The Arkansaw traveler., 1885-09-05
LIKE A GUINEA HEN.

Anderson, l don't know any other way to put it up," said my father. "You are a fool. Here you have been study ing your books and musing over the great things you are going to do, and now you want to marry widow. did not think that a Jasperson, especially Ander- son Jasperson, would so far give up that inborn idea of importance which has ever distinguished us from our neighbors."
 Fly father turned, walked 10 the end of the porch, took drink of water and rinsed his mouth as if he would wash out the taste of his words. was much in love with the little Widow Hankins. Oh, she wat beautiful; so graceful with such a charming little laugh-a rippling giggle, like the tinkling of music.box. The Widow Hankns, or Zelda, as was permitted to call her, was several years older than l, but she was so 1.-the, so blythe, oh, so everything that knew her beauty would last forever. This charm ing creature had married miller. Han- kins was not a handsome man, but his old water mill was such romantic place that Zelda, with her notions of poetry and moss-covered rocks, could not resist his importunities. He only lived two years after his marriage, and when saw him buried in an old orchard, fancied that he must have died of excessive happi- ness.
 My father was rather stern man, but there was about him a peculiar humor that occasionally cropped out, but since my mothers death the outcroppings had become rare indeed.
 "You ought to have more sense," said my father, turning from the end of the porch and slowly approaching me. "If you are so keen to get married, sir"
 But am nOt SO keen to get married, sir"
 "lt seems that you are. Wha: is there about Zelda HankinS that you find so at- ,tractive2"
 '"She is beautiful" replied.
 Beautiful '" he contemptuously re- peated. "Why, sir. you can go out in the woods any time and jump up a better looking woman than she is. She is squint eyed"
 Father, you know better than that" 
 "No, I don't. She is squint eyed, with an expressionless doll-face, and has laugh like the cackle of guinea-hcn."
 won't stand here, sir, and listen to you. You are insulting"
 "Yes," he continued, paying no atten- ton to my rising resentment, "and worse than all, she is a flirt. If you marry her, you shall not bring her to my house. You are only nineteen. Wait until you are twenty-one and then renew your pro- posal of marriage"
 T haven't proposed to her yet"
 "Well, wait until you are twenty-ene, and then if you want to marry her will give you this farm and every head of cat tie on the place."
 "l won't accept such an outrageous proposition"
 "Oh, well, then, go ahead; but re- member, sir, that you must not bring her to my house."
 "We can live at the mill."
 Gan youp We'll, 1 am glad to hear it. have a mortgage on that property, and the day you take up your residence there the mortgage shall be foreclosed."
 Father, thought that you were a kinj-hearted man."
 "And thought that you were sensi- ble boy"
 "I would rather lack sense than kind ness of heart"
 "Oh, you are no doubt philanthro- pist, and. like nearly all philanthropists, lack discretion"
 "Were you not in love with my mother?" asked after a moments silence.
 "Oh, yes, but my love was tempered with sense. Your mother was a young and talented woman. was a man, no, mere boy"
 You are wasting your words on me, father"
 "I think you are right in that particu- lar. Go on, now, and pursue your own course, but remember what have said. '
 CHAPTER II.
 l remembered what my father had said, but that evening l went over to se<