Jasper County Democrat, Volume 22, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 September 1919 — Rich Man, Poor Man [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Rich Man, Poor Man

By ELIENNE ST. CLAIRE

(Copyright. I*l9, by the McClure Newspaper Syndicate.) “Rich man, poor man.” It always ended there. Harriet let the daisies in her arms full to the ground, and stamped her pretty foot with annoyance. It was much better to remain a stenographer and earn her own living than inflict herself upon some poor hard-working man, she had decided iong before. If it had to be a poor man or no man, then it would be no man, of that she was confident. “Look out!” The cry came across the field, but before Harriet could scream out she was lifted in two big arms and carried over the fence, just In time. The infuriated bull that she had mistaken for an inoffensive cow had been maddened by her red sweater and would have trampled or gored out her life had it not lieen for her rescuer. “There!” The man panted as he placed her on the grass, “we are all safe now.” Harriet had closed her eyes, but she opened them now. The man was just as she had been picturing—tall, big, brawny and handsome. “Oh, thank you,” she breathed. “However did you carry me over that fence ?” He looked down at the demure little person of ninety pounds on the grass before him and smiled. “It was just like carrying a baby,” he replied, amused. That was a shock to Harriet’s dignity. Sitting so serenely on the grass after such a thrilling rescue she had felt like a heroine in a novel, but now she rose sheepishly aud brushed the grass from her skirt. It was difficult

to appear tall and dignified for a person five feet in height, but she attempted it bravely. “I am by no means a child,” she flashed. “I did not mean you were,” he corrected. “Perhaps you thought I was rough. I am more used to carrying sacks of a grain than ladies, but I much prefer the latter.” That righted him Immediately With Harriet. She was soon wondering if It would be proper to allow him to see her home. He seemed to think it would. It seemed no time before she was bidding him good afternoon and inviting him to call again at her aunt’s gate in the village. - She looked after him longingly as he went down the road. He was just the type of man she had always dreamed of, but alas! he was poor. His every appearance told her that, and he had said himself that he was working on a neighboring farnf— a mere hired man. If only he had not been! However, she was not going to permit that to prevent her enjoying his company while she was on her vacation, for there remained two months of it. What if he fell in love with her? She would make sure that, he didn’t —not permanently, anyway. She would invent some yarn that would scare him off. As Melville Reynolds, Harriet’s rescuer, was trudging along the road his mind was on the little girl he had just left. She was a plucky little thing, he thought,- and it was hard to keep from admiring her. She was a pretty little country girl—the very kind of girl he had made up his mind to marry some day when he found her. He had found her, he could not help but think it. But the next day Melville’s love ambitions were shattered. Harriet let him know in a very airy sort of way that she was a leader in the very best society of the city, and all that sort of thing. Whenever a chance offered itself for him to. grow sentimental she always managed to bring up something about a ball or an afternoon tea or a yachting trip, or some other thing that he hated the very name of. He went home disappointed in her, but somehow he could not make up his mind not to call on her again. She was a

dear little girl even though she was the butterfly type he, detested. Of course, he did not guess that Harriet had made up the society role to show him just how impossible love-making with her would be. But despite it all he proposed to her the day she announced her intention of leaving for home. “I could not think of such a thing,” she answered in dismay. “Goodness, no !’• Melville did not wait to plead his cause. He went away without saying a word, leaving Harriet wondering whether to laugh or cry. She did not have time to do either. Just a few minutes remained in which to catch her train, and she hurried to get ready. The train was late, and as Harriet waited at the station she had an opportunity to think it over. She had been an idiot to act the way she had, she decided. Even if he -was poor he was perfect. What was poverty compared to happiness? She loved him. Now she knew it, it was too late. Perhaps it was not too late. Her baggage was checked through, but she did not think of that. She was beside her aunt’s tired man in the old ramshackle buggy, and was ordering him to drive to the farm where Melville worked, just as the train whistled at the bend. “He has gone to the river,” the farmer told her. The river! Harriet’s head swam. There was only one thought in her mind. Melville had gone to end his

life because she had so cruelly rejected him. She seized the lines from the startled hired man and whipped up the old horse. The beast responded nobly, but to Harriet it was a snail’s pace. The river hove in sight She was out before they stopped at the bridge, and then stopped, panting. On the bank just a few yards from the road sat Melville, calmly fishing. Harriet stopped long enough to get her heart back to its normal beat and then crept silently toward him. Melville was staring out over the river, a far-away look on his face. The minute her arms encircled his neck he knew who it was, and took her in his arms. She did not sob until her whole confession of love had been made, but Melville kissed the tears away. The sun was slowly sinking, the shadows were on the river, it would have made a splendid ending had not Harriet remembered her trunk.” “My baggage!” she cried. “It has gone on the train. What will I do?” “I’ll telephone my man in the city to get it at the station, and bring it back here. Or I will get him to come here with the car and we will drive to the city after it.” “Your man, your ear!” Harriet

gasped. “Do you live in the city?” “I am president of the automobile flrm that bears my name,” he smiled. “I am helping out here partly to rest! my nerves, but mainly to do what I can to help win the war. My eyesight won’t pass me for the army.” Harriet did not seem to be able to believe it all, .so quickly did everything happen. There was such an attractive little Ivy-clad church in the village they could not resist it. But on the way back to the city Mr. and Mrs. Melville Reynolds had a chance to think it over. As she nestled close beside her husband on th* softly upholstered seat of the touring car, Harriet counted the buttons on her dress idly. “Rich man,” she started on the second round. There remained one more button. She hesitated to pronounce the next two words. Her fingers closed on the button and she was just going to say “poor man” when the button slipped off into her hand. She sighed in relief. MelvlHe smiled knowingly. “What if it had been poor man, dear?” he asked. “It would have been all the same,” she answered as she placed the button in his open hand and let his fingers close on hers. “Rich man or poor man, you are my own dear man.”

She Looked After Him Longingly.