Richmond Palladium (Daily), Volume 35, Number 89, 5 February 1910 — Page 6

OHNSTONE frowned intently, as he adjusted to his shoulders the bamboo frames with their squares of scarlet silk. He stood upon a rise of ground in a big field. Buttercups and daisies spread a white-and-gold pattern over the thick green grass. There was a scent of red clover: and bees, at their self-appointed task, twangled like tiny viols. But Johnstone was not bothering himself much with the picturesqueness of the spot. A stone's-throw distant, rose a hillock, and beyond it lay another field hut off at its farther side by a high hedge. "I believe I can make the hedge to-day," he said to himself. "Here goes!" He ran swiftly along the top of his knoll, cleared the end of it with a long jump and glided off into space. Like a huge tropical bird he sped through the air to the second knoll. He felt his feet swish through the high grass, and he chuckled as the machine kept up its speed. Half-way across the second field the summer breeze died down, the impetus of. the aeroplane slackened. Then the hedge approached. Johnstone raised the front planes a bit, the wings lifted in a last spurt, and he topped the highest bit of the hedge, giving it a tremendous kick as he passed over, and the scarlet wings sunk gently to earth, depositing Johnstone at the feet of a little brown creature who dropped a pair of opera-glasses and stared disbelievingly. " I beg your pardon," said Johnstone. " I was looking for a bee," said the girl. "I must have frightened you," went on Johnstone, and reached for her opera-glasses. " Thank you," said the girl, taking them. " Are you are you on your way anywhere?" "I nave arrived," replied Johnstone. "I go a little farther each day. To-day I tried to make the hedge." The girl had been staring at him. Hor brown eyes were big and solemn, like a frightened child's. Suddenly she sank to the ground, buried her face in her hands and rocked to and fro. "I have frightened you half to death," cried Johnstone, remorsefully. He tugged at the straps that held his wings, but the girl looked up and waved at him a small protesting hand. " Oh, don't, please don't take them off," she begged chokingly. " I'll not laugh any more." She searched for her handkerchief. " Please keep them on. It wasn't really funny," only I'd never seen any beforeclose to. They're lovely! And it's such a nice way to go about, isn't it?" She rose, wiping her eyes. Johnstone now had the lanes off; they were lying, two big stretches of scaret, on the ground. The girl pointed toward them. "Oh, would you, will you please let me try them?" She raised an adorable little face to Johnstone, who hardened his heart and looked upon her coldly. "Certainly not!" he said. No woman might laugh at Johnstone with impunity. "You are angry," said this suddenly soft-eyed, beseeching person. " And I don't blame you. But I was looking for a bee " her mouth quivered again. "A bee? questioned Johnstone. " Yes, I am bee-hunting. But what are bees compared to flying-machines? " " Bees are flying-machines," argued Johnstone. "Oh, yes, of course. And you are sure, quite sure?" As she asked the question she nodded her brown head toward the scarlet mass on the ground. " Yes, quite sure," replied Johnstone, very decidedly. The girl sighed, then walked a few steps away and picked up a brown box from the grass. She looked around vaguely. "I must have dropped the opera-glasses again" she said. ." I'm always losing them. They're father's. ' Johnstone returned them to her for the second time. She smiled at him. " I shall tell father that I have seen an aeroplane and a man flying it," she said. " He will be interested. Good morning." " What is the box for? " asked Johnstone. "There is honey in it. A bee goes in, and then out again. You follow the bee. Good morning." " That is where you need the wings," said Johnstone, relaxing to a smile. " They would be convenient," admitted the girl. " But one can walk after a bee very easily. When you lose him, you wait a little and always another bee appears." She looked at Johnstone speculatively. Good-by, she said again. " How far do you follow them? " ' ' " It depends." "On what?" . The girl sank down on the soft grass again, and laid side her box. " You must know," she explained patiently, " that bees store their honey in a tree." " Not in hives? " asked Johnstone. " I thought " " Wild bees," still with an air of patience. " Then you find the tree and cut it down." "A simple and natural process," commented Johnatone. "An ancestral oak for a couple of dollars' worth of honey!" The girl rose to her feet. " It isn't such an exciting sport as flying," she said, "but, after all, no one hurts the bee, and one can always use the ancestral oak in one's ancestral fireplace." Her sunburned, freckled face looked pleasantly on Johnstone. A frilled sunbonnet hung at her neck, and er brown-checked gingham dress was open a bit at the throat. She held the cigar-box carefully under one tanned half-bare arm; the abused glasses hung carelessly from slim brown fingers. Of a sudden it seemed to Johnstone, inventor by choice, and professor of mathematics by education, that a personally conducted bee hunt was the one thing he craved. He remarked with diffidence, " If you're quite sure I won't be in your way " he paused. The girl looked startled for a moment. Then her solemn eyes eyes that belied the mobile mouth took on a soft shining. " Of course, there's really no reason why you should be in my way. The fields are wide enough, there are plenty of cigar-boxes, and as for the bees " "You know I mean may I go with you?" he said. The brown little face flushed under its tan, but she looked gallantly into Johnstone's face. "Why not?" she asked. " Let me take the cigar-box," said Johnstone. "Perhaps it had better be the opera-glasses," returned the girl. On a shaded knoll they rested after a time. The cigar-box with its seductive contents was set to lure some passing bee into its depths. But the bees' droning was a mild, uninterrupting sound, and several bees had their fill while this conversation went on. " And you really invented it yourself? " "Well, no, not exactly. I've improved on an old idea. I think in time I'll get it so it will be practical." " I'm sure you will. And you're really the man who lives in that dear little trolley-car house? Father and I have often wondered who had had the ingenuity to make use of that stranded car. It must be verv delightful to do quite what you want to- do. Now. I can never do quite what I want to do; or, ii I can, it is only lor a very short time," mooe child!" thought Johnstone, "she longs to

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live in town, I suppose. In town where she'd lose all this simplicity, this remarkable this" " Not that I want to live in a trolley-car," laughed the girl. " I should say not," cried Johnstone. " What a wonderful sound laughter is!" he thought. " Like a bird's song, like rippling water, like" "What do you want to do?" he asked earnestly. She looked, it may be a trifle anxiously, at Johnstone. His tone was unexpected. "There goes a bee!" and Johnstone found himseif on his feet and watching anxiously for two big brown eyes that were hidden from him behind opera-glasses. " Don't say you want to go to town, where you would be spoiled," he found himself protesting. " I won't say it." sighed the girl, her eyes still hidden. " I'm almost quite contented at the lodge." So she was the lodge-keeper's daughter. " It is a lovely little place," assented Johnstone "warmly. " It is," agreed the girl. " Sometimes I think I ought never to want anything different. The bee went in that direction." She pulled the sunbonnet over her head, and started across the field. Johnstone walked beside her. " Of course, you have your books in winter," said he. " I have my books now," said the soft voice. - " What are they may I ask? " " Cook-books, mostly." 1; Johnstone tried to see her face, but the frill of the

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sunbonnet flapped and blew in the soft breeze, giving only glimpses of an oval cheek, a small nose, and a bit of flying hair. He felt an uneasy stirring of his sympathies. It would be too bad to have this natural, simple child spoiled. On the other hand, to make a cook of her! " It is well for a woman to know how to cook," he said, lamely. The pink sunbonnet flashed around toward him, but he lost the searching glance of suddenly scornful eyes. " Suppose we each take a bee," suggested the soft voice. " No," objected Johnstone, swiftly. " No, I think I really ought to use your bee. You see I'm totally unacquainted with bees, and I'm rather near-sighted, too. Is that one? " pointing to a big devil's darning-needle that, just then, swept by them. "It is not! " "Ah!" sighed Johnstone, "you see " " Yes." said the girl, " I see." Fleecy clouds flecked the sky. Butter?.:?? Tiorered1 .over the tall grasses. In the woods at the edge of the field a hundred birds poured forth a riot of song. It was young summer and youth had met youth. Where was the joy of invention? Where had the pleasures of differential calculus flown to? Where the delights of a trolley-car house and freedom from col-

lars and polished shoes? All crone! Fused and melted into the glorious happiness of walking through Elysian fields, with brown eyes that glanced troni under the pink frill of a sunbonnet. with a wonderful mouth that curved into smiles: with a little slim figure that floated along on white canvas-shod feet that scarcely crushed the crass beneath, them. Many times they stopped, losing1 the trail: for the flight of the bee is not easy to follow. The little brown honey-hcrrers spira'cd upward, paused in air. then shot away diminishing dots against the blue. Into the woods they wandered. Her gaze was upward, among the higher trees and trunks. But Johnstone had no eyes for the bees; lie watched the sweet, upturned face, "and touched her arm gently to guide her when her steps were threatened by the roughness of their untrodden way. Presently they heard a faint humminir. They were at the ba.-e of a grc:.t gnarled trunk, a he.ge tree, a very monarch of the woods. "This is our tree." said the girl: "sec!" She pointed to a bfle, twenty feet above them. Through a hole in the trttnk busy little workers were pa -.-jug in and out. Then she looked at him, and her face sobered. It is an ancestral oak." she said softly. " Yes," he replied, " an ancestral oak. Ten centuries of lineage there, and the bees store their sweets in its emu n." " We mustn't cut it down." " Its on the estate of a pretty important person," remarked Johnstone. " ARE YOU ARE YOU ON YOUR WAY ANYWHERE?" "Is it?" " You must know," he spoke reproachfully, " it's vour own estate." My curst cside. a flash of a startled face " Didn't vou tell me your father was the lodgekeeper?' "Oh!" She looked critically about her. "Yes. of course, we iff on the grounds. We. seem to have co'tie a long way. I think we'd better go back." R-it Johnstone put out a detaining hand. No." he breathed, " no. let us rest here." She looked at him oddly "for a moment. But the touch of fear, if fear it was. vanished swiftly, and she sat down on a clump of mo?s. Johnstone stood above her, leaning against the great tree. There was silence, and yet the air seemed full of voices. Voices insistent, persuading, in the man's ears; pleading, overpowering, in the girl's. A long time they remained so. Then, as if against her will, the gin's eyes lifted slowly and looked into Johnstone's. He broke the silence. He leaned toward her and spoke rapidly, earnestly. " Listen," he said. " You do not know me, and I do not know you. But something strange, something wonderful, has come to us. I feei it, I know it. You you must feel it, too." ccrrsGfr, t?

The girl's eyes dropped for a second, but cam? again bravely to hi;. "What if we do rot know each other by r.amc?" he went on; " I can say to you. I am a teacher of mathematics for my living: an inventor from love of it. I am respectable. Oh. htt'e girl, what does all that matter? You are you and I am I and we have

in " We have met." murmured the girl. " You are the lodge-keeper's daughter, sweet, true, pure as one of Cod's ar.gel-. I know it. Can't I see? Haven't I eyes, oh little girl?" He dropped on one knee beside her and took her unresisting hand in his. " I had heard that such things had happened to others," he whispered. The girl put her hand to her throat, and a sob shook her. " I have never believed in love coming like this till now." he went on. Then a trembling went over her whole body, and her head dro jed, but he beard a faint answering whisper ' Till n vv." lie kissed her hand and laid it gently on her knee. Kvcrything was still except the grave old oak. which ru tied softly. And after a time she lifted her face, and hng they looked into each other's eyes. Then she placed two coid little hands in his. There was a small lodge along the road from the ancestral oak; their oak of betrothal, Johnstone called it. '' That's the little lodge," said the girl, as they neared the place. " I'm going ahead, and get Mrs. Roberts that's the keeper to give us some luncheon." And when they came to the small lodge the girl ran ahead. " I li fix it up with her," she called back. Johnstone, walking slowly up the steps of the little porch, heard the words, " Oh, Miss Alice." and then his little love came out. and walked straight to him. " We will have luncheon here," she said, with an odd note of authority in her voice. Johnstone thought how well it became her, and he seated her in a chair by a green porch U.bie that had a bowl of wild flowers on it. A bee was humming above a yellow daisy. "Where are the opera-glasses?" he asked the girL " Under our oak." said she. " I will send Roberts for them." Then she flushed. " I will ask her to go," she amended. "Isn't it wonderful?" asked Johnstone. He sat on the porch step at her feet. . " I can't think about it just yet." said the girL " I can think of nothing else," said Johnstone. He leaned forward and pressed a fold of her dress to his lips. " Before God," he said in a low tone, " you shall have nothing to regret for this day." 99

The girl's hand reached down to him.

" I know it." she replied with a lovely smile. In a few minutes an old woman came out with m tray. She fairly scowled at Johnstone, and she set the tray down with unnecessary streegth. "She is very deaf," said the 'girL You needn't try to talk to her." The old woman came out after a time, and scowled ever their dishes, to see if t'tere was anything they wanted: but the girl waved her aw;rv. "There's nothing more, is there? she asked Johnstone. And Johnstone, his mind on one thing, said. OI course I must see your father. The girl sat up straight in her chair. " Couldn't we put ft off a little?" ! " No." said Johnstone firmly. I must tell him right away what has happened. " Yes." said she meekly. of course you must. ' But." he went on to encourage her, I have fire thousand a year now. and more before long. And he can surely see how I love you. Looking into his eyes the girl thought, with a throb of joy that was almost pain, that her father or any one who looked must surely see that he loved her. She leaned forward and placed her hands on his shoulder. ' Oh, my dear." she said, and her voice thrilled to bis ear, I will try, I will try to deserve it. Around the corner of the lodge and into their Fden came a tall, burly man. He called out to the girl: Where in the devil have you been. Alice? Lord Selden's over at the lodge raising merry Cain because you didn't meet him. Roberts just telephoned me you were here." "I have decided not to marry Lord Selden, father. ' The deuce you have! The tall, burly man groped for his glasses, settled them on his nose. "What's all this nonsense?" he began. . "Who what why. it's Professor Johnstone!" " It is." said Johnstone. V "Is it?" asked Alice. " I am glad to meet you." said the man eagerly. I'm decidedly interested in that machine of yours. Groton was telling me that you were doing wonders ' with it." , " I have done wonders with it." said Johnstone. I don't know as you can believe me, but I have fallen at the feet of your daughter." " Every one does that," said the man. as if dismissing the subject. " Run along and see Selden now, Alice that's a good child. I want to talk with the professor about those planes. Can you tell me, sir. if the amount of air displaced exceeds the weight" " But I loveyourdanghter -" and Johnstone raised her hand and kissed it. It had its result. " Here, here, sir, that's carrying things too far. She's a young lady. Mr. Johnstone, for all she looks like a little girl. More than that, she's as good as engaged to Lord Selden. whois cooling his heels on the lodge porch down at the big gate. Run along, I tell you, .Mice." But Alice, moving deliberately, raised her bare brown arms and laid them about Johnstone's neck. Then she kissed him softly on the cheek, and looked around over her shoulder at her father. "There!" she said. "Alice!" The glasses fell from her father's startled eyes "Alice, my little girl!" Then she was in her father's arms, and the tears that wet her cheeks wet his also. He sat down in the reed chair, and held her like a baby. " Forgive your stupid old daddy, darling. Tell me don't be afraid of father what has happened? I'll stand up for my girl against everybody you know that even against your mother!" He added this with a sort of groan. So Johnstone told him. And what he told him. added to and supplemented by the little creature in her father's arms, must have been satisfactory; for the father raised his daughter and said, rather ruefully, "WelL I suppose I've got to be the one to break it to Selden. It was mother's fault," said Alice. " She said I'd marry him. never did. He came over here on the chance. You know that, father. Mother told him to come. I'm sure she did. When does she sail for home the fifteenth?" Her father nodded. She slipped from his lap. " The fifteenth! And to-day is the fifteenth. There's no time to cable her." She sank back on her father's knee, and laughed. " A lot can happen in a week, she said. Then she blushed violently. Johnstone was beside her. " Would you want her to marry a lord."' be asked the burly man. " when you must know she'd be happy only with me?" " I wouldn't," said the burly man promptly; "but I'm almost afraid her mother would." "If we were married now, right away her mother couldn't!" Johnstone spoke triumphantly. " That's so," said Alice's father. m , Roberts came out on the porch just then. Alios raised her voice and pointed a finger at her. " You're a meddler," she called. The old woman scowled at Johnstone, - It's all right." said Alice's father. Then the old woman spoke. With an injured afr" she addressed Johnstone. " Mrs. Summersleigh gave me charge of Alice when she went abroad with Miss Alice's sister, the Countess of Danbury." Then Johnstone went white. "You are Summersleigh?" he said to the burly man. There was a silence. The burly man did not deny that he was Summersleigh, for he could not. So he only nodded and leaned back in his chair. " It's a pretty place, Summersleigh," he said finally; "don't you like it?" t But Johnstone ignored the question. Then he said grimly, turning to Alice, "I am not going to let the fact that you are Alice Summersleigh interfere with our happiness. I have five thou stand a year now" " And more soon." put in Alice. " I started on less." commented Alice's father. " But you said you lived at the lodge," objected Johnstone. He did not like to think that Alice had deceived him. " We do." interposed her father. " The house is being put in order." " Ah! " said Johnstone in a satisfied tone. "And I haze got the cook-books haven't ! daddy?" " A whole stack of them : came down yesterday." " They're to sell at the village fair," explained Alice. " Ah! " said Johnstone again. " I shall always tell you the truth, said Alice. " Then tell me " said Johnstone eagerly reaching for her hand,. Mrs. Roberts's face relaxed a little as she took her tray into the house, and Alice's father turned aside with a suspicion of a sob, for Alice had turned right before them both, and. forgetting every one but Johnstone had said quite solemnly: " I do I do love you." ir JUL nn

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