The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1880-11-18
FOUND IN A FROG.

her small brown hands, Gita ran down
stairs lightly; and these stairs-some
crooked stone steps in a dark passage
would have broken our necks to de-
scend. She came out in narrow street
with the tall houses almost meeting
overhead, and steep paths or flights of
steps leading down to the shore. The
town was Mentone, in the south of
France, with the boundary of Italy not
half mile distant At one end of the
street was visible the blue sky and two
churches, yellow and white, on an open
square, with towers, where the bells
were ringing.
Gita felt in her pocket for crust of
hard bread and began to eat. This was
her breakfast and if she had been richer
she would have drunk little black
coffee with it. AS it was, she paused at
the fountain, where the women were
gossiping as they drew water in buckets,
and placed her mouth under the spout.
Raphel came along and greeted her.
Raphael. tall young fellow with bright
ewes, a face the color of bronze and
little black mustache, was the son of a
merchant who kept goats and dohkeys
for the visitors who came here every
year. The goats furnished rich milk
for the invalids to drink, while the la
dies and children rode the donkeys.
Gita found Raphael very hand some.
He wore a curious straw hat with the
brim turned up, a shirt striped with
red, blue pantaloons and a yellow sash
about his waist. One could see he es-
teemed himself rather a dandy. In turn
. 10, -. 4 ,f
his acquaintance, with her large black
eyes, brown face and white teeth. Be-
sides, Gita was amiable, and did not
mock at him when he walked on the
Promenade on Sunday with his hat on
one side and a cigarette in his mouth.
u have asked the consent of my
parents to our marriage" said Raphael.
"They refuse, unless you have dover
of at least a hundred francs. We must
wait"
Gita sighed and shook her head as
she pursued her way down to the shore.
In these countries the young people
must obtain the consent of their parents
to marry and the bride should have
dowrv. Gita had not a penny; Ra-
phaers father might as well have asked
him to bring the moon as one hundred
francs.
Grandmother was seated under an
archway, with her little furnace be-
fore her. roasting chestnuts. Grand
mother, a wriI~ I'd old woman, with
red handkerch1f wound about her
head. was a chestnut merchant. The
sailors, children and Italians coming
over the border bought her wares, and
when she was not employed in serving
them she twisted flax on the distaff.
"Raphael's father needs a dowry of
one hundred francs" said Gita, as
grandmother gave her a few chestnuts. |
a" All, if you were a lemon girlr' |
said grandmother, beginning to twist |
the flax.
Gita poised a basket on her head, !
took white stocking from her pocket, /
and began to knit as she walked away. /
The women of the country carry all |
burdens on their heads. You may see |
mother with a mound of cut grass on /
her head. dandling n little baby in her |
arms as she moves along. Grandmother |
had been a lemon girl in her day, but |
Gita was not strong enough. The |
lemon girls bring the fruit on their
heads many miles, from the lemon |
groves down to the ships when they are |
sent to America and other distant |
lands.
Gita went along the shore knitting, |
her empty basket tilted on her head. |
The blue Mediterranean Sea sparkled
as far as the eve could reach and broke
on the pebbles of the beach in waves as
clear as crystal. Soon she turned back
toward the hills, following a narrow
path between high garden walls, passed
under railroad bridge and entered an
olive garden. She worked here all day
gathering up the little black olives
which fall from the trees, much as chill
dren gather nuts in the woods at home.
Other women were already at work;
their dresses of gay colors, yellow and
red, showed against the gray back
ground of the trees. A boy beat the
branches with long pole. Gita began
TO work with the rest. She did not
think much about the olive-tree, al
though it was a good friend. She was
paid twenty sous day to gather the
berries from the ground, which were
then taken to the crushing mill up the
ravine to be made into oil. Gita ate the
green ltlnOuS pluCktu HUH lut trees rs
a child of the North would eat apples,
but she loved the good olive-oil better.
When the grandmother made feast it
was to fry the little silvery sardines in
oil so Grip and brown.
The olive-tree is a native of Asia Mi
nor, and often mentioned in the Bible
Some of the trees in the garden where
Gita now worked were so old that the
Romans saw them when they conquered
the world.
At noon the olive-pickers paused to
rest. Gita went away alone and ate the |
handful of chestnuts given her by
grandmother When she returned to
the town at night she would have anoth-
er bit of bread and a raw onion. She (
seated herself on the edge of the ravine ;
and thought about Raphael as she
munched her nuts. Below. this path :
traversed the ravine and climbed the {
opposite slope 10 the wall of a pretty ]
villa, one of the houses occupied for the
winter by rich strangers. Gita looked
at the villa, with its window shaded by
lace curtains, balconies and terraces,
where orange-trees were covered with
little golden balls of fruit. I
d" Ii | were rich like that would have !
soup every day, sometimes made of I
pumpkin and sometimes with macaroni '
in it, she thought. {
Then she turned over stone with her S