North Carolina Newspapers

By ROBERT STEAD . Y\ . , \ ?>. Author of "The Cow Puncher" ??The HomesteideM** ? s ? WNU Service - Copyright by Robert St?*d ?UU "BUT ON THESE PRAIRIES? W "Tell me, Jean," 1 jrressed at length, "why cant we go back; why can't we start Kover again?like that f'' "We have always been good friends," she murmured. ; "Good friends?yes. Must it stop at thatf" "And neighbors," she continued. \"We have always been good neighbors. Perhaps that ts the trouble." j ' "How?the trouble r V j ? f, o "Well, it's like this," she said, and again the toe began to gyrate in the snow. "We've known each other so well, and so long, there isn't anything?much?left to know, is there? Could you stand the boredom of a person who has no new thoughts, no strange ideas, no whims?nothing that you haven't already seek'and known a hun dred timesf" "There never,could be boredom with you, dear. Just to have you with 'me, to feast on you, to know you were mine, would be enough for me." ... "For about a week. You'd soon tire of a feast with no flavor to it. I would, at any rate. . . . Oh, I see it working out already. I don't want to gossip, and Jack and Marjorie have been everything they could to me, but already I can see them settling down to the routine?the deadly routine. Bad enough anywhere, but on these prairies, with their isolation, their immensity?unbearable. I couldn't stand it." ? ( Frank Hall and Jean Lane, hero and heroine of this fine story of homesteading on the Manitoba prairies, are the two persons talking. It's a case of love since childhood In Ontario. But now the lovers seem to have come to an unfordable stream In Manitoba. You see, the girl thinks she knows the young man too Completely to be happy with him? at least under the conditions of homesteaders' life on these great prairlesr The romance of Frank and Jean begins early. Lured by his four year-old playmate, Jean, Frank, aged six, ventures on the forbidden wall of a dam. He falls into the water, and Is saved from possible death by clinging ,to Jean's outstretched arms. Next day he has a vision of ro mance when Jean informs him that because of their adventure of the day before he is in duty bound to marry her.< He agrees, the bnly,. proviso being that they are to wait until they are "grownups." With Jean's brother John, also aged six, Frank begins school. Two years later they are joined by Jean and Frank's sister Marjorie. A little later Jean confides to Frank, in verse, her hope of some day becoming "Mrs. Hall." He accepts the "proposal." Frank is fourteen when his mother dies. He takes a job in the mill where his father works. The boys are eighteen when John's father Is killed in an accident. Two years later Frank's father and John's mother are marrleij. Dissatisfied with conditions, and ambitious, the two boys make plans to go to Manitoba and "homestead," the girls agreeing to go with them: Evidently the study of life among the homesteaders of Manitoba is at first hand. So, in addition to the love story, the story has! a sociological and historical value. The story of the marriage of John and Marjorie on Christmas day, the gathering of the neighbors and the presentation of their wedding gifts Is an illuminating glimpse of the democracy of the frontier. " \ Robert Stead, the author, was born on a farm In Manitoba. He has been a newspaper editor and publisher and Is now an official of the imml-| gration and colonization department of the Canadian government. So he knows whereof he writes. CHAPTER I . , *\ -1 f> My earliest recollection links back to a gray stone house by a road en tering a little Ontario town. Across the road was a mill pond, and across the mill pond was a mill; an old-fash ioned woolen mill which was the oc casion and support of the little town. Beside the mill was a water wheel; not a modern turbine, but a wooden wheel which, on sunshiny days, sprayed a mist of jewels into the river be neath with the prodigality of a fairy prince, ?* The mill pond was held In check by a stone dam which crossed from the r.road nfmost In front of our door to a point on the mill Itself. The stone crest of this dam rose about two feet above the level of the water In the mil! pond, and was about ,two feet wide. Along this crest my father walked on his way to and from the mill, but I had strict orders not to attempt the feat, with the promise that I would be thrashed "within an Inch of my life" If I did. And now I must Introduce Jean 1 Lane, daughter of our nearest neigh bor, Mr. Peter Lane. Jean is to travel with 11s through most of the chapters of this somewhat intimate account, and you may as well meet her at four, bare-footed and golden-haired and blue-eyed, with a wisp of white cotton dress and a gleam of white teeth set between lips of rose-leaf. Demurely down the roatl she came to where T lay sprawled on the river bank contemplating the leisurely pre cision of the water wheel beyond. When she reached me she paused, sat down, and hurled her feet In the soft and of the bank. .] "I want to go to the mill," she said. <vhen her little toes were well out of ?lght. ) "But you can'* go to the mill," I said, with the mature 'authority of i\x. "You'd fall In." "I wouldn't, neither,"?she glanced at me elflshly from under her yellow locks?"uot If you helped me." , It was a difficult -situation. Here was I, a young man of six, honored by a commission of great responsi bility from a young woman of four. My native gallantry, as well as a pleasant feeling of competence, urged that I Immediately lead her across that two foot fetrlp of masonry. But the parental veto, and the promise of Ving thrashed within an Inch of my ilfe, sorely, and, as It seemed to me, unfairly, curbed ray chivalry. "I'd like to tak? you over, Jean." I conceded, "but my father won't let ?e." "Did you' father say you mustn't take me over?" With almost uncanny Intuition she thrust nt the vulnerable epot in l!ie armor of my good be havior. 'No; l.e didn't se.y anything about I ou."-' j j "Then you can take tne?" I dug :ny toes into h<? s nd l?es;d.-? but did not answer. /> nU big bruvver Toiu was Uciv he'd take me over, quick," she con tinued, with a quivering lip. John Lane was six, like me, and no' bigger. The allusion to him as her big brother, who would take her over quick, and tne quivering lip, were too nrii"!y 1 scrambled to my feet. "Come," I said, with nnasculine recklessness, starting for the dam, and she followed joyously. -V t > ,, We are about half way over when something happened?I never knew what?but I plumped into deep water like a stone thrown from the shore. I took a great mouthful and came up spluttering, choking, frantic. The slippery wall gave no grip for my hands, and in a moment I must have gone down again, hut Jean's head came out over the ledge and her lit t tie arms were reached down to mine. I grasped them and hung on?hung in water to my neck, while Jean and I both shouted lustily. Help came quickly in the person of my father, who had seen the accident j from one of the upper windows of the mill, and had come rushing out at a pace which had quite upset the operatives on his route. I was dragged up on the dam in a moment, and I can remember Jean standing beside my father, crying a little, and saying. "Please don' scold him, Mr. Hall. I made him do it." I expected my father to scold her, but he took her up in his arms and held her to his breast. >. "You're a brave little girl, Jean;, you're a wonderful little girl," I heard him say, and he kissed her on the face, which he hardly ever did to me. Then homeward he led me, wet and miserable, and speculating silently on what It may mean to be thrashed with in an Inch of one's life. But it proved to be a day of sur prises. I was not thrashed within an inch of my life, nor at nil; I was undressed, and rubbed with a warm towel, and put in bed, and given a large ? tumblerful of hot choke-cherry wine, because it was still early In the season and the water was cold. And my little sister Marjorle enrae and looked at me with large, dark, comprehending eyes, and said, *1 know why you didn't get thrashed." "Why didn't I get thrashed?" I ventured. v-, "Because yon were so awful wicked. When you're awful bad you don't get thrashed; Its only when you're a lit tle bad." she explained. ... I had to stay In bed for the re mainder of the day, which I think was more a punishment than a precaution, so I had opportunity to think on Marjorle's philosophy. It was evident that she was right; I had the proof in my own experience; I had been very wicked, nnd had escapcd punish ment. My consciousness of evil-do ing, however, rested lightly upon me. I had escaped the strap which hung behind the kitchen door, and which was a much more Immediate menace than any possible torments of the after world. I spent the remaining hoard of the day in imagining tli.ua tions Jn which I would save Jean from all kinds of disasters. Next morning {ound me none the worse for my experience; indeed my dip over the dam already seemed a more or less vague recollection. After breakfast I made a journey to . the hig pine which grew at the very end of our little farm?a surviving mon arch of the forest that in some way had escaped the locust cloud of ax men which had swarmed through the country twenty years before. Perhaps it was as I lay under the great pine on that sunny summer morning and watched the filmy clouds float gently overhead that I caught my first glimpse, shyly, wonderingly through the golden gates of romance. It was a vision of Jean; a vision which has remained with me through the years, growing, thrilling in my mo ments of happiness, fading in my hours, of darkness, but at no time quite obscure. Perhaps it was my first glimpse of that vision which brought me on that morning to my feet where the great pine's swaying lace work of sun and shadow patterned the green grass and set my heart lilt- J ing with the Joy of being alive. ' I was about to shape my Hps for a whistle when I became conscious of a presence, It Was Jean, her golden locks held together by a midget sun bonnet; save for some vagrant curls which nestled against the peach-pink bloom of her cheeks; her chubby bare feet seeking cover in the grass. "I saw you going to the big tree," she explained, "so I corned too." ' "Uh-huh,'' I commented cautiously, being gripped with a sudden sense that this young woman had led me into difficulties only a day ago. Men cannot be too careful. She sidled toward me. "Do you know what you haVe to do for yesterday?" she queried. "No," I said, with some misgiving, thinking that possibly my behavior had been reported to the Lanes to my dis advantage. "Gwandma says when a young la-dy saves a young gen-tle-man, he-has-to mawwy-her," she said, speaking very slowly at first, but finishing her sentence with a little run. "So you have to mawwy me." She was beside me now, and her face was radiunt with the excitement of her secret. . "Rut I can't marry you! Only grownups do that!" I protested. "Won't we be gwownups some day?" "I guess so," I admitted. And then with a sudden burst of resolution I added, "Am) then I'll marry you." She held her face up tri me nnd I leaned over and kissed it shyly. Then, hand in hand, we rettaeed our way dowp the cowpath, along the rows of sprouting corn, by the stables and past our house. Jean led me to her own home, which was next to ours, down the road. "You have to ask mamma," she said, as our little f figures dropped their shadows across Mrs. Lane's kitchen floor. This was more than I had bargained for. I was beginning to discover that Miss Jean was a young woman of ac tion as well as decision. But I was game. "Mrs. Lane," J said, bracing my legs for the' ordeal, "I-want-to-marry Jean." Jean's mother looked at1 me with a smile that broadened until It broke into open laughter. "I am afraid yon are very preco cious children," she remarked. I didn't know what that meant, but she ?ave us eoch a doughnut, and we went away happy, Jean twirling hers on her finger for a wedding ring. ,: CHAPTER II . / ? -*? * - That same stirrer I began going to school. Perhaps I should say that John Lane and I began going to school, as it was something of a joint ad venture. We talked of It together for weeks before the great event. At that time my objective in life, in so far as I had one, was to be a locomotive engineer, but John had elected to be the owner of a woolen mill?blandly overlooking the little question of capital?and we discussed our school training Jn the light of these ambi tions. On the eventful morning I remem ber my father coming Into the loft and leaning over my bed, where I feigned sleep. "Puir wee mannie," I heard him say, dropping Into the Scotch tongue which he reserved for moments of emotion, "It's a long road he's starting On. hnd a hard one, too, or he'll no be like the rest o' us.' My mother scoured me well and dressed me In a. clean new suit and took my cheeks between her hands and kissed me, and told me to work hard and grow np a good man like my father. At the gate I met John, and together we started down the turnpike of life. I spent the day becoming accus tomed to my new environment, and marveling over a certain bald spot on the teacher's head which shone re splendent when the light struck It a certain way, and wondering what pos sible advantage it .could be to a lo couiotive engineer to know that A had two slanting legs tied together in the middle., Two years later Marjorle and Jean started going to school, and we were proud boys indeed as we led them up the aisle to the master's ?esk. In those days, when large families were still considered proper, two chil dren were a comparatively small Im pediment; indeed, It was commonly said among the townspeople that the smallness of my father's family had made it possible for him to pay for and clear his farm. At any rate my mother was a person of leisure by comparison with neighbor women who were trying to clothe, clean, and dis cipline ten or twelve children apiece. The Lanes were in the same happy clrcumstaifces as ourselves, and be ing also our nearest neighbors, a con siderable friendship had sprung up be tween the two families. This developed as we children grew older and had mutual Interests In studies and sports. Tack?he was Jack now?and Jean often came over to our house on a winter's evening, bringing their school Jean's Head Came Out Over the Ledge and Her. Little Arms Were Reached Down to Mine. books, and the four of us sat about our big kitchen table poring over our studies or throwing or intercepting furtive glances between Jack and Marjorie, and, I may confess, between Jean and Frank. Jean was fair, with large blue eyes and clear pink cheeks and lips that always made me think of roses. They seemed always as delicate and tremulous as a rose leaf after rain. At eight o'clock we would' close our books, and mother would sayR< "Marjorie, you may bring up a basin of apples," or perhaps It would be^a dozen ears of roasting coi.i, and we would sit about the fireplace, mnnch Ing In great happiness. ; Then we would have a game of blind man's bufT, In which I had a way of catch ing Jean, or button, button, who's got the button? or hlde-the-handkerchlefc. And at nine Jack and Jean would ,leave, for home, and we would go with them to their gate, and I would help Jean where the drifts were deep. And Marjorie and I would walk back arm In arm, and she would talk qn unnecessary lot about Jack. | Jean's first poem was written about this time. She developed it one night while ostensibly busy at her studies, and slipped It Into my hand when we parted in front of her house. I hurrjed home, but niy mother and Slarjorle sat so close to the lamp that I had no opportunity to read It until I went upstairs to bed. Then I smoothed the crumpled little sheet and read? \ . .V When I am old ' naiUU? And very tall . I hope my name Will be Mrs. Hall. I lay awake for hours that night, joyously piecing together bits of rhyme, but I was no versifier, and had to be content with prose. I put it in very matter-of-fact form on my slate, which I managed next day to leave on Jean's desk: "Your proposal Is accepted.?F. H." When I was twelve Granny Lane died, and after that Mr. and Mrs. Lane often came over, too. As we worked at our lessons we would hear the restless clicking of our mothers knitting needles, while our fathers fought over their checker board in a silence broken only by / an outburst of triumph upon some clever strategy, or of chagrin when some deep-laid scheme had gone agley. Or some times the men would lay aside the board and, turning their chairs to ward the fire, with their pipes well lit and glowing In the bowl, would begin to recount tales of their youth when they were part of the locust army of ax men that had swept through the land and In some strange way bad left standing the great tree at the end of our farm. Then lessons were forgotten, and we children drevi silently close to the fire, as, big-eyed and flushed with adventure, we en tered the enchanted halls of Romance It waS when I was fourteen, ant about to enter the mill, that mothei was taken sick. I had n^ver known mother to be sick, and ly'was hard to understand the slight house and the darkened room. Mrs. Lane came ovei and took charge, and Marjorle stayed at home from school to help. Qne day as I came up the path Marjorle met me with, "Mother wants you," so I went into the room. Fa ther was there; it seems he had not gone to the mill that afternoon. He was sitting obI a chair with his el bows resting on his knees / and his cheeks between his hands, and a stray beam of light from the afternoon aun fell through the window and across his forehead.' I wondered that I had n?ver noticed before how old he was. ' . < . "Is that you, laddie?" my mother called in a thin, weak voice, and I came beside the bed. "My boy, mj boy 1" she said, and her face worked strangely, but she could say nothing more than just "my boy." , Then 1 knelt beside her, not knowing what else to do, and she put one of her thin hands In my hair, and ran her fingers slowly, with a strange sort of caressing, up and down and about my head. And then an odd thing happened. She began to sing, In a strange, high, tremulous key. "The Lord Is My Shepherd." She did not sing it as you have heard it in cburch, but with a gentle rhythmic beat, like a lullaby, just as she had sung it to me many a time when I was a little child. After a while she seemed to fall asleep, and I slipped out again. Father had never moved, but beads of sweat were standing on his fore head. Marjorle met me, round-eyed and pale, at the door. "Oh, Frank! Is mother going?is mother going?to die?" The last words were breathed rather than spoken. "I don't know," I said, pushing by her and gulping at something in m? throat. . . After mother's death Marjorle had to stay at home from school and take charge of the house. Marjorle had a vast native ability behind her deep black eyes, and in a short time mat ters were running as smoothly as could be hoped. I took a job in the mill?my dream of being a locomotive engineer had vanished almost with by baby teeth?and I w"as now work ing from seven in the morning until six at night for a consideration of three dollars a week. My father earned ten dollars a week, so we were in easy circumstances. There were no picture shows to tempt our spare quarters, nor automobiles to make us envious of our more fortunate neigh bors. . , Jack Lane also took a job In the mill, when I did. We graduated into long trousers together, and made our youthful excursions, arm in arm, in to the town on Saturday nights. Jack was a handsome boy, with the fair skin and hair of his sister Jean, and many a coquettish eye was turned on him as we strol!e<f about the little town, or even as he worked at his post In the mill. But while Jack was by no means above a mild flirta tion, he used to dismiss such events with the comprehensive remark, "They're not in the class of Marjorle ?or Jean." . We were eighteen when the accident happened to Peter Lane. He was working about a shaft, as be had done perhaps a thousand times before when some loose end of his clothing lapped around it. He clutched the shaft and whirled with it. until the strength of his arms gave way; then his body flew out and his head struck a beam. . ; . Outside the mill wheel placidly sprayed its mist of Jewels as from the hand of a fairy prince. ' Death has disorganized these two households so closely asso ciated. What is their future? (TO BE CONTINUED.) ft Worth-While Furniture Gradual buying of worth-while fur niture Is so much more sensible than hasty selection of. a panorama of pieces that do nothing more than relieve a home of utter barrenness. Apparently It never occurs to some people to buy part of a handsome suite when they can't afford the suiie complete. They crowd a room with tawdry matching pieces. Ignoring the future of theli home entirely, when they might hap pily combine a lovely new dresser witb the simplest bed, until their matching pieces can be bought. Mahogany and walnut finish go well together, walnut and certain finishes of oak combine agreeably, but mahogany and oak will not make friends.?Family Herald. Scouring Axh , Volcanic ash is used In making scouring soaps, abrasives and similar products.?Science Service. ? -HI liters lake This Prove fiit h ability of Lydia LPiak^ Vegetable Compound Tnrtle Lake, Wisconsin.-"v.! Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetal ? ? pounifor*^ backache arT* ^?USne8MH these trouwiM .yf.^ and ha? J |^her ffedicj^ I them, bm j L 'found no Rood as'thelLl We Compound recommend it^J friends Who ?4 troubles simCai J mine. I s^T, M vertised and thought I would trviH it has helped me in all my troubu"1 have had six children and 1 havou: the Lvdia E. Pinkham Vegetable r pound before each one was bonu weakness, vomiting, poor appeal* backache, and agam after child W cause of dizzy headaches. It is a ^ medicine for it alway? helps me. 1? also tak?n-Lydia E. Pinkham's Li Pills for the last eight years for,' atipation." ? Mrs. Mabel LaPo* RF, D. No. 1, Turtle Lake, Wiscteg In A recent canvass, 98 out of e* 100 women say they were benefited^ taking Lydia E. Pinkham's Veg^ Compound. \bur system needs Hancock SulphurGompound If yon Buffer from rheumatism, pa, eczema or hives, or if troubled withpio. plea, blackheads, freckles, blotches or other akin eruptions, your blood andika need the purifying and healing effects this tried old remedy. Physicians agree that Bulphgriaontrf the beat and mosteffective blood purifxa known to science. Hancock Sulpkjj Compound is the most efficacious *ij# use and benefit from Sulphur. Aiilt tion. it soothes and heals; taken lite, nally, it gets at the root of the trohk 60c and $1.20 at your druggist's. if hi cannot supply you. send his name aid the price in stamps and we will send to a bottle direct Hancock Liquid Sulphub Cohpahj Baltimore, Maryland Hancock Sulphur Compound Ointnnt-H and 60c ?for tut with tin Liquid Cwijout Kremoh the wonderful face bleach makes the skin beautiful At all drug and dept. stores o by mail $1.25. BooKlet fre? Dr. C. H. Berry Co.. 2975 S. Michigan An,Om Green's August Flo* for Constipati* Indigestk* ? Torpid Liwf Successful for M I 80c and 90c bottler ALL DRUCGISfl Italians Win Macaroni Trail Italian macaroni is winning that from America in Great Britii and shipments from tliis country if dropping In volume. BEAUTIFY IT WITH "DIAMOND DYE? Just Dip to Tint or Boil to Dj? Each 15-cent P>* age contains tlons so simple ?* woman can ''Dt 8?1' delicate shade*. dye rich, per?'* colors in liD' silks, ribbons,??* waists, dresses. co? stockings, draperies, cover hangings ? thing! w-j Buy Diamond Dyes-no other? and tell your druggist whet er terial you wish to color is woo . or whether it is linen, cotton goods. Conscience Is linrdler thnn jW, mles. Knows more, accuses w nicely.?George Eliot Remember, I stand back r,;t> Every druggist Kuarar<,nts)' the purchase price <?? f''a[i I son's Ointment doesn t ~ 0\i ^ I guarantee it for " ilcer*-# running sores, salt rhe -tching .a nipples, broken breast. n(|hi skin diseases, blind, b f lng piles, as well as for c b0rt scalds, cuts, bruises and, ?I had 30 runnf ff s?rhree digj for 11 years. wa? In t ^ hospitals. Amputat'"" j was p Skin drafting was .t/,?Sn,?1ent by using Peterson s stree F E. Root, 187 Michigan a falo, N. Y. Teach Children To Use Cuticura Soothes and Hea^ ft Rathe* and IrntaDoa*^^ Catlcurm ?2Z" Keel" ' * (?