Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 227, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 September 1916 — The IDYL of TWINFIRES [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The IDYL of TWINFIRES

By WALTER PRICHARD EATON

SYNOPSIS. I rrow tired of my work as a college instructor and buy a New England farm on sight. I inspect my farm and go to board at Bert Temple’s. Bert helps me to hire a carpenter and a farmer. Hard Cider, the carpenter, estimates the repairs and changes necessary on the house Mike commences plowing. I start to prune the orchard tree. Hard cider builds bookcases around the twin fireplaces. Jrs. Temple hires Mrs. Pillig for me as a housekeeper, and announces the coming of a new boarder from New York, a halfsick young woman who needs the country air. I discover that Stella Goodwin will make a delightful companion and believe she ought not to return to the hot and dusty city for a long time. I squeeze her hand slyly. Together we dedicate “Twin "Fires.” I surprise her wading In the brook and enjoy a delightful thrill.

What makes home —a well-fur-nished house, quiet, lonesome, cared for by servants; or the sound of children’s laughter, the barking of playful pups, the rattle of dishes In the kitchen and the contented humming of a wife In love with her husband?

CHAPTER IX—Continued. “Oh, forgive me,”, she answered. “I didn’t realize! The path has made it look different, I guess. Forgive me.’’ She spoke very low, and her voice •was grieving. Did It mean so much to her? A sudden pang went through my heart* —and then a sudden hot wave of joy—and then sudden doubts. I was silent. So was the thrush. Presently I touched her hand again, gently. “Come,” said I, “we have scared him with our chopping. He will come back, though, and then we will walk down the clean path, making no noise, and hear him sing.” "Nice path,” she said, “to come out of your door, through your orchard, and wander up a path by a brook, through your own pines! Oh, fortunate mortal!” “And find Diana wading in a pool,” I added. Again she shot an odd, questioning look at me, and shook her head. Then she ran into the south room and put the books back on the shelves. “Which one did you read, Marius or ’Alice?” I asked. “Neither,” she smiled, as I locked the house behind us. CHAPTER X. Advent of the Pillig*. The next day it was raining. I set off alone to make ready for the arrival of the Pllligs. I was standing on my kitchen porch talking to Mike when they arrived. It was a memorable moment. I heard the sound of wheels, and looked up. A wagon was approaching, driven by an old man. Beside him, beneath a cotton umbrella, sat a thin woman in black, with gray hair and a worried look. Behind them, on a battered trunk, sat Peter, who was not thin, who wore no worried look, and who chewed gum. Beneath the wagon, invisible at first, trotted a mud-bespattered yellow pup. The wagon stopped. “Good morning, Mr. Upton,” said Mrs. Pillig. “This is me and Peter.” “Where’s Buster ?” said Peter. At the word Buster, the yellow pup emerged from beneath the cart, wagging the longest tail, in proportion to the dog, ever seen on a .canine. It would be more correct to say that the tall wagged him, for with every excited motion his whole body was undulated to the ears, to counter-balance .that tall. I went out and aided Mrs. Pillig to alight, and then Mike and I lifted the trunk to the porch. I looked at the dog, which had also joined us on the porch, where he was leaving muddy paw marks. “Do I understand that Buster is also an arrival?” said I. “Oh, dear me, Mr. Upton, yon must excuse me,” Mrs. Pillig cried anxiously. “Mrs. John Barker's boy Leslie gave Buster to Peter a month ago,' and of course I sent him right back, but he wouldn’t stay back, and yesterday we took him away again, and this morning he just suddenly appeared behind the wagon, and I told Peter he couldn’t come, and Peter cried, and *Buster wouldn’t go back, and I’ll make Peter take him away just as soon as the rain stops.” “Well, I hadn't bargained on Buster, that’s a fact,” said I. I didn’t like dogs; most people don’t who’ve never had one. But he was such a forlornly muddy mongrel pup, and so eloquent of tail, that I spoke, his name on an impulse, and put out my hand. The great tail wagged him to the ears, and With the friendliest of undulations he was all at once close to me, with his nose in my palm. Then he suddenly aat up on his hind legs, dangled his tfront paws, looked me square in the eyes, and barked. That was too much for me. “Peter,” «aid I, “you may keep Buster.” “Golly, I'd ’a’ had a hard time not to,” said that young person, immediately making for the barn, with Buster at his heels. Mrs. Pillig and I went inside. While «he wa» Inspecting the kitchen, Mike and I carried her trunk up the back •tairs. “I hope your bed comes today,” said

I, returning. “You see, the house is largely furnished from my two rooms nt college, and there was hardly enough to go around.” Mrs. Pillig looked into the south room. "Did you have all them books in your two rooms at college?” she asked. I nodded. “They must ’a’ been pretty big rooms,” she said. “Books is awful things to keep dusted.” “Which reminds me,” I smiled, leading her over to my desk, at which I pointed impressively. “Woman!” said I, in sepulchral tones, “that desk is never to be dusted, never to be touched.” She looked at me a second with her worried eyes wide open, and then- a smile came over her wan, thin face. “I guess you be n't so terrible as you sound,” she said. “But I won’t touch it Anything else l’m not to touch?’ “Yes,” I answered. “The ashes in those two fireplaces. The ashes there are never to be taken out, no matter if they are piled a foot thick, and spill all over the floor. A noble pile of ashes is a room’s best recommendation. Those are the only two orders I have. In all else, I’m at your mercy. But on those two points you are at mine—and I have none!” “Well, 1 reckon I’ll wash the kitchen windows,” said Mrs. Pillig. I was sawing up a few sticks from the orchard when the express man drove up with the beds, the crockery, and so on. I called son Peter, who responded with Buster at his heels. “Peter,” said I, “you and I’ll now set up the beds. You ought to be in school, though, by the way. Why aren’t you?” “Hed ter bring maw over here,” said Peter. “That’s too bad. Aren’t you sorry?” Peter grinned at me and slowly winked. I was very stern. “Nevertheless, you’ll have a lesson,” I said. “You shall tell me the capitals of all the states while we set up your bed.” Peter and I carried the beds, springs and mattresses upstairs and suddenly Buster appeared upon the scene. He

began to leave mud tracks all over the freshly-painted floor, so that we had to grab him up and wipe his paws with a rag. Peter held him while I wiped, and we fell to laughing, and forgot Montana. “You’ll have to get rubbers for him,” said I. The idea amused Peter tremendously. “Gee, rubbers on a dog!” he cried. “Buster’d eat ’em off in two seconds. Say. where’s Buster goin’ to sleep?” We had to turn aside on our way downstairs for more furniture to make Buster a bed in a box full of excelsior in the shed. We put him in it, and went back to the porch. Buster followed us. We took him, back, and put him in the box once more. He whacked the sides -with his tail, as if be enjoyed the game—-and jumped out as soon as we turned 'away. “Gee. he's too wide awake now,” said Peter. ® So we fell over Buster for the rest of the morning. I never saw a dog before nor since who could so successfully get under your I feet as Buster. When I scolded him, he undulated his silly yellow body, sprang upon his hind legs, and licked my hands. If I tried to kick him, be regarded it as a game, and bit my shoe lace. Peter’s shoe laces, I noted, were in shreds. But Buster disappeared, after a time, and Peter and I got the china and kitchenware all in, and Mrs. Pillig had it washed and in the cupboards before he reappeared. He came down the front stairs with one of. my bath slippers in his mouth, and, with a profoundly proud undulation of tail and body, laid it at my feet for me to throw, barking loudly. We all laughed, but I took the slipper and beat him with It, while Peter appeared on the verge of tears.

’No. Buster,” I cried. "Yoa keep out of doors. Peter, put him out." Peter resentfully deposited the pup on the porch, and took my slipper back upstairs. Meanwhile, Buster, after lookIng wlstfuHy through the screen door a second, pushed it open with his nose and paw and re-entered, immediately sitting up on his hind legs and gazing into my eyes with the most human look I ever saw. “Buster,” said I, “you are the limit. Very well, stay in. I give up!” Buster plopped down on all fours, as If he understood perfectly, and took a bite at my shoe string. I patted his head. I had to. The pup was irresistible. “And what time will you have your dinner?” asked Mrs. Pillig. “There’s no meat in the house. Guess you forgot to order the butcher to stop; but there’s eggs.” “Eggs will do,” said I, “and one o’clock. Bert has his at twelve, but I want mine at one. Maybe I shall have a guest.” “A guests she cried. “You wouldn’t be puttin’ a guest on me the first mornin’!” “Well, it’s doubtful, I’m afraid,” I answered. “Perhaps I’ll wait till tomorrow night, and have three guests for supper—just Bert and his wife and their boarder—sort of a housewarming, you know. I want you to make a pie.” _ • . “Well, -5- reckon I can wait on table stylish enough for Mrs. Temple,” said she, “and I'll make a lemon pie that’ll make Bert Temple sorry he didn’t marry me.” “I shouldn’t want you to wreck Bert's domestic happiness,” said I, “but make the pie, just the same!” I went into the south room, and sat at my desk answering some letters, while I waited for dinner. I could hear the rattle of dishes in the kitchen —the first of those humble domestic sounds which we associate with the word home. Through the house, too, and in to me, floated the aroma of bacon and-of coffee, faintly, just detectable, mingled with the smell of earth under June rain, which drifted through an open window. Presently I heard the front door open very softly. As I guessed that Peter had his instructions in behavior from his mother, I knew it must be Miss Goodwin. My pen poised suspended over the paper. 1 waited for her to enter the room, in a pleasant tingle of expectation. But she did not enter. Several minutes passed, and I got up to investigate, but there was no sign of her. The front door, however, stood ajar. Then Mrs. Pillig called “Dinner!” I walked into my dining room, and sat down at the table, which was covered with a new tablecloth and adorned with my new china. Beside my plate was the familiar, old-fashioned silver I had eaten with when a boy, and the sight of it thrilled me. Then I spied the centerpiece—a glass vase bearing three fresh iris buds from the brookside. Here was the secret, then, of the open door! Mrs. Pillig came in with the platter of eggs and bacon, and she, too, spied the “Well, well, you’ve got yourself a bookay,” she said. “Not I,” was my answer. “They just came. Mrs. Pillig, there’s a fairy lives in this house, a nice, thoughtful fairy, who does things like this. If you ever see her, don’t be frightened.” Mrs. Pillig looked at me pityingly. “I’ll bring your toast and coffee now,” she said. The coffee came in steaming, and It was good coffee, much better than Mrs. Bert’s. The eggs were good, too. But best of all was the centerpiece. She had come in so softly, and gone so quickly, and nobody had seen her! She had been present at my first meal in Twin Fires, after all, and so delicately present, just in the subtle fragrance of flowers and the warm token of thoughtfulness! My meal was a very happy one, happier even, perhaps,, than it would have been had she sat opposite me in person. We are curious creatures, who can on occasion extract a sweeter pleasure from our dreams of others in loneliness than from their bodily presence. Mrs. Pillig fluttered in and out, to see if I was faring well, and though her service was not that of a trained waitress it sufficed to bring me dessert of some canned peaches, buried under my own rich cream, and to remind me that, my wants were solicitously cared for. Out on the porch I could see Peter playing with Buster and hear that ingratiating pup’s yelps of canine delight. Before me stood the purple iris blossoms, with golden hearts just opening, their slender stems rising from the clear water in the vase, and spoke of her whose thought of me was so gracious, so delicately expressed, so warming to my heart. The spoon I held bore my mother’s intials, reminding me of my child hood, of that other home which death had broken up ten years before, since when I had called no place home save my study and bedroom,high above the college yard. 1 thought of the yard—pleasantly, but without regrets. I looked through the window as my last spoonful of dessert was eaten, and saw the sky breaking into blue. I folded my new napkin, put it into the old silver ring which bore the’word “John” on the side, failed utterly to note ths absence of a fingerbowl, and rose from my first meal in Twin Fires. “I have_a home again,” said I, aloud; “I have a home again after ten years!” Then I ‘went up the road toward Bert’s. ' . *

Does the secret visit to “Twin Fires” and the gift of fresh flowers indicate that Stella is truly in love with John and is ready to hear hip proposal?

(TO BE CONTINUSXU

“Well, Well, You’ve Got Yourself a Bookay.”