Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 203, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 September 1918 — LAID PLANS [ARTICLE]

LAID PLANS

By JACK LAWTON.

Ab far back as she could remember/ Laurel had known of the enmity existing between her father’s family and that of their neighbor farther down the road. It was Laurel’s mother who had told her the tale of her grandfather’s crime. “It was best,” she had said, “that the child should learn of it from her own.” Laufel had longed to make the mountain neighbor’s child her companion, life was lonely among the hills. So Laurel’s mother had explained why this could not be. 4 She had listened in frightened horror. Her grandfather was a murderer. That “was the fact in all its brutal plainness, as her mother told it. Grandfather had killed the man who would be this mountain child’s grandfather. His crime had been vindicated because the deed was considered one of self-defense. But the grandfather had sought no such excuse. “Murder,” he said, was Id his heart at the time. “The man had told a cruel lie to the woman he loved, breaking the engagement between them. On the narrow mountaintrail he had met and accused the victim, and when they had struggled in anger it had ended in the fall of the man to his death below. Self-confessed, Lau/el’s grandfather was a murderer, and the shadow lingered on those who followed. Reconciled, he had married his sweetheart, but the enmity between the two families concerned remained a thing of reality. When Laurel’s own saddened mother had gone forever from the mountain home, it was at her wish that her daughter be sent away to school, and to learn what the great outer world might hold. Now, lb all the sweetness of a mountain summer. Laurel had come back again, to be with her father. It was in the weather-beaten church on Sabbath that she raised her eyes from her singing book, to meet those of a stranger. From the outer world he, too, had come back to the primitive. Like her’s, his own eyes had widened in question, “How come you here?” asked the stranger’s eyes. “And who,” flashed Laurel’s, “are you?” After service both were answered. “That," said her father, in a tone of constraint, “is the last of the Wiltons, from down the road. He’s been away for-years, studying, they say, an’ getting rich.” <*■•••

On the following morning, she met the man of the questioning gaze on a narrow mountain trail. His pronounced avoidance of her proclaimed that the last of the Wiltons still bore aversion to the granddaughter of a murderer. Laurel’s soft eyes clouded, but she felt no resentment. The next day Laurel took a different path, hoping to avoid the man’s displeasure at sight of her, and as Dan Wilton hadzStarted out with the same purpose, the two came again face to face In the roadway. Laurel’s Impulsive smile met his frown. And • as he looked down upon her again In “meeting”- Laurel fancied that* the neighbor’s eyes wore a kinder light, as though hgalnst his own will he were acting a part. She fouhd It Impossible to banish his face from her thoughts. Grieved, yet wondering why it should so grieve her, Laurel decided to confine her walks to the wood; there, fatefully, she met him. He stood for a moment, watching the sunlight filtering down on her face, then spoke: “You must not think,” he said slowly, “that my avoidance of you has been evidence of the foolish enmity of my family. You will find It as difficult to believe the truth as I—find it myself.” “I love you,” said Dan Wilton. ‘‘l have loved you from the moment I looked into your eyes; “but,” he laughed harshly, “there is no use. I cannot reconcile that past stain In-the blood.” Laurel’s lip trembled; it did not occur to her to resent his self-confidence, to tell him that her own heart- was not for the winning. “We must not meet again,” she said. •T always will take the upper path to town, you the lower. When I come to the wood, I shall leave always before four; it is a dark stain; I am sorry, and I understand.” Longing eyes followed her up the trail. She forgot as she determinedly kept to her stated routine, that the best-laid plans have been known to “gang aglee.” Dan Wilton had forsaken the meeting house. He realized that he must resort to more rigid measures if he would keep from seeing the girl he loved. He must go away, and after four o’clock, therefore, through the silent wood he walked, fighting his fight. True to her promise Laurel had left the eloquent spot of fir and pine. But on her homeward way she paused concerned. Her wrist watch was gone; she must have dropped It In the wood. Hastily she retraced her steps, absorbed In searching. So It was that face downward bent. Laurel passed — straight into Dan Wilton’s arms. “You come,” ha murmured, “In answer to the call of my heart I cannot live without you, Laurel; it was a foolish fight Love Is strong enough to blot out any stain. Dearest, can you forgive me, and come?" And when at last Laurel raised her radiant face from her lover’s shoulder, her forgotten little watch lay glintlag at her from tire grass. > (Copyright. 1918, Western Newspaper Unfoa.)