Jasper County Democrat, Volume 9, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 February 1907 — Page 7

Furious and red, he staggered round to look* at her. “You wretched little. wildcat, what do you mean by that?" he broke out. “Don’t you touch Joe!" she panted. “Don’t you”— Her breath caught and there was a break In her voice as she faced him. She could not finish the repetition of that cry, “Don’t you touch Joe!” But there was no break in the spirit, that passion of protection which had dealt the blow. Both boys looked at her, somewhat aghast Eugene recovered himself. He swung round upon his heel, restored his hat to his head with precision, picked up his stick and touched his banjo case with it “Carry that into the house,” he said Indifferently to his stepbrother. "Don’t you do it!’’ said the girl hotly between her chattering teeth. Eugene turned toward her, wearing the sharp edge of a smile. Not removing his eyes from her face, he produced with deliberation a flat sliver box from a pocket, took therefrom a cigarette, replaced the box, extracted a smaller silver box from another pocket’, shook out of it a fusee, slowly lit the cigarette—this in a splendid silence, which he finally broke to say languidly, but with particular distinctness: “AHel Tabor, go home!” The girl’s teeth stopped chattering, her lips remaining parted; she shook the hair out of her eyes and stared at him as if she did not understand, but Joe Louden, who had picked up the ■banjo case obediently, burst into cheerful laughter. “That’s it. Gene,” he cried gayly. “That’s the way to talk to her!” “Stow it, you young cub,” replied Eugene, not turning to him. “Do you think I’m trying to be amusing?” “I don’t know what you mean by •stow it,’ " Joe began, “but if’— “I mean,” interrupted the other, not relaxing his faiutly smiling stare at the girl—“l mean that Ariel Tabor is to go home. Really we can’t have this kind of thing occurring upon our front lawn!” The flush upon her wet cheeks deepened and became dark. Even her arm grew redder as she gazed back at him. In his eyes was patent his complete realization of the figure she cut, of this bare arm, of the strewn hair, of the fallen stocking, of the ragged shoulder of her blouse, of her patched short skirt, of the whole disheveled little figure. He was the master of the house, and he was sending her home as ill behaved children are sent home by neighbors. The immobile, amused superiority of this proprietor of silver boxes, this wearer of strange and brilliant garments, became slightly intensified as he pointed to the fallen sleeve, a rag of red and snow, lying near her feet “You might take that with you?” he said interrogatively. Her gaze bad not wavered in meeting his, but at this her eyelashes began to wink uncontrollably, her chin to tremble. She bent over the sleeve and picked It up before Joe Louden, who had started toward her, could do It for her. Then turning, her head still bent so that her face was hidden from both of them, she ran out of the gate. Ariel ran along the fence until she came to the next gate, which opened upon a walk leading to a shabby, meandering old house of one story, with a very long, low porch, once painted white, running the full length of the front Ariel sprang upon the porch and disappeared within the house. Joe stood looking after her, his eyelashes winking as had hers. “You oughtn’t to have treated her that way," he said huskily. “Pick up that banjo case again and come on,” commanded Mr. Bantry tartly. “Where’s the mater?” Joe stared at him. “Where’s what?” “The mater!” was the frowning reply. “Oh, yes, I know!” said Joe, looking at his stepbrother curiously. “I’ve seen

"Don’t you dare to touch Joe!" she cried.

It In ■torles. She’s upstairs. You’ll be a surprise. You’re wearing lots of clothes. Gene.” "I suppose It will seem so to Canaan,” returned the other wearledly. “Governor feeling fit?” “I never saw him,” Joe replied, then caught himself. "Oh, I see what you mean! Yes, he’s all right” , They had come Into the hall, and Eugene was removing the long coat, while his stepbrother looked at him thoughtfully. "Gene,” asked the latter in a softened voice, “have you seen Mamie Pike yet?” “You will find, my young friend,” responded Mr. Bantry, “if' you ever go about much outside of Canaan, that la*

dies’ names are not supposed to be mentioned indiscriminately.” “It’s only,” said Joe, “that I wanted to say that there's a dance at their house tonight. I suppose you’ll be going?” > “Certainly. Are you?” Both knew that the question was needless, but Joe answered gently: “Oh, no, of course not.’ He leaned over and fumbled with one foot as if to fasten a loose shoestring. “She wouldn’t be very likely to ask me.” “Weil, what about it?” “Only that—that Arie Tabor’s going.” “Indeed!” Eugene paused on the stairs, which he had begun to ascend. “Very interesting.” “I thought,” continued Joe hopefully, straightening up to look at him, “that maybe you’d dance with her. I don’t believe many will ask her—l’m afraid they won't—and if you would, even only once, it would kind of make up for”—he faltered—“for out there,” he finished, nodding his head in the direction of the gate. If Eugene vouchsafed any reply it was lost in a loud, shrill cry from above, as a small, intensely nervous looking woman in blue silk ran halfway down the stairs to meet him and caught him tearfully in her arms. “Dear old mater!” said Eugene. Joe went out of the front door quickly. CHAPTER 111. THE door which Ariel had entered opened upon a narrow hall, and down this she ran to her own room, passing, with face averted, the entrance to the broad, low ceilinged chamber that had served Roger Tabor’as a studio for alrhost fifty years. He was sitting there now, in a hopeless and disconsolate attitude, with his back toward the double doors, which were open, and had been open since their hinges had begun to give way, when Ariel was a child. Hearing her step, he called her name, but did not turn, and, receiving no answer, sighed faintly as he heard her own doOT close upon her. Then as his eyes wandered about the many canvases which leaned against the dingy walls he sighed again. Usually they showed their brown backs, but today he had turned them all to face outward. Twilight, sunset, moonlight (the courthouse in moonlight), dawn, morning, noon (Main street at noon), high summer, first spring, red autumn, midwinter, all were there, lllimltably detailed, worked to a smoothness l|ke a glaze and all lovingly done with unthinkable labor. After a time the old man got up, went to his easel near a window aud, sighing again, began patiently to work upon one of these failures—a portrait In oil of a savage old lady, which he was doing from a photograph. The expression of the mouth and the shape of the nose had not pleased her descendants and the beneficiaries under the will, and it was upon the images of these features that Roger labored. He leaned far forward, with his face close to the canvas, holding his brushes after the Spencerian fashion, working steadily through the afternoon and when the light grew dimmer, leaning closer to his canvas to see. When it had become almost dark in the room he lit a student lamp with a green glass shade and, placing it upon a table beside him. continued to paint. Ariel’s voice interrupted him at last. “It’s quitting time, grandfather," she called gently from the doorway behind him. He sank back in his chair, conscious for the first time of how tired he had grown. “I suppose so,” he said, “though it seemed to me I was just getting my band in.” His eyes brightened for a moment. “I declare, I believe I've caught it a great deal better. Come and look, Ariel. Doesn’t it seem to you that I’m getting it? Those pearly shadows in the flesh”— “I’m sure of it. Those people ought to be Very proud to have it.” She came to him quietly, took the palette and brushes from his hands and began to clean them, standing in the shadow behind him. “It’s too good for them.” “No,” he murmured in return. ’"You can do much better yourself. Your sketches show it* “No, no!” she protested quickly. “Yes, they do, and I wondered if it was only because you were young. But those I did when I was young are almost the same as the ones I paint now. I hwen’t learned much. There hasn’t been any one to show me. And you can’t learn from print, never! Yet I’ve grown in what I see—grown so that the world is full of beauty to me that I never dreamed of seeing when I began. But I can’t paint it. I can’t get it on the canvas. Ah, I think I might have known how to if I hadn’t had to teacii myself, if I could only have seen how some of the other fellows djd their work. If I’d ever saved money to get away from Canaan—ls I could have gone away from it and come back knowing how to paint it—if I could have got to Paris for just one month! Paris for just month!'.’ “Perhaps we will, .ou can’t tell what may happen.” It was always her reply to this cry of his. “You’re young, you’re young.” He smiled Indulgently. “What were you doing all this afternoon, child?" “In my, room, trying to make over mammal wedding dress for tonight” “Tonight?” “Mamie Pike Invited me to a dance at their house.” “Very well. I’m glad you’re going to be gay,” he said, not seeing the faintly bitter smile that came to her face. “I don’t think I’ll be very gay,” she answered. “I don’t know why I go. Nobody ever asks me to dance.” “Why not?” he asked, with an old man’s astonishment. “I don’t know. Perhaps it’s because I don’t dress very well.” Then, as he made a sorrowful gesture, She cut him

off before he could speak. “Oh, it isn’t altogether because we’re poor. It’s more I don’t know how to wear what I’ve got, the way some girls do. I never cared much and—well, I’m not worrying, Roger. And I think I’ve done a good deal with mamma’s dress. It’s a very grand dress. I wonder I never thought of wearing It until today. I may be”—she laughed and blushed—“l may be the belle of the ball—who knows!” “You’ll want me to walk over with you and come for you afterward, I expect.” “Only to take me. It may be late when I come away—if a good many should ask me to dance for once. Of course I could come home alone. But Joe Louden Is going to sort of hang around outside, and he’ll meet me at the gate and see me safe home.” “Oh!” he exclaimed blankly. “Isn’t it all right?” “I think I’d better come for you,” he answered gently. “The truth is, I—l think you’d better not be with Joe Louden a great deal.” “Why?” “Well, he doesn’t seem a vicious boy to me, but I’m afraid he’s getting rather a bad name, my dear.” “He’s not getting one.” she said gravely. -“He’s already got one. He’s

"If I could have got to Paris for just one month!"

had a bad name in Canaan for a long while. It grew in the first place out of shabbiness and mischief, but it did glow, and if people keep on giving him a bad name the time will come when he'll live up to it. He’s not any worse than I am, and I guess my own name isn’t too good—for a girl. And yet, so far, there's nothing against him except his bad name.” “I’m afraid there is,” said Roger. “It doesn’t look very well for a young man of bis age to be doing no better than delivering papers.” “It gives him time to study law,” she answered quickly. “If he clerked all day in a store be couldn't.” “I didn’t know he was studying now. I thought I’d heard that he was in a lawyer’s office for a few weeks last year and was turned out for setting fire to it with a pipe”— "It was an accident,” she interposed. “But some pretty Important papers were burned, and after that none of the other lawyers would have him.” “He’s not in an office,” she admitted. “I didn’t mean that. But he studies a great deal. He goes to the courts all the time they’re in session, and he’s bought some books of his own.” “Well, perhaps,” he assented, “but they say he gambles and drinks and that last week Ju«|ge Pike threatened to have him arrested for throwing dice with some negroes behind the judge’s stable.” “What of it? I’m about the only nice person in town that will have anything to do with him—and nobody except you thinks I’m very nice!” “Ariel! Ariel!” “I know all about his gambling with darkies,”’she continued excitedly, her voice rising, “and I know that he goes to saloons and that he’s an intimate friend of half the riffraff in town. And I know the reason for it, too, because he’s told me. He wants to know them, to understand them, and he says some day they’ll make him a power, and then he can help them!” The old man laughed helplessly. “But I can’t let him bring you home, my dear.” She came to him slowlj- and laid her hands upon his shoulders. Grandfather and granddaughter were nearly of the same height, and she looked squarely Into his eyes. “Then you must say it is because you want to come for me, not because I mustn’t come with Joe.” “But I think it is a little because you mustn't come with Joe,” he answered f “especially from the Pikes’. Don’t you see that it mightn’t be well for Joe himself if the judge should happen to see him? I understand he warned the boy to keep away from the neighborhood entirely or he would have him locked up for dice throwing. The judge is a very influential man, you know, and as determined In matters like this as he is irritable.” “Oh, if you put It on that ground,” the girl replied, her eyes softening, “I think you’d better come for me yourself.” “Very well, I put it on that ground,” he returned, smiling upon her. “Then I’ll send Joe word and get supper,” she said, kissing him. It was the supper hour not only for them, but every where in Canaan, and the cold air of the streets bore up and down and around corners the smell of things frying. The dining room win-

dows of all the houses threw, bright patches on the snow of the side yards. The windows of other rooms, except those of the kitchens, were dark, for the rule of the place was Puritanical in thrift, as in all things, and the good housekeepers disputed every record of the meters with unhappy gas collectors. There was no better housekeeper In town than Mrs. Louden, nor a thriftier, but hers was one of the few houses in Canaan that evening which showed bright lights in the front rooms while the family were at Supper. It was proof of the agitation caused by the arrival of Eugene that she forgot to turn out the gas in her parlor and in the chamber she called a library on her way to the evening meal. Joe escaped as soon as he could, thongWnot before the count of bis later sins had been set before Eugene in d . il, in mass and in all of their depth, breadth ami thickness. His father spoke l>at once after nodding heavily to confirm all points of Mrs. Louden’s re“You better use any Influence you’ve got with your brother," he said to Eugen ■. "to make him come to time. I can’t do anything with him. If he gets in trouble, he needn’t come to me! I’ll never help him again. I’m tired of it!” Joe’s movements throughout the earlier part of that evening are of uncertain report. It is known that he made a partial payment of 45 cents at a secondhand book store for a number of volumes,. “Grindstaff on Torts” and some others, which he had negotiated on the installment system. It is also believed that he won 28 cents playing seven-up in the little room behind Louie Farbach’s bar, but these things are of little Import compared to the established fact that at 11 o’clock he was one of the ball guests at the Pike mansion. He took no active part In the festivities, nor was he one of the dancers. His was, on the contrary, the role of a quiet observer. .He lay stretched at fqll length upon the floor of the inclosed porch—one of the strips of canvas was later found to have been loosened—wedged between the outer railing and a row of palms in green tubs. It was not to play eavesdropper that the uninvited Joe had come. He was not there to listen, and it is possible that had the curtains of other windows afforded him the chance to behold the dance he might not have risked the dangers of his present position. He had not the slightest interest in the whispered coquetries that he heard. He watched onlj’ to catch now and then over the shoulders of the dancers a fitful glimpse of a pretty head that flitted across the window—the amber hair of Mamie Pike. He shivered in the drafts, and the floor of the porch was cement, painful »to elbow and knee, the space where he fay cramped and narrow, but the golden bubbles of her hair, the shimmer of her dainty pink dress and the fluffy wave of her lace scarf as she crossed and recrossed fn a waltz left him apparently in no discontent. He watched with parted lips, his pale cheeks reddening whenever those fair glimpses were his. At last she came out to the veranda with Eugene and sat upon a little divan, so close to Joe that, daring wildly in the shadow, he reached out a trembling hand and let his fingers rest upon the end of her scarf, which had fallen from her shoulders and touched the floor. She sat with her back to him, as did Eugene. “You have changed, I think, since last summer,” he heard her say reflectively. “For the worse, ma cherie?” Joe’s expression might have been worth seeing when Eugene said “ma cherie," for it was known in the Louden household that Mr. Bantry had failed to pass his examination in the French language. “No,” she answered. “But you have seen so much and accomplished so much since then. You have become so polished and so”— She paused and then continued: “But perhaps I’d better not say ft. You might be offended.” “No. I want you to say it,” he returned confidently, and his confidence was fully justified, for she said: “Well, then, I mean that you have become so thoroughly a man of the world. Now I’ve said It! You are offended, aren’t you?” "Not at all; not at all,” replied Mr. Bantry, preventing by a masterful effort his pleasure from showing in his face. “Then I’m—glad.” she whispered, and Joe saw his stepbrother touch her hand, but she rose quickly. “There" s the music,” she cried happily. “It's a waltz, and it’s yours.” Joe heard her little high heels tapping gayly toward the window, followed by the heavier tread of Eugene, but he did not watch them go. > He lay on his back, with the hand that had touched Mamie’s scarf pressed across his closed eyes. The music of the waltz was of the old fashioned swingingly sorrowful sort, and it would be hard to say how long it was after that before he could hear the air played without a recurrence of the bitterness of that moment. The rhythmical pathos of the violins was in such accord with a faint sound of weeping which he beard near him presently that for a little while he believed this sound to be part of the music and part of himself. Then it became more distinct, and he raised himself on one elbow to look about. Very close to him, sitting upon the divan In the shadow, was a girl wearing a dress of beautiful silk. She was crying softly, her face In her hands. [TO BB CONTINUED.I

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