Jasper County Democrat, Volume 12, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 May 1909 — Fiction [ARTICLE]

Fiction

Cinderella..

By EUGENIE ULRICH.

Toting Hetherlngton filled his brierwood pipe. “You don’t mind, do you? You are always so jolly and chummy.” She smiled a little deprecatlngly. There were times when somehow she wished Hetherlngton did not find her so jolly and chummy, though these times had nothing to do with the brierwood pipe. The comfortable house was here In effect, and she, the friendless and kinless klndergartner, must of course have felt it good fortune to be saved the lot of the boarding bouse and given the companionship of pleasant and well set up people. . All the other young women she knew told her over and over again and reminded her that she ought to be grateful for her mercies. It Is true tha’t If Mrs. Hetherington’s oldest daughter had not married and gone to live in a distant city and her youngest had not died she perhaps would not have felt the need of a girlish presence In the house enough to take In Winifred. Winifred watched Hugh Hetberington Uft his fine length and move across the room after a light for his pipe. As the match flare flickered on his clean features she thought, os any woman must have, what a handsome fellow he was. But Winnie thought .jHao that If her own mouth had not been so blfc, her tendency to freckle so hopeless and the tint of her hair so uncompromisingly red Mrs. Hetherlngton might not haVe liked her quite so well. Moreover, she locked a bit older than Hugh, too. though she had carefully figured out that she In fact was a year younger. But then Hugh’s childhood had passed In the flush of pleasure and the sunshine of affection—and here? She was too humblfc to be sorry for herself and too wise not to see In the worst that had ever happened her the possibilities of still worse and thus be thankful for the providence that had kept her in Its hand. But yet this evening she thought more sharply than usual of another girl’s symmetry, her gowns, her accomplishments, her opportunities, all the things that are dear to the heart of woman. And why not? Venus herself was not irresistible until she put on the right girdle. Hugh had her to help In comparing some lists, and she knew very well that every minute of help she gave him this evening was an extra minute for the other filri- / ■ " , She bent her head over the papers before her, for the things she was thinking must steal into her face in spite of herself.

"Are you 'cry tired?” said Hetberington kindly, but yet altogether impersonally. She raised her head and smiled. What was the use? If it were not this misery it would be something else for a waif such as she. “Oh, not at all,” she said. . “I do believe there is another girl who would be as patient as you are with all my tiresome stuff and with me too. Even mother’s endurance gives out once in awhile, and she scolds about my den. If it weren’t for you I don’t know what would happen. If you’re really not tired I want to go over these lists with you now, and then I’m off for the Keudrick reception. Gertrude Stevenson will be there,” he said, a happy little smile playing about his lips. “Seems to me sbe is getting more beautiful every day. Don’t you think so?” Hetherlngton not even look at her for his answer. He was indeed Insisting on being even chummier than usual this evening, and Winifred bent her bead close over the papers once more. “Of course,” Hetherlngton went on, “Gertrude is popular, very. Sllllugton has a mint of money, too, but I don’t think she’s the kind of girl who would stoop to anything like that.” Winifred had to listen to that and much more in snatches and monologues. and she was glad when at last Hetherlngton left. There are times when it is singularly harder to be “chummy” than at others. The next morning Hetherlngton had gone when she came to breakfast, something most unusual for him. In the evening he did not ask her help. He talked very little, and Mrs. Hetherlngton later said to her husband, “Can it be that Hugh is not well?” Her husband looked .up’ retrospectively over his glasses. “Maybe he’s in love. Maybe he has proposed to some girl and she’s turned him down. Every young fellow has to have a lesson or two. It won’t hurt him, I suppose.” “Oh, how can you talk so? I am sure Hugh would not propose to a girl without talking to me about It first.” Whereupon Mr. Hetherlngton, Sr., smiled behind bis paper and went on reading. A long and comparatively serene matrimonial voyage had taught him that arguments only All the sails with bead winds. Winifred herself neither questioned nor seemed to take heed of Hugh’s moods. After several evenings he came down and asked her once more to come and help him. “What do yon think, Winifred,” he Mid abruptly after awhile, “ought to be the test of love?" "I should think if some one loved you all the time, whether you are fresh or tired, pleasant or uot pleasant, suecareful or not” “Fresh or tired, pleasant or not pleasant, successful or not”— Then he laughed a little jarringly, she thought “But what do you know about; It, after all? Tou never loved like that, did you?” Sbe looked at him with startled, almost guilty, eyes, and Hetherlngton had a queer feeling of having entered unwittingly Into a sanctified presence. He roge and walked ground the room

aimlessly for a few minutes. “Then he said he had some nasty experiments to make and maybe she would not want to stay, although he rather looked as though he would have liked to have her. But she left and then sat at her window watching his shadow move to and fro as it fell against the trees of the garden. Suddenly she heard a spluttering explosion and a strange guttural cry. For a ghastly second she watched the fitful leap of lights on the trees, but his shadow did not come back. Then she grabbed her water pitcher, full, happily, and the heavy rug on the floor and ran Into his room. She flung the door open upon a thin blur of flame and flickering tongues reaching like dancing imps here and there in midair -and through it all something like a huddled figure on the floor. Up went the water ahead of herself, and over herself and then the rug over the' figure, and with a strength she hardly dared to think could be in her tense muscles she dragged It out toward the hall. Then, wrapping her skirts around herself with a quick turn, she tore down the burning portieres that screened the laboratory from the den, and, finding the hose attached to the hydrant, she set the spray over herself and over the room. By this time the others had come. But It was Ceally all over. She staggered out to look at Hugh. His eyes were closed, his face blackened. “Is he dead? Oh, Is he dead?” she said weakly. Then, covering her face with her bunied hands as if fearing the answer, she sank down In a white heap Thfe next day Hugh, who, though singed and stunned, had been little hurt, sat beside her and held her bandaged hands. - He watched the play of her features as he talked to her. and it seemed to him like watching an unfolding flower. He caught himself wondering again and again at some newly discovered charm. What deep, fine eyes! WTiat a singularly sweet and unaffected smile! What an Intimate gentleness In her voice! Mrs. Hetherlngton said one morning: “How charming you are In that pale yellow wrapper! Tou are quite transformed.” And she passed her hand tenderly over the girl who had saved her last child to her. Hugh said, “She la Cinderella, and the fairy godmother has shaken the magic tree over her.” And he did not know just yet that the magic which was touching her and him, too, was older even than Airy godmothers. He spent his spare momenta now trying to please her, even as she had once tried to pleaae him. He told her over and over again that It was her wit and her speed and her dear burned hands that saved his life after his stupidity with the ether and the collodion. “Ah. nor she would My. “It was an Inspiration. I am not a bit brave of myself.” "Do yon remember,” he said one day, “your test of love?” She blushed a little this time. “Ton never told me,” he went qn. “whether

you ever loved any one {Bat way or not.” She did not answer. “Do yon think that yon could V He thought he saw a smile flit over the face, bent away from him though It was, and he took her hands* that, were now healed, though still scarred a little. She raised her head and looked at him, and Hetberlngton suddenly knelt down before her and kissed her hands, and then he drew her head down to him and kissed her on the lips.