The Warner weekly sun. (Warner, Brown Co., Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1885, 1884-10-03
HIS SECURITY.

Hastings pounced INTO the ola Iarm
kitchen abruptly, looking like some full
blown rose that some wind or circum-
stance had blown in there to brighten
the room-not that it was not bright
and clean and pretty as a kitchen can
he made by care and "elbow- grease"
Int the place must have been bright, in
deed, that would gain nothing by having
Miss Minnie in it.
Her face was q little flushed from some
excitement, and her red lips were just a
CROSS between a defiant curl and a dis
tractingpout.
"Why Minnie, what's the matter ?"
asked the mild voice of her mother, as
she looked up from her work.
Matter, mother? Why that horrid
Harry Davidge is back from his college
or travels, or wherever he was land I'm
sure it doesn't natter, and it seems
that he is going to take up his abode
al his farm and lord it over the
whole community, / suppose. But of
one thing / am sure, and pretty Minnie
was all emphasis, he won't lord it over
me-"
"Why, Minnie! What has Mr.. Davidge
done that is such a crime?" asked
her mother. 81 have always heard him
spoken of very highly. He was always
an honest, manly boy, ] am sure, and
your father was saying just the other
dav that he thought. from what he had
learned of Mr.. Davidga as q man, that
his manhood is fulfilling eli the prom
Use of youth"
ooh, yes; I'll be bound papa would
think him q paragon. And of course he
is very manly and intellectual and all
that, but 1 am sure that he is very un-
mannerly and unsocial as well. Why,
mother, / met him on my way to the
postofice this evening, and he never as
much as looked at me-"
Now to an ordinary mortal it would
seem strange surely in a young man of
intelligence and possessing an ''eye for
the beautiful" to fail to ''look at" Miss
Minnie whenever an opportunity Offer
ed. Indeed. the number of young men
in the neighborhood who would have
gladly aided in bringing about such OPP
portunities for their own benefit was
not small, for Minnie was known and
admired far and near, and it would
have taken all her little pointed fingers
to number the beaux she could have
had at her feet had she been of such
mind. But they all found her unap-
proachable, as she laugaed at them and
sang and huttered around as sweet
voiced and free-hearted as q thrush.
What woman is pretty AID does not
know it2 And Ac% great bic number
who know it are not, for that matter?
Minnie liked we'll to be admired, and
when Mr.. Dayidge passed her that even
ing on the village road with his fine
head bent down in deep study, to the
entire exclusion of pretty things, real or
traditional, she thought she was fully
justified in being offended.
Harry Davidge's father died when
Harry was in his thirteenth year. John
Dayidge, the father, had been q life long
friend of Alvin Hastings, Minnie's faith
er. They had been boys together at
school, in orchards, milldams. and such
haunts of rural ooyhood. They grew
TO manhood together. Dayidge mar
RED and Hastings was his "best man."
They owned fine farms adjoining each
other, and nevera quarrel about lines or
corner-sSones or water rights, and each
followed as closely as may be the com
mand to love thy neighbor as myself"
Before mid-life Davidge died, and the
farm passed into the hands of a lawyer
brother In the country town of L.,
IN trust for the heir, the above-men-
toned Harry Davidge.
nc uncle put Harry to school at an
academy Immediately. Thence he went
70 college, graduated, solidly, at 20, and
travelled six years-'all over the world"
the villagers said at his boyhood home,
and considered it a great local accom-
plshment.- Which bit OF biography, if
you will excuse it in a love story for
1nls Is a love story, as all stories are
nowadays), brings Mr.. Harry Davidge
before us and Miss Minnie at this time,
nch, handsome, intelligent, six-and-
twenty, with enough fine sentiment and
good sense in him to draw him back to
.ne old farm to live at his ease and en-
!Vy MS wealth of purse and mind among
,ne fieids and woods around and in the
house where his father and mother
lSed worked and died.
me moon came up over the woods
u rare beauty, the sky was clear, and
sne lew stars that dared shine when the
moon was SO bright sparkled and winked
rom their blue setting. The fields
were Drown, from autumn's pencil, and
= Minnie sat at her window and looked
va1 over them while the evenings calm
Peace and rest seemed to fall on her life
s @au senses like natures benediction she