The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1879-11-21
THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE.

One Case Wherein 1t Did Run Smooth.
"Oh yes," said Phoebe Ann; "that
is what thought
She looked back over her shoulder as
she spoke and then trotted on with a
WATERFALL in her hand and pink calico
'log-cabin " on her head, down along
the worn foot-path, where blue asters
nodded to stately shafts of gOlden-rOd
that seemed to dip with sunshine, and
where crickets made merry among the
clover leaves and fringed gentian.
Overhead the poplar leaves stirred
and rustled to each other, though all the
other trees were still. Something was
going on in the air that none but they
knew about. None, unless it might be
Phoebe Ann. Little enough went on
above or below that she didn't know of
or ut least guess ut.
eyes, this is what I thought and what
l expected and what l said," she re-
peated, as she stopped to fill her pail ut
the spring.
1t never made any difference to
Phoebe Ann whether she had listener
any more than it did to the poplar leaves,
for she was always sure of one sensible
nearer.
b However, when she came back with
the pail dripping and splitting on the
knot grass and plantain leaves all the
way, she found Eugene MosscrOft sitting
on the hen-coop shaping a spoon out of
a slender stick of lockwood.
"'Swhat l said," remark ed Phoebe
Ann, nodding Hospitality when she saw
him.
Ipo,, ,-o,,, loeouo xl.o., ,,,o, ,,o ,,,ol,
boy rs Eugene MosscrOft, for all
he looked as though he had been in the
world always and always would be,
looking Just so out of his cat-shaped
eyes. But here he was now fast enough,
come TO live with his aunt, Mrs. Pru-
dence Mosscroft, in a low, Quaker-col-
ored cottage behind the meeting house.
Mrs. MOsscroft was small woman
with a slender nose, and a bunch of
silver-gray curls on each side of her
face that looked like clusters of Malaga
grapes. She ought, herself, to have
been born Quaker, but her mother
didn't know it, so she was born Meth
Odist She had had husband and
many children, but they had long been
lying in a green row in the graveyard
on the hill and she had lived alone with
a Quaker-colored cat, flock of Quak-
er-cOlOred hens and some Quaker-col-
ored knitting-work till Eugene came to
live with her. And Eugene came and
went SO softly that he added not much
more to the noise OF the house than the
tick of the old eight-day clock and the
purring of the old cat.
And now here he was sitting on
Dho,ho AnnfS hon oro,, 1nnEsprr nc
much ut home and in his place as
though he grew there, like the lichens
and moss ON the great rock by the
spring.
"Said what?" said he, nodding back
to Phoebe without looking up from his
work.
"Said! Why, said that sooner or
later We should have PERKINS, girls on
our hands, whether or no. Tell me
Well, knew all the time, as well rs l |
know now, that in the end Perrin would
get uneasy for salt water and off he'd
go again. Not but that we'd rather
have the children to ourselves, mother
and 1; 'isn't that. Only 1 do hate to
see folks SO simple. What did he want
to 60 and lay out good money to buy
that place for when he was sure to want
to sell out just when prices are all
down! That is what always said and
always shall say. And so! The fools
amt all dead yet" continued Phoebe
Ann with q violent shake of the head.
walking away into the house and pay
ing no more attention to Eugene than if
he were q bit of ichen, sure enough,
and she had been only talking to herself
all the while. Eugene looked after her
with a little wild wonder, and then at
cat-bird in the cherry tree over his head.
But the oet-bird had her eye on honey I
Dee that she proposed breakfasting up
on, and paid NJ more attention to Eu. '