Jasper County Democrat, Volume 12, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 July 1909 — THE GIRL ACROSS THE AISLE. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE GIRL ACROSS THE AISLE.

A Break In Her Reserve, Then a Break In Her Nerves. By ALOISE JOHNSON. [Copyright. 1909, by Associated Literary Press.] High in the air apparently the train hung, an air filled with swirling, feathery flakes. Above, below, on'all sides "was snow. The whole world to all purposes had faded away, leaving the stalled express the center of a deadly, ghastly, unstable whiteness. Helen Melrose turned from gazing hopelessly from the window to the comparative cheer of the Pullman car. As she did so she looked into the contemplative eyes of the man across the aisle and hastily carried her gaze on to the carved woodwork beyond his head, desperately restraining her inclination to bite her lip in annoyance. The man across the aisle continued to watch Miss Melrose in the same contemplative manner. She had first Interested, then irritated him. Her extraordinary type of beauty bad caught his eye, as it did the eye of all who knew her for the first time—hair of a sheer downright copper that was fairly alive in its bright waving, a white face un marred by the tiny freckles that love to follow in the wake of hair verging on the red tones, lips as scarlet as those in a pictured face Knight had once seen, wondered at and disbelieved. And behind it all the girl had a mind of-her own, as a glance into the wine brown eyes would convince one. It w’as her calm independence that had brought irritation to supplant admiration in George Knight’s breast. Unconsciously he expected helplessness, appealingness, in a woman. It ran counter to his sense of the correct order of things to have a girl so cheerfully able to look out for herself. When he had boarded a train in Chicago he had Instinctively put out a hand to assist the woman in front of him up the car steps, the porter being engaged. It was not till she turned her head briefly to thank him that he

knew whether the woman were young or old, and the shock of Miss Melrose’s queer beauty had been added to by the realization that her eyes were only coldly courteous, almost resentful. For two days he had sat as near the girl as though they bad been opposite one another at their own dinner table, yet they were miles apart. Other passengers chatted and exchanged reading matter and anecdotes of the country. The copper haired girl held aloof even from the women. But in spite of his exasperation the proud tilt of her head, the serenity of her level gaze, her entire self sufficiency, drew him. At the station where the train stopped some minutes he would meet her walking up and down the platform with her splendid gait. “I expect,” Knight told himself on one of these occasions, “that if the Goddess of Liberty took a walk she’d start off just that way!” And now high up in the Rockies the blizzard had gripped them, and the train had stopped. The trainmen were beginning to get anxious, for the swirling drifts were so huge even the rotary plows were helpless. As Knight stood muffled on the back platform on one of his restless trips of observation the conductor stood beside him, “If we don’t get out of here tonight,” he said grimly, “the whole train will be as neatly and completely covered over with snow, to say nothing of snowslides that may come, as though somebody bad dug a hole In a snowbank and Just dropped us In and covered us up again.” The dismal prophecy lingered In Knight’s mind as he returned to bls car. There were mutterings of weariness and worry from most of the delayed passengers. Only Miss Melrose remained apparently unaffected. She was reading a book with Intense interest. having given up the desolate view from the windows as tiresome. Knight wondered, a little indignantly, if nothing would move her from her calm. And so when after an hour or so In the smoker Knight again tramped to the back platform he was sub prised to find the girl, muffled in an Ulster, leaning over the iron rail, straining her eyes through the white veil into the hidden valley below. As she turned at his step something happened. All Knight knew Was that he was being swamped, smothered, blinded by an icy, rushing blanket of snow and that he was holding the srtrl

in nts arms, frantically bracing mmself against the rail. When the slide finally swept itself away down the slope the two stood clinging to one another, gasping, beating the snow from eyes and noses. “Are yon hurt?” Knight asked anxiously. His Ideal woman would be half fainting, frantic with fear. This wind blown, gasping creature actually laughed. Then she spoke to him for the first time, and her voice was riotous with mirth. “Hurt?” she echoed. “Why should I be hurt? You were here! If you hadn’t been, however, I probably should be following the snowstorm down the mountain side! Thank you for preventing that unpleasant trip!” Knight laughed too. Her humor was infectious, if novel. He watched her sweep back Into the warmth of the car with her free grace of movement, and again he was Irritated. He hated being denied his manly right to protect womanhood in distress. Then he realized that the girl had not been in the least distressed, except momentarily. He wished savagely something would happen to bring forth the dependent side of .her nature, if she possessed it Then she would be perfect And then he laughed a little sarcastically at his interest in a young woman whose name even he did not know. The hours wore on, and the coal gave out, and the cars grew colder. Everybody vetoed the porter’s efforts to make up the berths. The cross and uncomfortable passengers wrapped themselves in blankets and buddled in the corners of their seats. Nobody wanted to sleep when they knew not what minute the gale and an avalanche combined might sweep them from the track. Knight watched Miss Melrose solicitously. It was at that hideous hour when the gray dawn makes everything its ugliest that Knight, to his unbelievable amazement, saw Miss Melrose quietly crying. Without volition he found himself swept across the aisle. “What Is it?” he asked breathlessly. She turned to him frankly. “I’ve got the nenes!” she confessed, with a pitiful attempt at a smile that ended in a sob. “I—l hate this awful snow—we’ll never get out—l can’t stand it another minute! And mother will be so frightened—and— and I believe my feet are freezing!” Here was a situation that Knight knew how to handle. The unbelievable joy of finding the Goddess of Liberty only feminine and human after all was almost swamped by bls pleasure In finding she was pathetically glad to be cheered up and taken care of.

Blithely he fetched and carried and did wonders in the matter of hot coffee at 5 a. m. Later in the day, when the staggering snowplows dug the train out and again the wheels creaked and the steam pipes sent out a saving warmth and everybody again beamed In relief, Knight sat beside the girl with the coppery hair. Now that she had melted in his direction, Knight told himself,,J>er reserve was entirely proper and the attitude he would wish her to take to the rest of the masculine world. He had got that far in three days. And six weeks later he and the girl were traveling over the same route again—on tbelr honeymoon.

THE TWO STOOD CLINGING TO ONE ANOTHER