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111 Priced Sedan* |!| nth Sliding Gear ||| ~ ||| Hi easy terms ||| If the mußtuche 1r coming back, why doesn't It come back courageously In stead of a hulr at a time? Alabastine Genuine Alabastine comes only in package with Crou and Circle printed in Red. Demand this beat f costs a little more than. Kalsomine but It's worth more. And it won't rub off when properly applied. Full instructions on every package. Ask your dealer for the Alabastine colorcard or write Miss | , Ruby Brandon, the Ala bastine Company, Grand Rapids, Michigan. Alabastine—a powder in white rand tints. Packed in 5-pound 'packages, ready (or use by mis* lag with cold or warm water. Full rJg directions onevfty package. Ap ply with an ordinary wall brush. Suitable (or all interior surfaces •-plaster, wall board, brick* aaaaent, or canvae. but Oh, the' I difference! | Thetltmost I QUALITY Proof cf the biscuits I is in the baking* There's more than luck in good cook* ing andhere's the I ' secret—a perfect baking powaer.The utmost quality in a 25 ounce can for 25 cents. ■ QOULDSI S PUMPS ASO WATER N 1 ud ; Jvj&y Writ* fcr booklet D SeetSS «i vin*d»taU* of cor siinfifH compfct# Hue of else* K Smrn tficaad mpln ■ Artrvm "■ * wmm a ■ , . ton l« tnrmnd. S The Codda Manufacturing Co. | Km I ~' vi fji' w WORK, WORK! > —*— SYNOPSIS. lntroducing "So Blij" (Dirk DeJong) In hit la fancy. And hi* mother, Sellna DeJong. daughter of Simeon Peak*, gambler and gentleman of fortane. Her Ufa, to young womanhood In Chicago In 1888, has been unconventional, some what seamy, but generally enjoy able. At school her chum Is Julie Hempel, daughter of August Hempel, butcher. Simeon Is killed In a quarrel that Is not his own, and Sellna, nineteen years old and practically destitute, secures a position as teacher at the High Prairie school, In the outskirts of Chicago, living at the home of a truck farmer, Klaas Pool. In Roelf. twelve years old, son of Klaas, Sellna perceives a kin dred spirit, a lover of beauty, like herself. Sellna hears gossip • concerning the affection of the "Widow PaaHenberg," rich and good-looking, for Pervus DeJong, poor truck firmer, who Is Insen sible to the widow's attraction*. For a community "sociable"' Se llna prepares a lunch box, dainty, but not of ample proportions, which Is to be "auctioned," ac cording to custom. The smallness of the box excites derision and Sellna Is heartbroken. Cut the bidding becomes spirited, DeJong Anally securing It for flO, a ridiculously high price. Over their lunch basket, which Sellna and DeJong share together, the school-teacher arranges to In struct the farmer, whose educa tion has been neglected. Propin quity leads to mutual affection. Sellna becomes Mr*. DaJong, a "farmer's wife," with all the hardships unavoidable at that time. Dirk Is born. CHAPTER Vl—Continued Pervus drove Into the Chicago mar ket every other day. During July and August be sometimes did not have his clothes off for a week. Together he and Jan Stecn would load the wagon with the day's garnering. At four he would start on the tedious trip into town. The historic ofd Haymaftet on West Randolph street had become the stand for market gardeners for miles around Chicago. Here they stationed their wagons in preparation for the next day's selling. The early comer got tlie advantageous stand. Therfe was no regular allotment of space, i'ervua tried to reach the Haymarket by nine at night. Often bad roads made a detour necessary and he was late. That usually meant bad business next day. The men, for the most purl, slept on their wagons, curled up on the wagon seat or stretched out on the sacks. Their horses v.ere stabled and fed in near-by sheas, with more actual comfort than the men them selves. One could get a room for twenty-five cents In one of the Ram shackle rooming houses that faced the street. But the rooms were small, stuffy, none too clean; the beds little more comfortable than the wagons. Be sides, twenty-flve cents I You got twen ty-flve cents for half a barrel of toma toes. You got twenty-flve cents for a sack of potatoes. Onions brought seventy-five cents a sack.. Cabbages went a hundred heads for two dollars, and they were five-pound heads. If yon drove home with ten dollars in your pocket it represented a profit of ex actly sera The sum must go above that. No; one did not pay out twenty five cents for tbs mere privilege of sleeping In a bed. Oue June day, a month or more after their marriage, Be(lna drove Into Chi cago with Pervus, an Incongruous little figure In her bride's finery perched on the seat of the vegetable wagon piled high with early garden stuff. It was, in a way. their wedding trip, for Sellna had not been away from the farm since her marriage. Aa they Jopged along now ahe rt vealed miiKnintvnt pinna, that had bean forming In her Imagination during the pa at four weeks. It had not taken her fqur weeka—or days— to dlacover that thla great broad-ebouldered man ahe bad married waa a kindly creature, tender and good, bat lacking any vestige of Initiative, of spirit. She marveled, aoraetli-iea, at the memory of hla boldness In bidding for her loach box that evening of the raffle. It seemed Incredible now. though he fre quently referred to It. wagging hla head doggtahty and grinning the broad ly complacent grin of tlie conquering male. Bnt be waa, after all, a dull fellow, and there waa In Bellna a daah of Are, of wboleaome wickedness. of, adventure, that be never quite under stood. For her flaahea of flam* be had a mingled feeling of uneuslneas and pride. In the mannef of all young bride*. Sellna'started t rarely om to make her husband over He was haLdaone. strong, gentle; slow, conservative, mo roe*. She wjuld make him keen, dar ing, buoyant. Vow. bump ing down the Halated road, ahe sketched a«4ne of her plana In large daaiitng strokes. "I'ervua. we most palm the house In October, before the froat aeta In. and after the summer work la over* Then that west sixteen. Well drain It." -Teh. drain." Parma mattered. "It's day land. Drain aad you have got yet riny. Hard day auO." Setlna had tl»e answer to that "I knew it * on've got to use tile drain- SO BIG By EDNA FERBER (®. DetbMtr, Ftf* * Co.) WKU Sarrfc*. age. And—wait a minute —humus. I know what humus Is. It's decayed vegetables. There's always a pUe by the nlde of the barn; and you've be«s using It on the quick land. All the west sliteen isn't clay. Part of It's muckland. All It needs is draining and manure. With potash, too, and phosphoric acid." . ' Pervus laughed a great hearty laugh that Sellna found surprisingly Infuriat ing. "Well, well, well! School teacher Is a farmer now,' huli? I bet even Widow Paarlenberg don't know as much as my little farmer sbout"—he exploded again—"about this, now, pot ash and—what kind of acid? Tell me, little Llna, from where did you learn all this about truck farming?" "Out of a book," Sellna said, almost snappishly. "I sent to Chicago for it" "A book I A book I" He slapped his knee. U A vegetable farmer oat of a book." "Why not I The man who wrote It knows more about vegetable farming than anybody in all High Prairie. He knows about new ways. You're run ning the farm Just the way your father ran it." "What was good enough for my fa ther Is good enough for me." "It isn't 1" cried The book says clay right for cabbages, peas, and beans It tells you bow. It tells you howl" Bhe was like a frantic little fly darting and pricking him on to accelerate the stolid sluggishness of his slow plodding gait. Pervus stared straight ahead down the road between his horse's ears much as Klaas Pool had done so maddeningly on Sellna's first ride on the Halsted road. "Fine talk. Fine talk." "It lan't talk. It's plans. to plan." "Fine talk. Fine talk." 4 "Oh I" Sellna beat her knee with an Impotent fist. It was the nearest they had ever come to quarreling. It would seem that Pervus had the best of the argu ment, for when two years had passed the west sixteen was still a boggy clay mass, and unprollflc; and the old house stared out shabby and palntlesa, at the dense willows by the roadside. They slept that night In one of the twenty-flve-cent rooming houses. Rath er, Pervus slept The woman lay awake, wept a little, perhaps. But In the morning Pervus might have noted (If he had been a man given to noting) tliat the fine Jaw-Une was set as de terminedly as ever with an angle that spelled Inevitably paint, drainage, hu mus, potash, phosphoric acid, and a horse team. She rose before four with Pervus, glud to be out of the stuffy little room with Its spotted and acaly green wall paper, its rickety bed and chair. They had a cup of coffee and s slice of bread in the eating house on the first floor. Sellna waited while he tended the horse. It was scarcely dawn when the trading began. Sellna, watching It from the wagon seat, thought that this was a ridiculously hsphasard and peril ous method of distributing the food for whose fruition Pervus had tolled with aching back and tired arms. But ahe aaid nothing. She kept, perforce, to the houae that first year, and the second. Parvus de clared that his woman should never work In the fields as did many of the High Prairie wives and daughters. Sellna learned much that first year, and the second, but die said little. She kept the house In order—rough work, and endless—snd she managed, mirac ulously, to keep herself- looking fresh and neat She understood now Maartje Pool's drab garments, harasaed face,,heavily swift feet, never at rest, The Idea of flowers In bowls was aban doned by July. Had it not been for Roelfs faithful tending, the flower beds themselves, planted with such hopes,- would hsve perished for lack of cars. Roelf cam* often to the houae. He found there a tranquillity and peace never known In the Pool place, with its hubbub and clatter. 'ln order to make her hoAe attractive Sellna bad actually rifled her precious little bank hoard—the fonr hundred and ninety seven dollars left her by ber father. She still had one of the clear white diamonds. She kept It aewed la the beta of an old flannel petticoat The can of white paint and the brush actually did materialise. For weeks It was dangerous to sit lean, or tread upon any pain table thing In the DeJong farmhouse without eliciting a cry of warning from Sellna. She would actually have tried ber hand at the outside of the houae with a quart can and a three-Inch brush If Penrus hsdn't Intervened. She hemmed dimity curtains, made slip-covers for the hid eous parlor sofa and the ugliest of the chairs. Subscribed for a magazine called Houae and Garden. Together ahe and Roelf used to pore over this fascinating periodical. If High Prairie bad ever overheard one of theee con versations between the firm woman who would.always be a girt and the farm boy who had never been quite a child. It would have raised palms high la an "Og heden!" of horror. Bat High Prairie nevfr heard, and wouldn't have understood If It had. Sellna waa up dally at four. Dreaa lag was a swift and mechanical cover ts of the body. Breakfast must be '"iRP: % : i i .. ir ., r ready for Pervus and Jan when they came In from the barn. The house to clean, the chickens to tend, sewing, washing, Ironing, cooking. She con trived ways of minimising her steps, of lightening* ber labor. And she saw clearly how the little farm was mis managed through lack of foresight, Imagination, and —she faced It square ly—through stupidity. She was fond of this great, kindly, blundering, stub born boy wbo was her husband. But she saw him with amazing clearness through th& mists of her love. There was something prophetic about tbq way she began to absorb knowledge of the farm work, of vegetable culture, of marketing. Listening, seeing, she learned about soil, planting, weather, selling. , The daily talk of tbe house and fields was of nothing else. About this little ( twenty-five-acre garden patch there'was nothing of the majes ty of tbe lowa, Illinois and Kansas grain farms, with tbelr endless billows of wheat and corn, rye, alfalfa and barley rolling away to the horizon. Everything was done In diminutive here. Sellna sensed that every Inch of soli should have been made to yield to tbe utmost Yet there lay the west sixteen, useless during most of tbe year; reliable never. And there was no money to drain It or enrich It; no ready cash for the purchase of profit able neighboring acreage. She did not know the term intensive farming, but this was what she meant. During that winter she was often hideously lonely. She never got over her hunger for companionship. Here she was, a gregarious and fun-loving creature, bulled in a snow-bound Illi nois prairie farmhouse with a husband wbo looked upon conversation as a convenience, not a pastime. She She Would Take Dirk With Her Inte the Fields, Placing Him on a Heap of Empty Sacks In the Shade. learned much that winter about tbe utter sordidnesa of farm life. Sbe rarely saw the Pools; she rarely saw any one outside her own little house hold. The front room—the parlor— was usually bitterly cold., but soma times she used to slip In there, a shawl over her shoulders, and sit at tbe frosty window to watch for a wagon to go by, or a chance pedestrian up tbe road. She did not pity herself, nor regret her step. She felt physically, pretty well for a child-bearing woman; and Pervus was tender, kindly, sym pathetic, If not always understanding. Sbe straggled gallantly to keep up tbe small decencies of existence. Sbe loved the glow of Perms' eyes when sbe appeared, with a bright ribbon, a fresh collar, though he Bald nothing and perhaps she only fancied that be noticed. One* or twice she had walked the mile and a half of slippery Toed to the Pools', and bad sst in Maartje's warm bright bustling kitchen for comfort Where was ad venture now? And where was life? And where the love of chance bred In her by her father? The two years following Dirk's birth were slways somewhat vague la Se nna's mind, like a dream In which hor ror and happiness are Inextricably blended. The boy was a plump, hardy Infant He had his father's blond ex terior. his mother's brunette vivacity. At two he was a child of average Intel ligence, sturdy physique and marked good humor. He almost never cried. He waa Just twelve months old when Sellna's second child—a girl was born dead. Twice during thoae two yean Parvus fell victim to his so called rheumatic attacks following tbe early spring planting when be was often forced to stand In water up to hla ankles. He suffered Intensely and during his illness was aa tractable as a goaded bull. Sellna understood why half of High Prairie waa beat aad twisted with rheumatism—why tbe little Date* Reformed church en San day mornings rssseiblsd a shrine to which sick and crippled pilgr'iae creep. Sellna had been marri*' s'msst three years when there came to bar • letter from Julie Hem pel, no# married. The letter bad been sent to the Klsss Pool tarn) and Jozlna bad brought It to bar. Seated on her kitchen steps Is her calico dress she read It "Darling Sellna:— "I thought It was so queer that you didn't answer my letter, and ,now I know that yon must have thought It queer that I did not answer yours. I found your letter to me, written long ago, when I was going over mother's things last week. It was the letter you must have written when I was in Kansas City. Mother bad never given It to me. "Mamma died three weeks ago. Last week I was going over her things—a trying tastf, you may imagine—and there were your two letters addressed td me. She had never destroyed' them. Poor mamma ... • "Well, dear Sellna, I suppose you don't even know that I am married. I married Michael Arnold of Kansas City. The Arnolds were in the pack ing business there, you know. Michael has gone Into business with pa bere In Chicago and I suppose you have heard of pa's success. Just all of a sudden be began to make a great deal of money after he left the butcher busi ness and went into tbe yards—the stock yards, you know. Poor mamma was so happy these 4ast few years, and had everything tbat was beautiful. I have two children —Eugene and Pauline. "I am getting to be quite a society person. You would laugh to see me. I am on tbe ladles' entertainment com mittee of the World's fair. We are supposed to entertain all the visiting big bugs—that is the lady bugs. There I How Is that for a Joke? "I suppose you know about the In fanta Eulalle. Of Spain, you know. And what she did about the Potter Palmer balL . . tfellna, the letter in her work stained hand, looked up and across the fields and away to where the prairie met the sky and closed in on her; her world. The Infanta Eulalle of Spain. . . . She went back to the letter. "Well, she came to Chicago for the fair and Mrs. Potter Palmer waa to give a huge reception and ball for her. Mrs. P. is head of the whole commit tee, you know, and I must say ahe looks queenly with her white hair so beautifully dressed and her diamond dog-collar and her black velvet and aIL Well, at the very last minute the In fanta refused to attend the ball be cause she had Just heard that Mrs. P. was an lnnkeeper'a wife. Imagine I The Palmer house, of course." Sellna, holding the letter in her hand, imagined. - It was in the third yea* of Sellna's marriage that she first went Into the fields to work. Pervus had protested miserably, though the vegetables were spoiling In the ground. Sellna had regained health and vigor after two yeara of wretchedness. She felt steel-strong and even hopeful again, sure sign of physical well-being. Long before now she had realized that this time must inevitably come. So she answered briskly, "Nonsense, Per vus. Working in the field's no harder than wishing or Ironing or scrubbing or standing over a hot stove In August Women's work I Housework's the hardest work In the world. That's why men won't do it" - ghe would often take the boy Dirk with her Into the fields, placing hla on a heap of empty sacks hi the shade. He Invariably crawled off this lowly throne to dig and burrow in tbe warm, black dirt. He even made as though to help bis mother, pulling at the root ed things with futile fingers, and sit ting back wltb a bump when a shallow root did unexpectedly ylefcl to his tup Sine- "Loolc! He's a farmer already," Par vus would say. 80 two years went—three years— four.. In the fourth year of SeUna's marriage she suffered the loss of her one woman friend in High Prairie. Maartje Pool died in childbirth, as was so often the case in this region where a Gamplsh midwife acted as obstretrl dan. Tbe child, too, had not lived. Death had not been kind to Maartje Pool. It had brought neither peace nor youth to her face, as It often does. Seiina, looking down at the strangely still figure that had been so active, so bustling, realised that for the first time in the years she had known her she was seeing Maartje Pool at ffest It seemed Incredible that she could lie there, the infant in her arms, while the house was filled with people and there were chairs to be handed, space to be cleared, food to be cooked and served. Sitting there with the othsr High Prairie women Sellna had a hideous feeling that Maartje would suddenly rise up and take things In charge; rub and scratch with capable fingers the spatters of dried mud on Klaas Pool's .black trousers (be had been In The yard to see to the horses); quiet the loud walling of Geertje and Jodna; pass her gnarled hand over Boelfs wide-staring eyes, wipe tbe film of dust from tbe parlor table that had never known a soeck during ber regime. Will Sdlna's energy and Ideas transferm the farm? Or will she succumb to environment! (TO COMTIKOBD.) Kittenish Those firemen must be a frivolous ■st," commented Mrs. Dumpling. "Whyr asked her overworked halt "1 read In the paper that after the blase was under control, firemen played all night oa the ruins. Why didn't they go to bed like psoatbta folks instead ot reaiping around Uks caur BAYER » J * WASPIRIM SAY "BAYER ASPIRIN" and INSIST! Proved safe by millions and prescribed by physicians for Headache Neuralgia Colds Lumbago ; p a i n Toothache Neuritis Rheumatism -fir\ Accept .only "Bayer" package which contains proven directions. m Handy "Bayer" boxes of 12 tablets V y / Also bottles of 24 and 100—Druggists. Aspirin U th. trade nark of Bv.r Manofacture of Mooo.cetlcieiKister of SallcrlleacM FOR OVER ZOO YEARS haarlem oil has been a world wide remedy for kidney, liver and bladder disorders, rheumatism, lumbago and uric acid conditions. W HAARLEM OIL laJUi'HatT* correct internal troubles, stimulate vital organs. Three sixes. 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The Alamance Gleaner (Graham, N.C.)
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April 30, 1925, edition 1
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