst of the storm, ns if the very prince of demons had broken loose; and under its clutching hand the stanch little •structure shuddered and rattled fearsomely. Dark streams of rain crawled in from the sill-less door, and the girl rose silently to sweep back the flood and block Its further entrance with an old ragged coat “ ’Tain’t jest, Ike,” fumed the young man when at last he could make himself heard. “Yuh know there’s coal and mebbe gas on that paster-ridge, and that I’m raisin’ money tuh work hit. Yuh think I didn’t see yuh with that passel o’ prospectors from Little Rock, but I did. And hit’s mine, Ikp Pedigrew, and I don’t ’low tuh give hit up. I ’low tuh dress Retta like a queen when I builds her a new house up under that bunch o’ pine!” “Well, Steve,” answered the old man provokingly, slowly Sucking at his relighted pipe, “I reckon hit’ll turn out by y’ur bulldin’ one on stilts for her over on the south forty under them flms. Reckon yuh’ll hev tuh raise rice tuh keep her, fer I’m goin’ tuh hev that north forty—that, er she marries Jake Dempsey. “Don’t make much difference tuh me. Jake offered me mighty nigh as good a forty, and a fine Jersey cow throwed In. Reckon I’d ruther hev Jake fer relation—he hain’t so blamed obstinate.” Pedigrew laughed disagreeably, and bent to throw on another log.

“Reckon yuh see how hit Is, Steve,’ he went on, after he had gone to stuff up a broken shutter and stop the swirl of red embers that enveloped them for a breathless moment “Y'ur north forty and mine bumps heads at a mighty convenient bend In the river. Now, whin I git busy with them commodities that natur* has packed in thar, I kin mighty easy make use o’ nature’s waterway tub pack ’em off tuh companies that needs ’em. Reckon old man Pedigrew won’t be a rich man then —no, I reckon not!” "Whut es Retta and I takes things In our own hands, Ike? Whut es “I’ll tell yuh, Steve, whut es. RettaMay’B marry Jake Dempsey In the mawnin’, jist as soon’s hit is good and light. Ast him and Jestice Potter over to witness the windin’ up—be handy tuh hev ’em inywav the cat jumps. •Nother thing, Retta-May hain’t her own boss by two year and then some. Retta-May hain’t be’n outen this yard sense yuh an’ I tangled up In this deal. Guess I hold the whup-band. Steve."

The young man dropped bis face in ! his hands and sat for sdme time in deep thought. The bearing light i sprang rudely over his dark head, I over the old man’s hard, shrewd eyes, and the girl’s beauty. Around them roared and walled and crashed the tireless fury of the storm. Finally Stephen Martin sprang erect, a brave resolve in his deep-set gray eyes. •TO give her up, Ike,” he said, huskily. “I’d rather she married some oneas has plenty then tuh go out into the world empty-handed with me. Heaven knowß Td rather do without her than tub see her eyes grow hopeless and her form thin and bent like her mother’s ard mine." “Stop!" cried the girl .suddenly, wltt blazing eyes. “Yuh don’t never leave byer ’thout me. Leave him hev tbs old north forty. I’d rather hev yuh than Jake es he was made o’ gold. As soon as hit’s light we’ll walk outen hyar and leave pappy with his moneyTub'll hev tuh do bit, Stephen," she

went on, with her excited eyes on his troubled face, ” ’cause I’ll go inyways —pappy kain’t keep me in this prisoii no more.” Stephen took the girl’s coaxing hand and smoothed it gently. He thought of it seamed and darkened and roughened. Still her eyes commanded him, and he answered hesitatingly: “The north forty’s your’n, Ike, and Retta’s mine.”

“Retta-May, yuh’re a fool,” growled her father with well-assumed dissatisfaction. "Yuh’ll wear rags yit Reckon we’d better put this deal in writin’ right now, Steve. There ain’t no use o’ waitin’.”

"Hadn’t we better fix this door first, Ike?” said the young man, regarding with suspicion the black stream seeping through Retta’s barrier. “Looks like we’d be swamped perty soon.” “Hain’t nuthin’ we kin do but let the water run out again. Doeß that ever* time hit rains. Hain’t never be’n swamped yit. Retta-May, climb onto that bench and tuck yer feet under yuh. Now, Steve, write hit in that I glta y’ur north forty as divided from the south forty by Big Rock and Sentinel Gum Tree. Hain’t no mlstakin’ that way o’ puttin’ hit. Everythin' north’s mine - everythin’ sooth's

your’n. Write hit in, Steve —write hit In!” _ ~ Standing almoßt ankle-deep in water, the young man bent over the rude table and gravely wrote the document as directed. As he handed It to Pedigrew the cabin tilted sickeningly forward, there was a gurgling Inrush of the foamy flood, and the Are went out quickly with a strong smell of wet ashes. They were in total darkness. “Retta,” shouted Stephen, groping for her in the blackness. “Retta, Retta!” There was a gasping cry from among the huddled furniture as the cabin itself with a hissing outpour of footer, and then sprang sidewise Hie a chunk of driftwood in a whirlpool; and in a moment he held the girl’s dripping, Shaking form tightly with one arm while he braced his back against the heaving side of the rough wall and spread a protecting hand over the silk of her hair. Any minute something might drop upon them —some awful thing reach out of the hideous melee of sound. They could hear the old man blundering and sputtering furiously among the shifting debris. They could hear the grinding and tearing of rock and tree —the continuous swirl and roar of angry water bearing them jerkily along In the awful gloom. Occasionally a red flare of lightning showed them the cabin’s wild Interior, with objects heaped grotesquely against the fireplace. By one such flash the old man made his way over to Stephen and Retta. “Devil’s own night, this!” he shouted angrily. “Be’n hyar nigh on to twenty year, and never did see no sich goin’s on before. I’ll bet we’re in the river right now, goin’ south like thunder.” So he punctuated the awful uncertainty, and reitfrated raspingly as the night wore on. ~ ■ Finally, after what seemed an eternity of tipping and whirling none could guess whither, they felt the cabin settle firmly and remain at anchor. The storm rested, and through the broken shutters filtered the grateful light'of the coming dawn. Righting the obstructing furniture, they made their way through the slimy mud to the door. Pulling It wide on its sagging hinges, they looked out oh a scene that drew a sharp cry of wonder from the young couple and a yell of consternation from the thwarted old schemer.

They were south of Big Rock and Sentinel Gum Tree, on a firm, rootbound clump that had washed safely out into the stream and worked its way to a quiet inlet in the water side of the south forty. The two valuable pastures were nowhere to be seen. Undermined and crumbled by the wearisg flood of centuries, they had melted and spread uselessly under the furious yellow stream, and over their coal and gas the water rushed and foamed and swirled; while, freed from its pentup, film-covered pools, Stephen Martin’s southland lay green and smiling on the ridges—richly, muckily black where the dpeps caught the rosy morning light Amazed at the miracle wrought overnight by the storm and the freakish river, the trio stood, silently gazing from the cabin door. (Finally the old man spoke: “Well, Steve,” he said matter-of-fact-ly, ■“ ’tain’t whut I expected, but ’tis as ’tis, and I hain’t goin’ tuh squeal about hit I reckon the parson’ll do as well as tße jestice, the way things has turned out, 'sides bein’ a sigbt nearer, lessen he’s washed away. “Hurry up breakfast, Retty-May— I'm mighty nigh starved tb death!"