Jasper County Democrat, Volume 22, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 April 1919 — Bill and Bella [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Bill and Bella

By JANE OSBORN

(Coprrlsbl. 1»1». by the McClure Newepaper Syndicate.) Twelve-year-old Bill Burton kicked the large whitewashed stone that marked one side of the driveway that led into the Mapes farmhouse, and his cousin, a decade older, looking a little sheepish and decidedly uncomfortable In stiff starched collar on the warm vacation day, patted the boy on the back. "I didn’t know-how could I know?" he said. "Things like that a fellow doesn’t plan to have happen. I hadn’t even seen Bella, had I?” "No, but If I’d a known you were going to get girl-crazy and get engaged and everything, why I’d told my mother and father, 1 would, not to let you spend your vacation here, 'stend of telling them I’d share my room and everything. "I thought you’d want to go Ashing, like you said you would and Everything. and here after only' a week you do h thing like this. Well, go on. smarty; 1 guess I can get along without you. Only, anyway, I think you might of let a fellow know that you were going to do it. ’stead o’ springlug It on him after I'd been digging bait and making the springboard in the pool und everything." The truth was that BUI Burton, once the Idol of his young cousin, Steve Miller. after having arranged to spend his month's vacation at the Miller farm, where for several seasons he had shared the boyish pastimes of his cousin, had become first smitten with and then engaged to Bella Mapea. the blue-eyed daughter of a neighbor fanner of the Millers. On the dav In

question lie had made a clean breast of the case to his youthful cousin and explained that as he had accepted an invitation to spend the afternoon and take tea with the lovely Bella he could not go fishing with his small cousin, as that young man had expected he would. So they parted at the white stone that marked the driveway of the Mapes farm that summer day a dozen years ago, and after trying to find sport in fishing alone and making numerous resolutions never to “get silly about a girl,” young Steve entered the Mapes farm by a back way and found. • shady place beneath a lilac bush, where he might nurse his resentment in the vicinity of his cousin’s undoing and possibly make observations of the charming Bella. It was all entirely laconcelvable to him that any young man, least of all his cousin. Bill Burton, could find more satisfaction in the society of any girl than in himself. There was certainly nothing underhanded in sitting quietly under the. lilac bush and watching Bill and Bella if they passed, especially as he would never divulge to anyone whatever he might see or hear. He might have observed that Bella’s blue eyes shone w’ith unwonted happiness and that she was decked out in her crispiest white frock. But Steve couldn’t see that Bella looked at all different than usual and it was Inconceivable to him that Bill was greatly enjoyiqg himself. Then he overheard this:

“But you really are the dearest, best man In all the world —really you are, and I ought to know, because I have brothers and cousins and I’ve always known lots of boys. And you are, oh, so good-looking, Bill. Truly you are. I never cared about a man’s being so awfully tall if he was only well built; and you are awfully well built. Bill. Why, Napoleon was lots shorter than you are and Alexander Hamilton wasn’t a bit taller. It isn’t as if I was a great tall girl.” Steve listened more intently. Somehow this kind of talk Interested him. It threw side-lights on this matter of courtship that he had never dreamed of. There was a lot of talk in between and then he listened again. “I know you are going to make a great success, Bill. Men with foreheads shaped like yours always do if they are started out right. And you are started out right because your hand shows that you have a Splendid talent for business. I just know you are going to make a great success.

Oh. lam *o proud of my Billy. H*’* just th* dearrat. brat, bravest man 1b the world." At the next opportunity Stere crept out of the lilac bush and made track* for home. Later he cvnfeaaed to Bill what ho had heard. "J aee now why you wanted to go and g*t engaged.” he said. “I didn’t know that was what It wa* like before —’cause, of course, no one but your girl would ever tell you all those things. Gee. but she thinks you are just perfect, don’t she. Bill? I don’t suppose she ever noticed those freckles on your nose." So It was that the elder cousin gave the younger what he regarded as a sound sage piece of advice. "There are girls," he told him, “who will want you to do all the flattering, all the kidding. They may be the most fascinating kind. But they don’t make the best sweethearts and wives. They expect too much and Instead of helping a fellow' up the road to success they Just binder hltn. That’s why I fell for Bella. I suppose I might have met lots of girls that were prettier and all that, but I figured that Bella appreciated me and that that was what would help me to success.” Steve grew to manhood and Bill and Bella were married, and moved far away to the West, and though the two cousins did not see each other for ’many years, Steve always remembered the good advice that Bill had given to him. He had beeg his boyish meal and somehow though he never saw him, he Imagined that he was still in his business and family life out there in the West living up to this Ideal. There were girls aplenty. There was Huth of the Titian hair and the perpetual bantering laugh, and there was Matty, blonde, with drooping eyelashes and Imperious manner, and there were Daisy and Sally and Vivian and Gertrude —perhaps others. It may be that Steve was engaged to some of them, but never once did they compare Steve, who was cast In the same proportions as Cousin Bill, to the great Napoleon or Hamilton, never did they tell him that he was the dearest man In the world, the best and the bravest, though somehow they managed to exact from him numerous protestations as to their angelic and seraphic qualities. Steve had just decided that the girls like Bella were girls of the past, that the girls of his generation were not of the doting kind.

Still, he remembered Bill’s advice and Bill was still In the back of his mind, his ‘‘beau ideal." Then Steve got a little stenographer who was fresh from the country where she had taken a correspondence course. And she had nice blue eyes and hair as straight as Providence had made it and—well, Steve had her in his employ for a month before he ever thought of her as a possible Bella. Then one day absolutely sans coquetry, sans calculation this little Flora Graves said: “Mr. Miller, I never knew a man with such a good business head in my life, and I’ve seen a good many men, because I used to watch the customers in my uncle’s hardware store where I kept the books. I'm sure you’re going to make a great business man. Bill looked up. He noticed that the girl’s eyes were of a pretty blue and that they were round. ‘‘But I’m not very good looking,” he suggested, and Flora surprised but still sans coquetry answered : “Well, you're not so very tall, but you’re well built. Napoleon was small and yet he had ability. You've got a better shaped bead than Napoleon.” There was little delay, and on their wedding trip they went to the western town where lived Bill and Bella. It was to be a surprise—Steve liked surprises—and they chanced to arrive in the town on the same train that Bill and Bella were taking from a little shopping trip to the nearest town. They were behind Bill and Bella. “But do you think this hat is becoming?” asked Bella, who was no longer quite so lithe as she had been a dozen years ago. “Perfectly charming, my dear,” said Bill, wearily. “You are charming in everything. I often say that with a wife as handsome as you—” “That was rather poor pie we had for dinner at the- hotel,” interrupted Bella. “I noticed you ate yours fast enough. I hope you didn’t like it better than mine—” “It wasn’t a patch to yours,” was the tired reply. “You are the best cook in the world. I have often told you that I had a great deal more than most men to be thankful for. I hope you know I appreciate —” Steve and Flora just stayed right on that train when Bill and Bella got off, and when they got off at the next stop they turned arounff and went back again. Steve told Flora he had changed his mind about stopping off there; that he had important business to attend to and a week later when they took their belated honeymoon they went far from Bill and Bella.

“But I’m Not Very Good Looking.”