Madison times. (Tallulah, Madison Parish, La.) 1884-1???, 1886-08-28
IN RHETTA'S GARDEN.

1t was only little spot south of tn.
house, but violets blossomed sooner
than anywhere else. and great bursting
pinks made the air spicy while othel
peoples were only in bud. There
were dafodils in the grassy border, ant
blue-bells and blue spider-lilies. There
are two rose-bushes, one cinnamon and
one damask, while double sweet gilly
flowers sowed themselves and came uI
every year along with mignonette and
chrysanthemums. Ii was q sweet,
fragrant, old-fashioned little garden,
which Rhetta's mother had tended and
taken pleasure in, and now 1t was
Rhetta's. There she worked all her
spare half hours, sowing and watering,
wedding and transplanting. till her
little hands were brown, and her cheeks
like her own cinnamon roses. Aunt
Dorcas, in the kitchen, used to wonder
show on airth that child could be so
content all alone out in her posy bedr'
But Rhetta was not so often alone OF
late. since they had taken q boarder.
Ralph Calender found that the pleas
ATTEST path to the house lay through
the little aower-garden. and when his
jobs of copying failed to occupy his
time. what could be more natural than
to use his leisure helping the blushing
gardener? 1t was he who carried away
all the weeds, divided the white peony
roots and reset them. and dug more
thoroughly than Rhetta ever could
around the dear old rose-bushes. Over
their work they fell talking, as young
people will. and alresdy Rhetta's father
had begun to watch them a little aux-
iously above his spectacles as he sat on
the porch, while one of the neighbors
had remarked privately to Aunt Dor
cas- that it was pity young Calender
was not man of fortune as well as of
family.
In truth riches had taken unto them
selves wings and flown away from the
Callenders year before, so that Ralph,
instead OF becoming junior partner in
an old and prosperous bus saw
nothing before him but what his two
hands could earn. and being totally I'M
prepared for such a prospect, he had
. to take little time to get used to it,
and TO find out which way to turn.
Meanwhile he had drifted to this
suburban town, and while waiting to
find situation as clerk or accountant,
did copying to support himself. and
boarded at Rhetta's.
1t was the day they had been trans
planting touch-me-nots. and Ralph had
thrown himself down under the plum
tree for respite, while Rhetta pulled
the faded blossoms from q primrose.
He might have been misanthropic
enough at that moment il he had chOs-
en-, for the last line of copying lay
upon his table finished, with not so
much as q hint for an order for any
more. Worse than that q clerks
place he had been hoping for had that
very morning been given to another.
II he bad got it, he could have spoken
to Rhetta at once.
His glance followed her as she bent
over her plants, her garden bonnet
dropping back from her bright brown
hair, and his finger sought instinctively
a little ring that hid in his vest pocket.
The old Calender pride had come to
this, that he only waited for ths barest
chance of being able to earn a living
before he offered heart and hand to
pretty little Rhetta Wood. whose bonny
face was all her dowry.
But he could not help letting love
color his words little when he said.
presently, to Rhetta, as he watched
her, when / make my fortune YOU
shall have greenhouses and hotbeds,
and gardens laid out on terraces"
Like Colonel Porter'sp" laughed
Rhetta blushing over her trowel.
.'Oh! hare you ever seen his place, Mr..
Calender It's over on the West
Side"
Il think have passed it," answered
the young man indifferently. big
trees. three terraces, ribbon beds, and
. peacock on the lawn; 10 that the
placer"
Eyes; isn't it splendidr' exclaimed
hhetta aiWayS 90 tnat way when
| take a walk by myself; and OIL how
l do long sometimes tor things I see
the gardener throwing away-slips and
cuttings and roots that he thins out!
Perfectly lovely things!
why don't you ask him for themP"
ASK himp" and Rhetta caught her
breath at the very idea of doing so
audacious thing. "Why / wouldn't
dare"
'Don't you know them'-the family,
l mean"
= mo; how could Ip Rose Porter and
went 10 the same school, and when
she rides by and sees me she bows and
smiles, but that isn't being acquainted.
She Is as beautiful as princess. 1t is
lime for her to be at home now; she
has been in Washington all the
'pring."
Ralph Calender made no answer.
he was busy weaving true love knot
It grass blades and when it was done
y gave IL to Rhetts. She blushed
esia over Il and went on talking
~, SVVVM 80. ~ " .''.''