Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 21, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 March 1900 — The Swamp Secret [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The Swamp Secret

CHAPTER lll.—(Cintinued.) “Thank you very much for your trouble in the matter,” said Mr. Wayne, with a smile that set foolish Nannie’s heart to fluttering. ”1 think I’ll go there to-night, If you’ll be kind enough to take charge of me and. show me the way. It s on your road home, I think “Yes. we go right by there,” said Nannie, with a sidelong glance at Dick. Then the singing teacher said something to Nannie, which Dick could not hear, because it was said in a rather tow tone. But he saw the girl’s face color -up like a rose, in pleased surprise, saw her look toward him again, with a little air of hesitation, and then saw M ayne take it upon himself to decide the matter for her by drawing her hand within his arm. with an air of ownership and authority which stung him to. fierce anger. They stood thus for a minute or two, ■while Wayne answered some questions, then they made their way to the door and went out, laughing and chatting, and Nannie, as she passed Dick, seemed perfectly unconscious pt his existence. „ “There, you’ve got the slip this time, ’ laughed Lucindy Smith— Cindy, for short. “1 wouldn’t let him cut me out in that way ’thout showin’ ’em that 1 could do jest as well summer’s else. I’d be as independent as she is.” with an insinuating smile, which, however, made but little impression on Dick. "I snum. but that was done purty slick, -or I ain’t no jedge o’ horned cattle, , laughed Bill Green, close to Dick’s elbow. Bill was an old admirer of Nannie’s, and had a grudge against Dick for “cutting him out” there. In consequence of this bad feeling on his part, which had settled into a bitter enmity of the dogged kind, which is always ready to avail itself Of any opportunity for revenge, he enjoyed Dick’s evident discomfiture with keen relish. Dick was too busy with his own hard thoughts to pay any attention to the remark, and started off home through the woods, not being in the mood for com■pany. When he came in sight of Mr. Boone s an hour later, he saw Nannie and the singing teacher standing at the gate together. Rather than pass them he made a detour around the house, in the shadow of ■the woods, and reached his room by ■climbing over the kitchen roof. Just as he was ready to step into bed he looked out and saw that they were still standing ■ there. “I do think, Nannie Boone, yiat you ought to be ashamed of yourself,” he said, with one wrathful glance at the girl who had jilted him. “If you think I’m the kind of a fellow that can be ■twisted ’round your finger, you’re greatly mistaken, as you'll find out. I don’t play second fiddle. If you prefer the • winging teacher to me, it’s all right—that’s your privilege—but you can’t throw me by one day and pick me up the next.” He lay awake a long time that night, thinking over Nannie’s treatmerft of him. He Absented it bitterly, because he cared so much for the girl, and had been sure that his regard for her was returned. "That fellow’s got to keep out of my path,” he said, the last thing before he went to sleep. “If he thinks he’s going to boss me ’round he’ll find that he’s got hold of the wrong man. If he isn’t a rascal 1 miss my guess, and I’ll prove him to be one—yet.”

i CHAPTER IV. * Nannie and Dick had but little to say to each other next morning. He went off to work with a scowl on his face, for I4ie more he thought of Nannie’s conduct the worse he thought she had used him. “If 1 had done anything to give her "the least excuse for such treatment,” he said to himself, “I wouldn’t blame her at all. Of course, she had a perfect right to go with him or any one else, it she hadn't given me to understand as plainly as it’s necessary to understand anything that she'd marry me some day. She knows what my attentions have meant, and she knows, too that I consider her the same as engaged to me. Under the •circumstances she had no right to treat me in this way, and I have a right to object to it.” About eight o’clock he saw Nannie and Mr. Wayne going down the road toward the school house together. Wayne was carrying her dinner basket and evidently making himself agreeable, for Nannie was laughing. The sound of her laughter made Dick look positively ferocious. “Never mind!” cried Dick, in a sepulchral tone, with a tragic flourish of his clinched fist in the direction of the two who seemed to be so absorbed in their conversation that they had forgotten the existence' of any one else. “I’ll get even with you yet. sir, see if I don’t!” Then he added: “And with you, too, Nannie Boone!” Thereupon he made up his mind, as a preparatory step toward "getting even” with her. to straightway forget all the tender thoughts he had had concerning her, aud let her go her way and he would go his. He began by telling himself that he did not care half as much for her as he thought he did. But -he couldn't convince himself of that, for he knew well enough that he had never cared so much for auy other girl, and the probabilities were that be would never care so much for any he might meet in time to come. In spite of nil his efforts to the contrary, he grew miserable, and Nannie could not help seeing it as the days went by. Dick did not take the interest in the Kinging school that he thought he was going to when it was organized. But he did urft feel like staying away and letting Wayne and the boys and girls laugh at him, so he attended quite regularly, and once or twice, just to let Nannie see that he didn’t take her conduct so very deeply to heart, he went home with Rhoda Stevens, who had been the only rival Nannie had ever bad in Dick’s regards. Rhoda was a pretty girl, and had It not been for Nannie she would have been the belle of Brownsville. ' At first Dick blamed the singing teach-er-most for the trouble between him and Nannie; but when he came to think it •ver, he felt that Nannie was most to blame. It was quite natural for any ;oung man to do as Wayne had done. If Nannie had not encouraged him, he would doubtless have kept in what Dick

considered his proper place. The singing teacher made long visits at Mr. Boone’s, and he and Nannie sang together until Dick was obliged to shut his .teeth hard together to keep back-bitter words that struggled up for utterance. He wished he could shut the sound of their voices out of his ears. The truth was not get over his.passion for Nannie as easily as he had hoped he might. He loved her too well for that. On the second Saturday of his stay in Brownsville, Mr. Wayne borrowed one of Mr. Boone’s horses and “went below” on business. What that particular business was he did not take the trouble to explain. That evening Mr. and Mrs. Boone went over to Mr. Porter's, and Dick and Nannie were left alone together. Dick's heart had been growing tender toward Nannie from the moment he had seen Wayne riding away. Sometimes he had thought that maybe she was flirting with the singing teacher to try him. It might be that she blamed him for not having spoken out about his intentions in plain terms, and took this way of bringing him to a definite declaration of what he meant. It was quite possible, after all, that' she did not care two straws for Wayne. Dick took courage at the thought, and he resolved to improve the present opportunity to conic to some understanding on -the subject. Nannie' had the week’s, ironing to do that evening, and Dick found her at work in the kitchen when he came in from the barn. He sat down and watched her as she shook out the garments piled up in the clothes basket and sprinkled them. She looked toward him once, and caught his eyes, and. a quick flush ..overspread her cheeks; then she turned away and began

singing one of the new tunes they had learned at singing school. “Nannie,” blurted out Dick, all at once, “you don’t seem like the you were a month ago.” “I want to know if you think so!” exclaimed Nannie, with a defiant toss of her head. She had felt what was coming, and dreaded it’, for she knew that she had been to blame. “I wasn’t aware that I had ‘met with a change,’ as Deacon Snyder says.” “You know what I mean, well enough,” said Dick, hitching his chair nearer the table where Nannie was standing. “Since —since that Wayne came you seem to have forgotten that there is such a fellow as Dick Brayton. Why, Nannie, you hardly speak to me, nowadays.”

“Just hear that!” cried Nannie to some invisible person. • “Hardly to you, indeed! I’m sure I’ve spoken* to you as often as you have spoken to me.” “Well, yes, that may be,” admitted Dick. “But, you see, Nannie, I didn’t feel like talking, when I didn’t know as you wanted me to talk to you. It seemed as if you’d rather listen to Mr. Wayne.” “It seems that you’re kind of jealous of Mr. Wayne,” said Nannie, folding the towel she was ironing with slow and deliberate precision, as if all her energies were concentrated on doing that one thing. “Well, that may be,” said Dick. “Granting that it is so, Nannie, haven’t I a right to be?” “Not that I know of,” answered Nannie. “Before he came I supposed it was understood between us that we were to be married, some time,” said Dick. “Persons haven’t any right to take it for granted that anything is understood,” responded Nannie tartly. “You never asked me to marry you, that I remember of.” "Perhaps I was wrong in not saying in so many words what it seemed to me you understood well enough,” answered Dick. “It seemed hardly necessary. However, it isn't too late to ask the question now, is it, Nannie?” "I don’t know what you’re hinting at,” said Nannie, beginning to hum a tune, and concentrating her attention on the ruffles of a pillow case. “Just this,” said Dick. “That I love you, and want you to marry me. Will you ?” “Why. Dick, how abrupt you are!” exclaimed Nannie. “I don’t want to marry you—or any one else —yet awhile.” “Don’t keep a fellow waiting to know the worst or the best,” said Dick, impatiently. “Is it yes or no, Nannie?” “I—l like you pretty well,” answered Nannie, “but I don’t want to settle down to washing dishes and sweeping floors and cooking thitfgs to eat three times a day, and nothing else from morning till night, fqr a long time yet. I am going to coax father to let me go to school this winter. I don't much think I’d like housekeeping, anyway; and if it’s a housekeeper you’re wanting, I think you can find one that will answer the purpose a good, deal better than I would. There's Lucindy Smith ” “Hang Lucindy Srnithl” exclaimed Dick, beginniug to lose his temper. “Yes or na Nkflnler*

“No; then,” answered Nannie, her temper rising in opposition to Dick’s. “That’s the way to talk,” cried Dick. “Say what you mean, square out. and don’t waste words beating about the bush, even if it does hurt a fellojw a little to hear if.” He got up, took his hat down from its peg by the door and went out. “I—l hope you don't blame me, Dick,” said Nannie, following him to the door, feeling as if*she would like to cry, and, at the same time, partly angry. “Yes, I do,” answered Dick. “I have reason to, too, and you know it as well as I do. But' we won’t talk about it. It’s over and done with.” Then he turned and walked down the path, and it was late at night before he came back and went to bed. “What queer things men are!” Nannie said to herself, as she cried herself to sleep. “I know I didn't do just right; but he needn’t' have been so jealous, and he needn't have been so foolish as to* think a girl means everything she says.”

CHAPTER V. A week went by. At the end of that time Nannie had come to the conclusion, from Dick’s actions, that he considered everything at an end between them, as he had said. He spoke to her pleasantly enough, when he spoke at all. He did pot seem to try to avoid her, but there .was a. sense .of. distance between them which made her feel that he was more like a stranger than the Dick Brayton she had known. That Dick was gone. This one was like him, and reminded her pf him in many ways, but she missed the Dick of two weeks ago. Considering her unqualified refusal of his heart and hand, it was rather singular that she should be indignant at him for not seeming to grieve over her rejection more. She felt that he ought to show great disappointment and become despondent; and because he did not, she felt personally aggrieved. He had altogether too good an appettie for a rejected lover, and he didn't seem inclihecTTf withdraw from society, as it seemed to her he ought to under the circumstances. She began to think that he hadn’t cared as much for her- as she had thought he did, and felt offended because of it. He

seemed to take a real pleasure in talking with Rhoda Stevens, at singing school, and he went home with her twice a week. Why this should have worried Nannie, since she had refused to receive his attentions, I cannot explain; but it did. She really felt as if she hated Rhoda and never wanted to speak to her again. “It looks as if both on ’em was a-play-in’ at the same game,” she heard Mrs. Corbett’ say to Mrs. Smith one night at singing school, "an’ I kinder surmise Diok's got the start of her. ’Tain’t anyways likely as Mr. Wayne’ll marry her, an’ ’twouldn’t be at all s’prisin’ if Dick did marry Rhody, fer he’s alius had a kind o’ likin’ fer her. Wall, if Nance loses him, she’ll hev nobody to blame but' herself, fer Dick ’u’d hev stuck by her if she hadn’t played off on him, to begin with.” On Sunday evening Uncle Josiah Witkins came in to spend an hour or two at Mr. Boone's hospitable hearth. Uncle Josi was everybody’s relative. You will always find these uncles and aunts in all country places. He was one of those men who always know what is going on from one end of the neighborhood to the other, and it was his particular delight to keep everybody well posted as to what was taking place. He was to Brownsville what the daily mail is to us of today, and as everybody liked the old man, he was always sure of a welcome wherever he went.

“Try some o’ this terbacker,” saifi Mr. Boone, taking down a big brown paper parcel from a shelf over the cellar door. “Got it from down below this week. It’s better’n that Jones sells. It’s stronger and more satisfyin’,” Uncle Josi produced a corncob pipe and filled it leisurely. He was never in a hurry about anything when he had something to tell. When he had filled the pipe he raked a coal out of the ashes and deposited it on the tobacco. After a few vigorous “draws,” the tobacco ignited, and as a blue cloud of pungent smoke curled about his head, he leaned well back in his chair and prepared to take his ease and retail his stock of news. “I heerd from my son Philander last week," he said by and by, after all the neighborhood happenings had been discussed. “My son Philander,” he explained to Mr. Wayne, who had also “dropped in” to spend the evening, “he lives at Catfish Corners, twenty-five miles off, I reckon, an' mebbe more. Do you know jest how fur 'tis, Solomon?” “No, I don’t, jest,” answered Mr. Boone; “Vut I sh'd reckon 'twas as much as twenty-five miles, if not furder. It’s a right smart ways, anyhow. Leastwise It seemed so to me las’ spring when I druv home from there through the mud jest as 'twas breakin’ up." “Wall, ’tain’t less’n twenty-five, anyway,” said Uncle Josi, looking at the fire, as if he wished’ it would tell him the exact distance. “But, as I was sayin’, I heerd from Philander, an’ he writ that they’d lost every hoss as was wuth anything in the whole neighborhood.” “You don’t say so!" exclaimed Mr. Boone, greatly interested at once. "Hoss distemper or glanders?” * “Wussn't that,” answered Uncle Josi, mysteriously. "Wuss’n that, Solomon.” “Es there’s anything wuss’n hoss distemper I'd like to know what ’tis,” said Mr. Boone.

“Hoss thieves ailed ’em,” announced Uncle Jpsi, vith a very impressive nod of his head and speaking slowly, that they might fully understand the magnitude of his information. “Es boss thieves ain’t wuss’n hoss distemper, I allow I don’t know what is.”— “‘Hoss thieves’’” Mr. Boone repeated the words, as if he could hardly credit the statement, and as if there was an ominous foreboding of danger to Brownsville in it. In those days nothing could excite a frontier settlement like the report of depredations by horse thieves. “Why, I hain’t' heerd anything o’ hoss stealin' fer a long time—not since the fust year I come here.” “No, I know we hain’t heerd on ’em in this part o’ the kentry,” answered Uncle Josi. “Fust they was over in the east part o’ the State, and then in the southeast, an’ so on round. It's my opinion that all the bosses that’s been stole’ have ben picked up by the same gang that’s kep’ a-movin’ 'round the kentry from one-place to another when it got too hot fer.’em, an’ now they’ve got to the place where my son Philander lives. They’ll be here fust thing ye know.” “I’d hate awfully to lose Doll an’ Nell,” said Mr. Boone, as he refilled his pipe, thoughtfully. “I would so.” _ Nell and Doll were probably worth more than any other four horses in Brownsville. (To be continued.) Copyright;

NANNIE SEEMED PERFECTLY UNCONSCIOUS OF DICK'S PRESENCE.