Jasper County Democrat, Volume 1, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 April 1899 — THREE BEAUX [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THREE BEAUX

“Oh, there goes my basket!" The basket certainly was going. Down the ateop embankment, above which these tear were walking—Elise and her three beam, whom the wit of the town had nicknamed “three beaux to her string”— the little beribhoned, chiptwistcd thing tumbled and hopped and somersaulted, filling all its load of wild anemones as it went, until it rested in the ditch, just this aide of the shining steel rails at the bottom. It was early spring, but already the woods above the railroad track were richly carpeted with anemones. Elise Gabel may have been strictly truthful when she •aid that she would give her life to gather wild anemones, but it is just possible that her fondness for that particular flower may have been partly due to the opportunities afforded by its quest for long ramtoe* with one or more of her three satel■tes. On the whole she seemed to prefer being accompanied by all three of them, like a young queen. Now that her basket was gone down the embankment she stood with clnsped fingers, looking from one to the other of the young men, as if in displeased surprise that all three did not at once back down the embankment to retrieve the fallen treasures. “I’ll go and get it,” said Ben Scadleigh. “I’ll see where it is,” said Brock McKnight. Then these two began to get into position for a careful descent of at least four-, teea feet to the track below. The face of the cutting was covered with loose shale, aad the pieces rolled away to the bottom ander the pressure of their feet. But for the third swain, a tall and’ somewhat loosely built example of young Boathera manhood, he quietly made his arrangements to sit on the edge and rest himself. “Take a seat, Elise.” he said, “and make yourself comfortable.” “Aren't you going down?" Elise asked tom. “No, I ain’t. I’m going to wait here till they break their necks or get run ofer by that Cincinnati Southern express—must be about due here by now—then I’ll go aad fetch what’s left of theuj—and the basket.” “Well, I did think you were more gallant than that, Joe,” said Elise, with sarcastic emphasis. All the same, she, too, settled herself on the grass to watch the competitive exhibition of acrobatics going on below them. “Well, I reckon it won’t take three of as to bring up that little bit of a basket,” said Joe, beginning to chew at a stalk of grass. “Here comes the train, sure enough," Elise cried. A long whistle interrupted hot exclamation, and out of the tunnel that opened where the hill rounded, only a score or two •f yards away from them, the express came clanging and roaring at full speed. Just then Scadleigh turned quickly to see where McKnight was; a mass of shale, either shaken by the vibration of the approaching train or disturbed by Scadleigh’s sudden movement, fell to the bottom of the steep incline, and Scadleigh rolled down with it. As the express rolled by passengers idly looking through the windows of the cars aaw on the verge of the precipice above them rterrified girl staring wildly down on them; by her a young man apparently paralyzed for the moment; half way down the embankment, another young man, who, by his gestures, was trying to communicate with some one on the level •f the track. Conductors and. trainmen leaned over the platform guards and looked intently along the rail on the inside. There was a bump and a rush of steam. The air brakes were being applied. half a dozen train hands some minutes late* reached the spot, running from where the brakes had at last brought the train’s speed down to a safe jumpingoff rate, they found McKnight and Joe Benton stooping over Scadleigh, who lay la the drain that separated the roadbed frtoi the face of the cutting. “Is be dead?" one of;them asked. “No, he’s only fainted,” Joe answered. "WMV serves him right.” And the disgusted officials pulling out their sratches turned and hurried back to catch their train, thinking only of the time lost through this absurd approach to a totality. “Hi* ankle is sprained.” Joe shouted up to Elise. “You go on to the over, the tmael and. we’U get him up all right.” It w*a not a very severe sprain, in truth, lot poor Ben Scadleigh had gone through ffto moat terrible experience of bis life while ho slid down—as it seemed to him—•t fall speed to catch the driving wheels of the great monster that rushed at him ' from oat the tunnel. In that little moascot be had not remembered that the Araia would be sure to catch him. He •wake to consciousness after what seem- • 4 a tong aad terrible dream of clanking wheels thundering over him in the shaliuhfrt sadia of water in his

face, and then he recovered sufficiently to ask, "Is my hair gray?” The laughter that greeted this question was a welcome sound to him. McKnight and Benton were wandering along the drain trying, if possible, to find some old pieces of timber that might serve to make an extempore litter on which to carry away their wounded comrade, but nothing light enough for the purpose was to be found. As for Elise Cabel, she was thoroughly subdued by the mishap, for which she felt herself mainly responsible. When Scadleigh had been slowly helped up to the top of the gentle slope over the tunnel she found an outlet for her penitent feelings in bathing his face with her handkerchief dipped at a spring close by. McKnight and Benton watched this treatment, and one at least of them was hoping that the girl would put off yet a little longer the choice she must sooner or later make between the three. This accident had certainly given Ben Scadleigh an unfair advantage; “Joe,” said McKnight to his lanky rival a few days later as they both left Elise nt her gate after escorting her home from her evening visit to the enviable invalid Scadleigh, “I guess Ben has beaten both our times. We might as well quit What do you say?" “Oh, I don’t know about that,” said Joe. "Wo might wait a little longer.” “You and I ought to come to some understanding about this thing, Joe. How long do you propose to wait?” “That’s right, old man. I like to hear a fellow talk business,” Joe laughed back. “Suppose we say till Easter. Then if Elise won’t take one of us by that time we leave the field to Scadleigh.” So these two business-like youths made this compact, with the understanding that each should do his best to win Elise, the capricious, in the meanwhile. This arrangement left them a clear ten days’ siege activity. Judging by nppearances, however, Scadleigh’s chances were by far the best. Elise visited him every day, bringing him jellies, the work of her own hands, and flowers—but not anemones, for she had undergone a revulsion of feeling that made her vow never to look upon an anemone again.

Considering the privileges he enjoyed as an invalid, it was not wonderful that Bcadlelgh made no haste to be up and about. It would have been worth a scalpful of gray hairs, even, to have Elise sitting by his couch by the hour, chatting with him and treating him with a marked deference ns one who had been her knight even to the death. But a time came when

the doctor could no longer allow his patient to spend night and day lounging, so Scadleifh had to own that the swelling of his ankle had gone and that he could walk as well ns any other man who had not taken exercise for two weeks. It was only three days before Easter and Joe Benton was enjoying a few minutes’ tete-a-tete with the lady of the thrift beaux, having gained so much time over his rival, Brock McKnight. “Yon put me in mind of that woman In the poem,” he said—“the on* that made the fellow jump into the arena,” “What woman—why?” “She dropped her glove down where the dogs or Hons or whatever they were; were having a fight. And'then this fellow jumped down and got It.” “Oh. And who reminds you of the fellow. Joe?” “Ben Scadleigh, of course. Only— f* “Only what?” i "Ben tnau’t *get the grtrve.’*. -*• “H’m. And whatdid this woman do thenr.jL jT “She chhnqljlttofe^any thing. to gel her glove just flung it in h?r face and never spoke to her ngnin.” t waKtsma

ment or two, “would you have done thatflung the glove in her face?” “Suppose I had brought you the glove —the basket, I mean—what would you have done?” “Oh, by the way," said Elise, suddenly remembering, “I haven’t thought of that basket all this time. Who has it?” “You haven’t answered my question.” “Well, I do want to have that basket, Joe. I suppose it’s'been lying out there in the wet all this time. Mamma gave me that when I was quite a little girl. It must be ruined.” “Of course. Do you still want it?” “I’d give anything to get it back.” “Anything?” “Well, nearly ” And at that point McKnight came into Elise’s sitting room. “Breck,” said Joe, “Elise wants her basket; says she’ll give anything to get it back.” McKnight gave an inquiring glance at the girl, who smiled awkwardly and blushed.' Then Joe went away, and although it was much too dark for him to have found a chip basket in a railway cutting two miles outside the town—for it was nearly half-past eight of a March evening—poor Breck fairly simmered with anxiety. He was silent and stupid, and Elise felt relieved when he said good night, although it was not yet 10 o’clock. Very early the next morning the brakemen on a freight train passing the scene of poor Ben Scadleigh’s tumble saw a young man searching for something in the drain. “Hi, mate,” one of them called from the top of a box car, “is this here your Klondike?” Breck McKnight looked up, swore, felt like a fool and went home. But on Easter day two packages were left at Elise Cabel’s door. One of them was a satin-covered egg. The card attached read, “From one who » only too happy to have risked his life for you,” and inside, imbedded in caramels, was a ring. The other contained a little chip basket, decked with ribbon bows of ’Elise’s own colors, and in the basket were three eggs marked “3. McK.,” “B. 8.” and “J. B The card said, “Choose your egg and tell me your choice this evening." That evening Elise showed Joe her new ring. But she did not wear it. “Ben Scadleigh takes too much for granted,” she said. Then she calmly peeled the egg marked “B. 8.” and threw the shell into the fire. Then she did the same with the egg marked “B. McK.” “I’m going to get some salt,” she said,

as she turned to Joe from the door, ‘'and we’ll eat hard-boiled eggs together.” “Shall F peel this one?” Joe asked, holding up the third egg. “No; I’m going to keep that one.” And Ellse Vanished. Soon she came back with the sail. And she looked very pretty and, very *fed. n “Where did yon get the basket, Joe?” she asked as they ate their eggs. “In the drain, of course, when I picked up Ben Scadleigh.” “And you kept it all this time? Mean thing” > • knr v “Would you have had me fling It at yon, like the fellow In the story?! Breek McKnight came'ln just as they were finishing their indigestible Innch. “You’re too late, Breck,” Joe laughed. “Where’s Ben Scadleigh?’ asked McKnight. “I taw Ben after, church to-day, rt Ellse answered, demurely. .“He isn’t coining this evenlnif” After that she one beais.ee Sea , striag—for thg.rest bf Mg life. ■. vex, > And her life runs as smooth as a sonnet; * Though she may uot remember a word of the text. She can tell the dealga of each bonnet

SCADLEIGH ROLLED DOWN WITH IT.