Jasper County Democrat, Volume 22, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 July 1919 — When Lands Do Not Matter [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

When Lands Do Not Matter

By S. B. HACKLEY

(Copyright. t»l». by tb« McClur* N«w»papcr Syadtcat*.) He had been on the road with the six fine saddlers he would not trust to anybody else’s care, several hot, fatiguing duys, and his long form slid wearily Into the restaurant chair, x “A bite and a sup for you, Gilbert Shore—then bed —the glories of Frisco can wait,” he thought. Just across from him dined a man of fifty with a neA and a girth the like of which young Shore never remembered seeing outside the stockyards. The slim young waitress who served him brought iced water and hot soup, cold milk and hot coffee, and It seemed to the Kentuckian every known meat, salad, vegetable, but censure only rewarded ner efforts. “What have you for dessert?" the eater finally demanded. '•Lemon pie, snow pudding, raspberries, and strawberry ice cream." “I’ll take ’em!” he growled, “and bring ’em quick!" Watching this Interesting specimen devour, the young man did not notice that the girl was standing at hie own elbow. “Your order, please,” she was saying. Her cheeks were flushed with her encounter with the fat brute, her soft voice was not quite steady and there was a mist in her eyes—eyes deep and dark blue like the ocean when the summer sun is over IL A wave of protecting tenderness swept over Shore; he made much ado to keep from pushing away his simple order and feasting his eyes on her winsome face, but he was a diffident young man, and a gentleman, so he. pretended to eat, and used his eyes only by stealth. And the girl? Long ago Allsie Randolph had learned thAt silent unresponsiveness to all social advances of the young masculine customer was a girl’s safeguard from insult, but she looked at the young man with his fine eyes, his clear, healthy skin and his charming manner and almost wished that he would ask her to go out with him. But he did not. However, on his third day in San Francisco the aristocratic old lady with whom he lived on the great Blue

Grass stock farm received a telegram: "Will be detained longer than I expected. Start back Tuesday.” “Oh, Grandmother Girl, if you knew why I am staying,” he thought whimsically, “you’d say I’d been sleeping in the moonlight of my lost senses I” On the evening he ate his twentieth meal at the Bay View restaurant, the man of the thick neck was leaving just as he took his seat at the next table. “That man needs a man to punch his head for bullying a little thing like you,” he remarked. "I’d just like—” * “Oh, sir, please,” she interrupted him half frightened, “he’s a regular customer here I I—l don’t really mind. O ne —one gets used to the unpleasantness here!” Shore’s heart prompted him to say: “Little one, let nie take you away from all this unpleasantness forever!” But he only said somewhat diffidently that if she would let him, he would take her to see a good play somewhere that evening. « Ally's heart leaped, but she faltered: “I do not go out with customers!” Then she fled to the kitchen. When she came back he was gone, and a twisted bit of paper and a single Marechai Niel rose lay beside his plate. “Oh, Little White Apron,” the note said, “I wish I could feel that you trust me, stranger that I am! I like to think there is nothing in my face to frighten a girl. I’m leaving in the morning, but I shall see you again, for Pm coming back to see if you believe in the message of the rose!” It was signed “Gilbert Shore, Bon

Aqua Farina, Treadwell, Ky.” “What la the sentiment of the Marechai Nlel rose, Sissy I” the girl asked her widowed sister that Corona reached for the dictionary. " ‘Adoration,’ or ‘yours, heart and soul.’ ” she quoted. Allele slipped back to her room and held the delicate rose for a long tremulous moment to her lips. “If only I knew he meant it 1” she whispered, tie was so lovable-and so good-looking, but there were so many with ’Vood looks and bad Intentions! “And," she thought bitterly, “he Is rich and I am a beggar!’’ One evening In February she saw him enter the restaurant again. He came straight to her table, his brown eyes eager, glad. / “Oh, Little White Apron,’’ he said softly, “I couldn’t stay away any longer ! Do you believe what the rose told? Do you trust me enough to go out to the theater with me this evening?” Ailsle fought baqk the happiness looking out of her eyes. “I must work until twelve,” she told him, “but you may go and call on my married sister and my Invalid father. But do not stay late. Father must sleep early.” “He will not go,” she told herself bitterly. “He will not go! They never do!” But even as she said it heart whispered that she believed he would. “He is rich and we have nothing,' Corona,” Ailsle remonstrated when Corona told her in delight she had accepted Shore’s invitation for them all to go motoring with him the next day. “We are not the people he belongs with." When two weeks later Shore asked Ailsle to marry him the girl could not keep the glow pf joy out of her face, but she crushed it from her voice. “I cannot,” she told him. “You might remember one day that I was poor and think that your riches tempted me. That would break my heart.” “Oh!” he said easily, “I’m not a millionaire, if that’s what’s worrying you. Don’t punish me because of the little grandfather left me.” ’but she was obdurate. "I cannot marry you,” she repeated. . “Don’t you love me?” he Insisted. But she turned her telltale face away. “I will come back,” he Said then, white and unhappy, “when you have had time to think it over.” “No,” she said, her voice shaking, “do not come. I cannot ever marry you.” In May the city was full of fair visitors. One noon when Ailsle’s whole body ached with weariness, her heart most of all, two Southerners sat at her table. “I heard Gilbert Shore got badly smashed up out fox hunting about two months ago,” the younger man remarked to the older. “How Is he these days, doctor?” “He’s doing no good,” the older man answered, and Ailsle’s heart stood quite still. “When I told him the other day if he didn’t try he'd never get so he could walk or get well, he said: ’I wish, to please you, doctor; I wish I could take more Interest in getting well, bqf what’s the use ?’ Something besides his Injury’s troubling him, Raymond. Tm going to prod him into telling me yhen I get back I” z A few days later a young man sitting in an invalid’s chair on the porch of a fine country home in the Blue Grass, his eyes close®, suddenly felt a pair of strong arms around his neck. “Oh, Gilbert,” a soft voice breathed, “tell me you are not going to die! I came—came —” For a moment he looked at her uncomprehending, then his eyes lighted with triumphant happiness. "And so you came to do good to the dying? Oh, Little White Apron, can’t you do good to the living and stay with him forever?” Then he added in tender whimsicality: “I ought to tell you. Particular One, I’ve still got what grandfather gave me!” She raised her head from his breast. "I’ve thought It over,” she said. “It doesn’t matter!”

"I’ll Take ’Em," He Growled.