Jasper County Democrat, Volume 8, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 December 1905 — ON THE PORCH [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

ON THE PORCH

By Robert Jermain Cole

Every day when It did not rain, and sometimes when It did. Till she Latch wandered off into the woods or down along the river and came back at night with some added grace from nature’s wild treasury. She had run away for Test and health to tiie little parenthesis In the country that called Itself a town. She got a good deal besides these glftß. The two men that were happy enough to live in the sauie house with Miss Latch were far better aware of her gains than she was herself. Mrs. ltedding kept the house. JShe had only a few guests. Her son Torn protested against those, so far as the principle went. Rut when the practice happened to include Thisbe Latch he began to persuade himself that perhaps It was better for ills mother to have something that would Interest her and keep her from being lonely, as she had been since his father's death. Miss Latch was a schoolteacher, but no one would have detected it—at least by any of tire labels that the pictures in the comic papers furnish. Her hair was as yellow as eorn silk. Her eyes were uirect In their glance, like those of her own school children, and fur more disconcerting. Carlton Cross, another guest at the bouse, failed to Interest Torn very noticeably, although Miss Latch appeared to like him. Cross was Bpending a few weeks In town settling up an estate for which be was counsel. He devoted bis evenings to a pretty obvious effort to settle the estate of matrimony so far as Miss Latch and he were concerned. Every evening after aupper the two

sat ou the broutl porch while suuset glorified the valley below them auil twilight crept out of the deepest wood, where it had been lurking aud hiding from the sun all day. Tom Redding worked In one of the drug stores of the village. That meant thut his evenings went into the druggist’s profits till such time as he could command" a store of his own and hire some other poor soul to work for him. That was the end toward,ttffclch Tom was slowly advancing, but for the present he was forced to pass out of the door after supper, walk resolutely across the porch to where the more favored man and the girl they both wanted sat, and with a brave spontaneous cheerfulness bid them good evening. Ou two or three occasions Cross had spared him this pain by taking the girl off for n drive. That was worse yet. It is true, Tom had his Sundays, but a part of these he always spent with his mother. lie felt that Cross was forging ahead of him in The thing that discouraged Tom most was this. As he wulked downtown he thought of the beuuty of the long evening that was just beginning. Having thrilled, himself, under the spell of twilight, he feared its power upon Thisbe Latch. “If that clever chap,” thought Tom, “half knows his business and says the right thing and keeps still at the right time, I’m afraid there’s no chance for me.” But it was not his way to be melaucboly for long. He vowed If the other man did get her he would at least tuuke a little place for himself in her memory. He thought of her through the day, and every night be passed her on bis way downtown he had some wordcommonplace It might be that was charged with the day’s repressed affection. In the general chat of the table, in the Sunday visits and in many unconsidered greetings Miss Latch was coming to know Tom far better than he realised. One night as Tom crossed the porch to go to his work Thisbe asked him lightly:

“What would happen to your old drug store If you should sit here with us awhile? I believe you don’t trust anybody but yourself to mix the prescriptions. You couldn’t sit still a whole evening, could you?”

“Yes, I could,” answered Tom. “I do, anyhow, only you don’t see me. I sit right In that chair and listen to everything yon say.” He pointed to an empty rocker near the one in which Thisbe sat A look of amused understanding came into her eyes. “Bo when the charming Miss Ritchie thinks you are serving her an Ice cream soda It's only an Illusion—l mean you. not the soda. You are really here all the time 7" Tom nodded. Mr. Carlton Cross

looked bored. He was not troubled with very much imagination. Later he had a chance to continue his account of a very grand reception he had attended at Rochester. Mias Latch heard the sound of the young lawyer’s voice, but her thoughts were with the drug clerk. The Idea that he, down at the store, imagined himself in that particular chair fascinated her. She looked at the empty rocker, and as the twilight deepened and the street lamp was lighted she could fancy that the shadow- which the pillar threw on Its high back was Tom. Two days later, instead of leaving by the front door, Tom came around from the side of the house. In one hand he held a little bunch of pansies. He handed them over the rail of the porch, his hat in bis other hand, without a word. “Oh, the beauties! Here’s a yellow one with purple eyes and a purple one with yellow eyes,” exclaimed Thisbe. When Tom was gone she remembered Ophelia’s saying: “Pansies—that’s for thoughts.” She also remembered that the poet Keats was an apothecary’s prentice. The conversation of Carlton Cross became less and less interesting. Being no lover of flow-era himself, It did not occur to him that the little velvet leaves were his rivals. When Tom came, home that night he found Miss Latch on the porch. She was still holding the pansies in her hands. He walked to the chair beside her. “I thought you said you were sittiug there already,’ said Miss Latch, with a touch of mischief. “That doesn't satisfy me any longer,” broke out the man Impatiently. “That chair can’t tell you what I think of you. I can’t tell you myself, but I’ll try. I think you are the loveliest woman in the world. I can’t help loving you.” For a long time she was still. Then she began: “If you can’t help It, w-by, then”— She paused, and Tom leaned toward her. His hand covered hers, crushing the flowers. “Tli is be,” be pleaded softly, “do you care for me?” The hand he held answered for her. Tom rose from bis chair and kissed the girl ou the lips. A little later he said, “You don’t know- how much afraid I was, sweetheart. to leave you here for those long sunset talks with another man.” “You needn't have been,” she answered happily. “The sunset and the twilight seemed to belong to you. The more he talked the more I dreamed of somebody else.”

IN ONE HAND HE HELD A BUNCH OF PANSIES.