Jasper County Democrat, Volume 10, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 July 1907 — WINNER of THE RACE. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

WINNER of THE RACE.

By Virginia Blair.

Copyrighted, 1907, by Homer Sprague.

"Jock,” said Hugh MacDonald, “are they men or monkeys?” Jock, being a collie of Intelligence, cocked his ears conversationally and followed his master to the edge of the bluff, Where they stood looking over. Down the road below them, driven pellmell by a youth in hunting pink, came a team of razor backed hogs. Around their necks were wreaths of huge yellow chrysanthemums, and tbs long yellow ribbons with which their driver tried Ineffectually to guide them were of shining yellow satin. Behind them a quartet of stampeding sheep, violet wreathed and harnessed with violet satin, dragged after them a laughing, romping youth, also in hunting pink. The two contestants in the strange race were followed by a shouting, ex-

HE WRAPPED HIS HANDKERCHIEF ABOUT HER SLIM ANKLE. cited crowd. A little woman in scarlet, joining hands with two stout gentlemen, brought up the rear, and they all disappeared around the curve together. “Well. Jock,” said Hugh MacDonald. “it’s a poor way to treat the pigs, and you could take better care of the sheep than that.” The collie wagged a responsive tail, but his eyes were still fastened on the road. Hugh, following their direction, said “Oh!” quickly as a girl limped into sight. She looked up and waved her hand at the minister. "I’m coming!” he shouted, and Jock led the way down the winding path. When they reached the road they found the girl sitting on a big stone. “I have hurt my ankle,” she said. “I made them go on without me.” “Were you following that?” The minister jerked his head in the direction of the motley procession. “Yes.” Her cheeks flamed. “It must seem awfully silly to you.” “It’s cruel,” the minister condemned. “Jock could take better care of the sheep”— “I don’t believe they thoughts of that.” ? " “Do they ever think?” he questioned her. “I'm not sure,” she confided, “but they’re awfully good fun.” “I think it was just as good fun when you and I used to pick wild flowers and row in my little boat on the lake. Those were nice, simple times. Ellie, before these society people came up here to make fools of the country folks, and your father made his money selling land to them.” “Oh, you don’t know them.” she excused. “They are very good hearted. One of them gave a lot of money to the poor, and we’re going to have tableaux for the old people of the parish.” “My old people are well taken care of,” he said sternly. Her face fell. “But we want to have the tableaux. I am going to be Juliet” “To whose Romeo?” “Freddie Fairfax’s.” “The pig driver?” “How unpleasantly you put it ” she said. “He is awfully nice.” There was silence for a moment, and then he said, “Do you love him., Ellie?” “Everybody calls me Eleanor now,” she remarked irrelevantly! “Do you love him?” he insisted. “Oh, no, I don’t love any one”— His dark face was very tender as he said, “And yet I once had the great happiness of believing that you loved me and that we were to be married and that you were to live in the parsonage with me and we were to minister to my people and grow old together in a beautiful union”— She gave a little cry. “My ankle hurts!” was her explanation, but her eyes were full of tears. He knelt beside her. “Let me take off your shoe,” he said. “I can bandage It with my handkerchief.” In silence he untied the pretty low boot and drew it off gently. In alienee, too, he wrapped hte handkerchief about I her slim ankle. I "There," he said- and looked ud at

her as he knelt. “Does It hurt now, dear heart?” “Don’t,” she said, and her lips trembled, “don’t call me that.” “I shall always call you that in my heart,” he said. Then he squared his shoulders and stood up. “I’ll help you to get home.” His arm went around her, and she dung to him. ‘Tnuafraid I can’t walk —lt hurts awfully.” " “I'll carry you,” he offered, but she protested, “Oh, no; they are coming back." The pigs were rampant now and squealing on the home stretch. The sheep were so frightened that their eyes were wild, and they stumbled over the rough road. ’“Oh, poor things, poor things!” Eleanor said as she saw them. The minister caught at the violet ribbons with one hand and brought the woolly steeds up with a jerk. “Unharness them,” he said to the man in pink. “You’ve spoiled the race!” shrieked the little woman in scarlet. “Miss Lester was to reward the winner,” explained one of the stout gentlemen. But the minister was pulling off the violet wreaths. “Take them home, Jock,” he said to the collie? and to the protesting crowd. “They happen to be my sheep, and I can’t have them killed in this way.” Freddie Fairfax came back with the pigs in tow. “Wo would pay you for them,” be said Insolently. In a flash the minister faced him, with clinched fists, but it was Eleanor who cried indignantly, “Do you think he cares about the money, Freddie?” She drew close to MacDonald as she said it, and the minister thanked her with his eyes. Then, as he noticed her deadly paleness, he cried, “We must get you home at once,” and in explanation to the others, “Her ankle is in pretty bad shape.” Freddie Fairfax dropped the lines, and the pigs made a break for freedom. “Gee.” he ejaculated, “I’ll bring my motor car!” “No.” Eleanor refused and waved him away. “Run after your pigs, little boy. They’re in the clover.” With one excuse and another she got rid of all of them; then she held out her hands to MacDonald. “Did you care, Hugh,” she asked wistfully, “when he spoke that way about giving you money?” “Not after you defended me,” he said. “It was when I saw you standing there among them—that I realized how’ light they were—and how true you were—and different—and I knew”— He bent over her. “What did you know, dear heart?” “That I wanted to live In the parsonage with you—and to grow old together—and to have you love me—always—Hugh.”