Jasper County Democrat, Volume 6, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 October 1903 — A SIMPLE RUSE [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

A SIMPLE RUSE

aSOBQB 80HUYLBR belongsd t« m old Nsvr York family. Baton Ganxevoort also belonged to am old New York family. Georgia of the Schuyler family waa Baton'* branch of the GansoTooat family mu rich. parent* of both these young poop|* been the staunchest kind of frl ir J - since they had been old enough to know what friendship meant, and frlsrtls had the ancestors been for gensnitlnTir back to the time of the stump|ii(isfl peter. George Schuyler waa Sen yean older than Helen Gante▼oort There waa enough of the same Dutch Idea left In George to make him a dutiful son a* there was enough of toe same Dutch in Helen to make bar a dutiful daughter. George Scholar had been brought up to believe one day he must marry Helen Oanavvoort, and Helen Ganzevoort bad been brought up to believe that oee day she* most marry George lebnytor. The Schuylers were not rich, aa has ten said, and when George was 10, Inatoad of being sent to college he wm* shipped west, to see If he could pb* op s fortune. Helen was at that hi— ii years old, and ahe did not tool keenly at all the parting with her prospective husband, and It must be nnnfessril that George didn’t shed tears when he said good-by to thto plain little girl with her hair In pigtails, Qeorge Schuyler went to San Franchsoo, and there in the course of nine jwn he did manage to pick up what to* farmer calls a “tidy bit of money." George went east twice during his San Francisco stay, but both times Helen Gansevoort was abroad. They wrote

each other once every three months, ul while there wasn’t a line of affection In the letters on either side, there «as enough In them to show that each felt that the old marriage arrangement made by the parents still stood. George Schuyler was 28 years old. His Income now was large enough to justify him In marrying, and In feeling that he wouldn’t hare to go to the tmrsao drawer every morning to find his wife's purse. George was going W* to take a bride that he hadn’t •sen In nine years, and It’s Just barely possible that he didn't feel overly comfortable at the prospect As a mattor of fact, George Schuyler liked bachelorhood. No woman ever as yet bed stirred his pulse. His gun and his red were more to him than all the women In the world. But George had been getting letters from his aged parents, who said that it was time he cases seat and went to wooing In earnest He wrote that he would start In n week, but that on his way he was to stop for a few days’ fishing with an old friend on the Beaverklll, that ideal trout stream which tumbles down the southern slope of the Catskills on Its way to Delaware. George Schuyler took his fly book end bis split 1 win boo rod on the first, morning after bis arrival at his friend’s wilderness lodge and started eat to whip the stream for the speckled beauties. He was In wading boots hip high, and down the stream he went, dropping his “coachman” lure to the surface of every pool where It looked as though a trout might lurk. Lock was only fair and the sun was getting high. Trout don’t like the glare of the midday sun and they keep „ away from the surface, no matter how tempting the morsel offered for consamptlon. George Schuyler was thinking about reeling In and going back te the lodge, when suddenly at a place where the Beaverskill broadened be n« e country girl, in a calico dress end ennbonnet, sitting at the water’s edge. She was listening to the song a t a brown thrasher that, tilting on a Ijgjp tree top, was pouring forth Its medley for the benefit of his sunbonnetsfl friend. George Schuyler stopped In midstream. He did not wish to disturb (he bird’s 'solo, upon which the listentog flri seemed so Intent He stopped, hot slipped on a round stone and qpteabed the water, which was calm end still just there. The thrasher went teto tee thicket like e flash and the girl turned her head just as quickly. Oserge Schuyler saw a face under toe Shadow of the huge country bonnet teat wee much more than pretty and which had in It that which men Igktly e*ll character. George’s flshesowa’s cap was off in an Instant OQned mornings” are allowable In the sstodsraeas without the formality of

“I am just about to stop fishing and go back to the lodge of my friend, Mr. Payson. Can you tell tne If there is a shorter path than the stream Itself?” The girl nodded brightly. “Yes," ■he said, “you can take the trail through the tamarack*. It begins just here." Then the girl turned her attention once more to the brown thrasher, who gave symptoms of being willing to start bis solo once more. Schuyler thanked the girl courteously and after reeling In his line started along the trail indicated. When he reached his friend James Payson’a lodge the first thing be said was: “Jim, in the name of all that's lovely, who Is your sunbonneted neighbor with a voice like a bubbling spring and eyes like those of the girls in old Herrick’s poems?” Jim Payson laughed. “You must have run across old Cheney's daughter. He has 400 or 500 rocky acres with a little house on them. Mary Is his only daughter, and he put her through Vassar and made quite a lady of her. She is a beauty and no mistake. Hit you first time, eh, old man?” Schuyler colored a little and said: “Well, not exactly hit, Jim. I must not be hit, you know, but the girl to attractive and no mistake.” That evening Jim Payson asked his guest If he wouldn’t like to go over and call on old Oheney. There was no hesitancy In falling In with the proposal. They found old Cheney on the porch smoking his pipe. He was a white-haired old fellow of the farmer type, and while he admitted It was hard wringing cropß from the stony Oatskill slope, yet he said he wouldn't give up bis mountainside with its air and scenery for the best valley land on the continent Then George Schuyler met Mary Cheney. James Payson did the Introducing. Schuyler found his flower all that he had expected from the glimpse that he bad caught of its beauty in the morning. The girl was refinement itself, and as Schuyler looked at the old fellow sitting In the porch corner puffing contentedly at bis corncob pipe lie wondered how this slip could have come from such a parent stem. Well, It’s better to make It short, George Schuyler stayed a week and then lingered for two more. He wrote to New York that he was enjoying the fishing. So he was for about an hour every morning. One day he brought himself up with a round turn. He thought of his duty to Helen Ganzevoort.

He knew In his heart that Le loved this girl of the mountainside who had a voice like one of the veeries that sing every day at sunset That night he went to Mary Cheney and told her aIL He knew somehow that the girl had grown to love him as he bad grown to love her, They stood on the porch looking down onto the far-off valley. It was twilight and the veeries and the vesper sparrows were singing everywhere. He told ncr of his childhood engagement to Helen Ganzevoort *‘l have not seen her since she was 11 years old,” he said. "She cares nothing for me; she cannot She doesn’t even know me. The whole thing was a bit of parental foolishness, but nevertheless there is the question of my duty. I shall leave for New York the day after to-morrow. I will see Helen, and upon what she says and does depends all. I may have done wrong, Mary, In lingering here, bat I loved you, and let that fact plead for me.” Ho left her standing there, just as the last bird voices of the day were hushed and the whippoorwill took up his nightly chant Two days later Gqprge Schuyler stood in a Fifth avenue drawing-room waiting for the coming of Helen Ganzevoort The lights were bright On the wall bung a picture of Helen as he had last known her nine years before as a child. The eyes seemed to look at him reproachfully. There waa a light step behind him. He turned qnlckly. For a moment he felt frozen, then the blood went through him like a torrent In front of him In evening dress stood the girl whom but 48 hours before he had left on the mountalnaldeL “Mary,” he said. Something like a smile came into the girl’s face. “Not Mary, Georgy,” she said, “but Helen,” George Schuyler’s mind was befogged. “I don’t understand,” he stammered. “It’s easily understood, George,” she laughed. "Yon didn’t ‘suppose for a moment, did yon, that I wished to marry a man I never had seen and who I knew was to marry ms from sheer force of duty? Your mother told me you were going to stop at tbs Beaverklll to fish, and Mr. Payton, who Is an old family friend, and Giles, who Is an old family servant, and who, by the way, made a good farmer, did the rest” "Helen, what do you think of me?” “I think, George, that yon fell In love with me for what I am, and”— smiling—“l think I shall have to take you for what you are.”—Chicago Rec-ord-Herald.

?? SAW A COUNTRY GIRL IN A CALICO DRESS.