HOSTILE VALLEY PKOIARJUfc. Ai » Catherine sf ersnlsa In the village of Liberty, Main*. Jim Saladlne listen* to th* history *f the neighboring Hostile vsllsr —Its past tragedies. Its superb lahtag streams, and. above all. th* Mysterious, enticing ‘‘Huldy.** wife s t Will Ferrln. Interested, he drives I* th* Valley for a day's Ashing, j though admitting to himself his ! ehlef desire Is to see th* reputedly glamorous Huldy Perrin CHAPTER I— "Old Harm" Pterc* and her nineteen-year-old grand* daughter Jenny live In the valley, flinoa little more than a child Jenny has nt Oral admired and then deeply loved young Will Perrin neighbor ing farmer, older than she. and who , re gat'd a her still as merely a child. ■ Will leaves the farm—hie father’s | ■—and take* employment In nearby Augusta. Jenny, despite her grand mother’s rnmfnrtlnit Is disconsolate CHAPTER ii—Hl* father's death \ brings Will bach to the Valley, but | be returns to Augusta, still uncon nolens es Jenny's womanhood, and leva Neighbors of the Pierces are Bart and Amy Carey, brother and sister Bart, unmarried and soma- i thing as a ne'er-do- well. Is attracted ; by Jenny, but the girl repulses him { definitely Learning Ibst wilt Is earn ing borne. Jenny, exulting, sets bis i long-empty house "to rights.” and has dinner randy for him. Ho comes —bringing his wife. Huldy The girl’s world collapses CHAPTER HI. Huldy. at onee perceiving Jenny's secret, merciless ly macks her discomfiture. Huldy ; soon becomes the subject of unfa- ' vorsble gossip In the Valley, though Will apparentlv Is blind t> the fact. ! CHARTER IV—Entering his home. ! unlocked for, Will has found seem ingly damning evidence of his wife's ' unfaithfulness, as a man who he knows Is Seth Humphreys breaks ] from the house With the echo of his wife’s derlslvb laughter In his earn j Will pursues Humphreys He over takes him. and after a struggle I chokes him to death, though Hum ?hreys shatters his leg. with a bul ot. At Marm Pierce’s house the ; leg Is amputated Jenny goes to break th* news to Huldy She finds | Bart Carey with the woman. When he leaves. Huldy makes a mock of Jenny’s sympathy, declaring she has so use for "half a man" and la leav ing at once Sthe does so CHAPTER V IT WAS In October that Will was hurt, and Seth Humphreys came to his end, and Huldy went away Will stayed at Marm Pierce's farm till his leg was healed; and Jenn> waa happy In attending him. She gave him Huldy’a message, and he received it uncomplainingly. “Natural for her to feci so,” he decided. ’’No one-legged man Is good enough for her” There was no bitterness in his 1 tone; but he saw Jenny’s loyal an . ger. and he said appeasingly: “Huldy’a one that takeß a lot of stock In the way folks look. Jenny She was like a cat. always cleaning j herself. Took as much pleasure In j herself as an old skinflint does In his money. And she lived to have every one around her the same Farm folk like us. we’re apt to kind of forget. If I come Into the house with i-arn on my hoots. It always bothered her.” And he added: ”1 can see how < she’d take this. Anybody with two legs Is kind of hound to feel that a man with only one leg Is no good j Isa Just like you’ll shoot a horae that breaks its leg, or get rid es a crippled cat, or dog.” Jenny, faced by his stubborn loy alty to this women who, despite the fact that she had wronged and flouted him, was still his wife, felt a reluctant pride In him. If he had enrsed Huldy, he would not bare been Will Ferrln; not the man she j had long loved. So she said no word of blame for Huldy. and the matter thereafter did not rise between | them. But Bart Carey waa not so tact fui, till Will silenced him. Jenny, In the kitchen, beard them talking together, heard Will’s alow tones at last •‘Bart’* ho said strictly. "I don’t want that kind of talk ahont Huldy. She waa used to gay times lo Au *a THE ZEBULON RECORD, ZEBULON, NORTH CA ROLINA, FRIDAY, JANUARY, TWENTY-FOURTH, 1936 H;.. i protested liouy: ’ • was mad enough, yourself, when you went after Seth!” “So l was,” Will confessed. “He was a man, and responsible. Hut 1 dunno as I can blame Huldy. Any way. not so now!” “She was scared.” Bart insisted "Scared for fear you'd tiv 1 the same as yon did him. She knew It was her due. That’s why s! ■ skinned out!” “She had no cause L o he . „ar. i of me.” said Will gently. “I wouldn't i Barm her. And Bart, you keep yonr tongue off her. If yo’re good friend to me.” And Jenny, listening, loved him i more and more. in the matter of Seth’s death. Will was held blameless. None had ! seen the beginning of the encounter between them; but the mill men had seen and eould testify that Seth shut Will, and tried to ahoot him 1 again; and Bart could testify that | Seth had borrowed the gun, as though the thing were premeditat ed. So. though Will had to answer I to the law, he was presently fre i again; and when he had learned the use of a peg leg, he went back to the farm on the hill. He dwelt there alone that winter, i and Bart dally tramped up the steep road from his farm to take the heavier chores off the cripple’s ! hands; but by February, Will had become almost as nimble on hla peg as he had used to be on his sound foot. Only the work Indoors be slighted, as a man will; and Jenny sometimes went to catch up loose I ends. Between them during these winter months a bond began to form, and no longer on Jenny’s side alone. Will never spoke his mind nor Ills heart to her, nor she to him; yet to them both the thing was clear To him It was a trouble and deep | concern. From Huldy he had had no word; yet to her he still was bound, and would remain so If she chose. He told Jenny this one day. They approached the subject guardedly, by long Indirection, naming Huldy not at all; until at laat Will said, soberly: “Jen, no use our dodging around the thing. Here’s my look at 1L A man might want to say a womnr wa’n’t his wife, if she’d acted wrong. Bat I don’t tee It so. The way I see It, I’m bound —any man's bound —long as he’s give his word.” And he said: “It looks to me, the worse a woman It, the more like she la to come to a time when she needs a husband to stand by her. and look ont for her. A man. If hla wife ever come to him, no matter l what she’d done, and said he’d got to help her, why It looks to me he’d have to.” Jenny assented without reserva tion; bat when she told Marm Pierce, days later, this word of ! Will's, the old woman aald irascibly: “That’s just like a man! Once yon get an idee into the critter’s heads, there's no knocking It ont again. A man’s worse than a broody hen! Only snre way to break her la to cat her head off. A woman like Holdy. all she deserves is a knock ob the head. ’Stead of that, yon and him will go oa eating yonr hearts ont, and she’ll gad aronnd with this one and that one. . . . n like to lay a hand oa her once. I’d trim her comb!” Yet the girl was content, and when winter broke and the feeble pnlse of spring began to flutter. Jenny had come to a certain hap piness. She was happy ta serving Will, going almost dally to dean wp the kitchen and cook a batch of doughnuts, or make biscuits, or con coct n pte. To see him, to be alone But when tiie frost vsu* out of the ground and plowing to he done, the handicap under which Will must labor began more fully to appear. He was able to do the barn chores; but field work presented problems hard to solve. Bart and others helped him when they could; hut Will's restless zeal sought an out let In great works about the farm, and the neighbor folk had their own tasks to do. For this problem whh h Will fin ed, chance brought whnt seemed a fortunate solution. Toward the foot of the Valley there was a farm long owned hy old Fred Dace, whose father and grandfather had dwelt there before him. and who 'lved there with his son. Nate. Rut Nate hnd died a year or two before; and this spring the old man likewise sickened and came to his quirk end. He had no kin about, hut there was a son who four or five years before hnd gone west, and this son now came home. Zeke Dace was a lean, wlrv man In his middle twenties, who wore a wide brimmed hat of n western pat tern, and rode plow horses with a stock saddle, and rolled cigarettes with one hand, and hnd a laughing, ready tongue. He had come home, he said, to stay. The cow business was busted, jobs on the rancre were hard to find. Rnr the Dace farm promised n«» great return from even a vigorous cultivation; and Will Ferrln sent for Zeke and hired him as a hand. Jenny approved the arrangement. She liked the newcompr; and he and Will were from the first a con genial pair There were others who liked Zeke, too. Amy. Bart’s sister, was one of them. She was older than Jenny, but not yet old enough to begin to fade In that quirk, relent less fashion which hard farm work may Impose upon a woman. Since Hnldy’s departure, whether hv ac cident or not, Rart had fewer hoard ers; and Seth Humphreys' steam mill was shut down, abandoned and deserted now. So Rart and Amv were much alone, and Bart went often for a word with Will, and Zeke as often came down the hill to stand In the door of Amy’s klt m Korns. Frogmans from lomif® trissoomstoyemsri tk—oringrag- PHILCO ft#* lsrity and ill—I 1 J.H.&W.RBUNN COMPANY General News Bonus Bill Passed The soldier’s Bonus Bid has pass ed both houses of Congress by an overwhelming majority. Its pay ment is proposed by issuing “baby bonds” of SSO denomination, to be paid through post offices. Secretary of the Treasury Morgantheau says that the payment of the bonus will add $2,000,000,000 to the National debt and that the Treasury will have to borrow $11,300,000,000 by June 30th, 1937. STORM POES GREAT DAMAGE While Zebulon felt the effects of the storm on last Sunday citizens should feel thankful that the worst \ -T it was elsewhere. Some discom fort and inconvenience and some expense were incurred here, but loss of life and real suffering were not known. Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and other southern states reported deaths, intense co’d and wreckage from wind. Near Greens boro a store was demolished, slight ly injuring a couple who lived up «tairs. Selma. Oxford. Salisbury, Raleigh, Charlotte, Greensboro, Wilmington Wilson, and various other towns report mere or lesa damage. The high winds began be. tween eleven and twelve o’clock in morning aeoempanied by tor rential rain. A cold wavj following sent temperatures to freezing points in this state. What Causes It? From a resident of this town, on Arrendall Avenue comes this state ment. He says that he has noticed heaps of ashes poured on the as phalt paving of the street and that after a day of two there is a hole in the place where the ashe. were. He does not have an idea that those who put ashes have the slight est desire to injure the highway and is not sure what does the dam age. It is probably some chemical action or reaction, but indicates that both wood and coal ashes, by all means, should be deposited in places elsewhere than the road. U. I). C Meet The Bissett Chapter of the UDC held their regular monthly meeting at the home of Mrs. Frank IT Mc- Guire last Thursday afternoon. Af ter the business session delightful refreshments were served by th« hostess and a social hour was en joyed. CALCIUM PHOSPHATE A Real Cheap Source of Lime and Phosphorous AGRICULTURAL LIMESTONE High in Magnesium and Calcium Low in Price CROTALARIA BPECTABILIS The greatest soil improver Write for Information W. C. WHITE, Distributor Chester, S. C.