Kankakee Valley Post, Volume 16, Number 22, DeMotte, Jasper County, 12 April 1946 — and be my Love [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

and be my Love

By PEGGY DERN

W.N.U. RELEASE

CHAPTER I "Miss Meggie!” It was Annie’s voice lifted above the roar of a truck in the backyard. "Hit’s de feed man.’’ “All right, Annie.” Megan looked up from the desk where she was writing labels for the latest batch of canned goods. "The money's in the old brown teapot." "Ain’ no money in de brown teapot, Miss Meggie,” shouted Annie after a moment. "Cep’t jes’ a dime an’ two pennies.” Megan sat very still for a moment and felt her heart go down into her worn shoes. Dad had found her secret cache! That was why he had been so eager to take advantage of Mr. McCurtie’s offer to drive him into the county seat that morning! Annie, vast and black, loomed In the doorway. Her eyes were gentle and warm with affection. “Miss Meggie, yo’ reckin yo’ Paw —" she began impulsively, but Megan silenced her with a glance and reached for her checkbook. Annie accepted the unspoken rebuff good humoredly and said helpfully, consulting a slip of paper in her hand, "Hit’s fo’teen dollars an’ six-ty-f o’ cents. Miss Meggie.” Megan nodded, wrote the check, ripped it out, and signed the slip Annie extended. Annie padded out and the door closed behind her. For a moment Megan sat still, her elbows on the desk, her chin propped in her hands. She could have wept, and yet she tried hard to laugh at herself for the wave of discouragement that swept over her.

She had been carefully hoarding the egg money In that old brown teapot, to pay for feed. She had been «o sure that her father knew nothing about its being there. He must have prowled—or else he had spied on her. Neither thought was pleasant. Megan finished the last of the labels and straightened wearily. As she went out of the small sitting room that was her “office” she glanced across the road and saw the glimmer of lights in the shabby little cottage well back from the road, that was her nearest neighbor. So Alicia Stevenson had returned from her visit to Atlanta. She knew a moment of sharp envy for Alicia’s ease and freedom from the grueling farm labor that was the lot of practically all the residents of Pleasant Grove. Buay with milking, a task which she had done so many times that it was purely automatic, she found herself thinking about Alicia. The shabby little old cottage across the road from the MacTavish place had stood vacant for years, ever since Old Man Brigham had died, six months after the death of his wife. Then, late one June evening, the New York Limited, which ordinarily raced through Pleasant Grove with merely a derisive toot of its whistle, had stopped and a woman had alighted, a woman of perhaps forty, smartly dressed according to Pleasant Grove standards, and surrounded by a sea of luggage. She had announced herself in Bums Mercantile, Pleasant Grove’s general store, as Alicia Stevenson, only child of the Brighams, and stated that she had come to live in the old Brigham place—at least “for the duration.” From the first, Megan had been established as Alicia's best friend, although Megan was ashamed to admit to herself that she neither liked nor trusted Alicia. There was something about her that was, to Megan, almost sly; perhaps the relish with which she pounced on the smallest morsel of gossip and rolled it about on her tongue and found exactly the moment to mention it when it would do the most harm. Occasionally Alicia departed od a trip. She was quite closemouthed about where she was going and why; Megan suspected that Alicia liked being "a woman of mystery," and that it fed her sense of importance to know that people wondered where she went, and why. Annie Megan finished the milking and she and Amos took the brimming milk pails to the spring house, cool and dark, where the milk would be left over night and where, in the morning, Annie would chum. Coming back across the backyard, almost completely dark now that the sun had gone and twilight was deepening, she saw a man standing waiting for her at the steps and was startled. He was a stranger, and strangers—especially masculine strangers were sufficiently rare in Pleasant Grove to arouse a bit of surprise. Miss MacTavish?” he came towards her, smiling, and she saw that he was tall and rugged looking and that he miist have been close to forty. "I’m Tom Fallon—your neighbor down the road there. We’ve just moved in, and they told me that you might be willing to supply us with milk and butter and eggs.”

“Why, yes, I think so,” said Megan, and then remembered. "On, you’re Professor Fallon, the new high school principal! Welcome to Pleasant Grove!” "Thank you.” said Tom, and his handshake was warm and friendly. "That's very kind of you." "It's going to be nice to have someone in the Westbrook place," said Megan pleasantly. "I’d like to call on Mrs. Fallon as soon as you are settled.” She saw the shadow fall over his face. Even in the dusk she could sense the tightening, the stiffening, that made him look older and somehow, aloof. “You’re very kind," he told her formally. "But Mrs. Fallon is—an Invalid. Her health does not permit her to have callers. Her sister lives with us and takes care of her.” "Oh quickly and meant it. "You will let us know, though, if there is anything we can do to help? We pride ourselves on being neighborly in Pleasant Grove.” Tom smiled and the darkening of his face was gone now. He said pleasantly, "I’d almost forgot that such a thing existed—neighborliness, I mean. You don’t find any evidences of it in a city any more.” The Fallons had moved into the Westbrook place early in September. But by the time school was in its second week, people were speaking approvingly of Tom Fal-

lon—“Professor Tom” they were calling him, and gradually it came to the term, ” ’lessor.” “I was right worried at first,” admitted old Mrs. Stuart, helping Megan make sauerkraut. “Seemed like he didn’t have enough spunk to make the older boys behave. Seemed like he ought to ’a took a stick to ’em more’n he did—but now seems like the younguns has setiled down right nice with him. And they say the other teachers is crazy about him.” Megan said quietly, “He seems very nice. I think we are fortunate to get a man like him in a smalltown school.” Mrs. Stuart shot her a glance. “Why’d you reckin he come to a little bitty place like this?” she wondered innocently. “Folks says that with good teachers scarcer’n hen's teeth just about everywhere in the country you’d think a man with all them fancy diplomas and papers and things could get him a better job than this ’un here." Megan frowned a moment in deep thought, hesitating. “Well, he said his wife was delicate—maybe he wanted a mild climate for her,” she suggested at last Mrs. Stuart paused In chopping the crisp, hard cabbage heads and shot Megan a look. “You hear anything 'bout what’s wrong with his wife?” she wanted to know, an odd tone in her voice that made Megan look at her sharply. “Why, no,” she answered. “Well, I thought maybe you selling him milk and eggs and things, maybe you might 'a heard something or seen something.” Mrs. Stuart was almost on the defensive. “Folks say there’s something mighty peculiar about her kind of sickness—” Oddly enough. Megan found herself suddenly furious. “I don’t suppose it would be Alicia Stevenson who said that, would it?’’ she asked dryly. Mrs. Stuart chuckled and her color deepened a little.

"Well, now that you ask me, I do believe it was something Miz S te ' venson said, t’other day when we was all sewing for the Red Cross over at her house,” she admitted. "She made a right smart story out o' it. Said she went over to call, takin’ some chrysanthemums from her garden, and some new magazines and a book, thinkin’ likely a woman that was an invalid might like to read—well, she says this big, husky-looking woman, a ’Miss Martha,’ come to the door and fairly glared at her and wouldn’t let her in. Said fer a minute she didn't think she was goin’ to let her leave the flowers, and she wouldn’t let her leave the books and magazines. Said Miz’ Fallon didn’t want to be read to, and she was in bed so she couldn’t read to herself. Miz’ Stevenson said the house, what she could see of it, leastways—was neat and clean but depressin’ like.” "Professor Fallon said that his wife’s sister lived with them and took care of her,” said Megan dryly. "Of course it would be like Alicia Stevenson to make up a story about mystery over there. I imagine Mrs. Fallon may be crippled—there could be any one of a lot of reasons—anyway, she is an invalid and not permitted to have company, so why can't we just leave it at that?” "Well, I rekin there ain’t much else we can do,” admitted Mrs. Stuart, but it was plain that her lively curiosity was far from satisfied with any such unenterprising decision. There was something about Tom Fallon that made Megan feel sorry for him; something, too, that put her on the defensive when he and his family affairs were being discussed. Pleasant Grove was a small town where everybody knew everybody else’s business; you might think you had secrets from your neighbors—perhaps they let you think so —but occasionally there would be little spatters of rumor, whispers, revelations that your secret was no secret at all, but that your friends and neighbors were perfectly willing that you should think they were. Megan’s favorite relaxation, when she could find time for it, was a walk to the top of the low-lying hill beyond the meadow, that rejoiced in the ambitious title of the Ridge. Here she crawled under a barbed wire fence, walked a hundred yards more and was on top of the Ridge. Here there were lordly pines whose green feathery tops seemed almost to brush the sky; here the aisles between the pines were kept clean and free of underbrush, and thickly carpeted with resinous, slippery, brown pine needles. Here there were several big flat rocks that offered a pleasant place to sit and rest after the walk. And from here one had a beautiful view over rolling meadowland and pasture and green woods.

On an afternoon late in October, Megan emerged from the barbed wire fence and straightened, to look back down the low meadow valley. The dogs were scampering wildly; Dixie, the small black water spaniel who was a superb hunter, selftaught, had treed game and was barking his head off; Bessie, the pointer, was racing through the underbrush at the edge of the pines, her tail quivering with delight at the scent she had disturbed; while the cats were climbing trees with joyous abandon. But as she stepped out of the pines to the small clearing where the rock lay, she paused and said, startled, “Oh—l'm sorry—l didn’t know there was anyone here.” Tom stood up, smiling, eager. “Well, Miss MacTavish! How are you? Am I trespassing on your property?” he said quickly. “Oh, no, as a matter of fact this property belongs to your place,” Megan assured him. “The circus and I just use it as a finish to our walk." “Shall I go?” suggested Tom lightly. “Of course not —how silly!” protested Megan swiftly. “After all, there are two rocks and plenty of room for both of us!” "Thanks,” said Tom, and smiled as he watched her settle herself on the rock while he selected another one. The four cats, shy of strangers, stepped daintily into the clearing, saw him and drew back startled, velvety ears erect, fluffy plumy tails quivering a little, tiny growls starting deep in their soft throats. “Behave yourselves, boys!” Megan ordered sternly, and Tom laughed as the arched tails relaxed: a little and the cats went on about their business of investigating fascinating scents, yet keeping wary golden eyes on h m as they did so. “They are beauties, aren’t they?” : said Tom in quite honest admira-; tion. “Well, naturally 1 think so,” Megan laughed. Tom way myself,” he admitted. (TO BE CONTINUEP)

She saw a man standing waiting for her at the steps and was startled.