The McCook tribune. (McCook, Neb.) 1886-1936, 1886-08-12
IN RHETTA'S GARDEN.

IN GARDEN.
1t was only q little spot south of the
house, but violets blossomed sooner
than anywhere else, and great bursting
pinks made the air spicy while other
peoples were only in bud. There
were datfodils in the grassy border, and
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 up
every year along with mignonette and
chrysanthemums. 1t vas a 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 ami 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
INV Ol lHolU HlI Sottlo NC OO
content all alone out in her posy bed"
But Rhetta was not so often alone of
late. since they had taken II boarder.
Ralph Calender found that the pleas
ATTEST path to the house lay through
the little t1ower-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 eve could
around the dear old rose-bushes. Over
their work they fell talking, as young
people will, and already Rhetta's father
had begun to watch them Il little anx-
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 Il pity young Calender
was not a man Of fortune as well as of
family.
In truth riches had taken unto them
selves wings and flown away from the
Callenders a year before, so that Ralph.
instead of becoming junior partner in
an old and prosperous business, 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 a 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 a 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 q respite, while Theta pulled
the faded blossoms from Il primrose.
He might have been ni;santhropic
enough at that moment if he had chos-
en-, for the last line of copying lay
upon his table finished, with not so
much as a hint for an ord.r for any
more. Worse than that. q clerks
place he had been hoping fo- had that
very morning been given to another.
If he had 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 in~tinctively
a little ring that hid in his vest pocket.
The old Calender pride haG come to
this, that he only waited for the 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 a little when he said,
presently. to Rhetta, as he watched
her, 'When 1 make my fortune you
shall have greenhouses and hotbeds,
and gardens laid out on terraces"
Like Colonel Porter's?" laughed
Rhetta, blushing over her trowel.
.'Oh! hare you ever seen his place, Mr..
Calender? It's owe Oh the West
Side
Il think 1 have passed it." answered
the young man indiiferently. big
trees, three terraces, ribbon beds, and
a peacock on the lawn; is that the
place."
Yes; isn't it splendid!' exclaimed
Rhetta. Il always 60 that way when
I take a walk by myself; and oh! how
[ do long sometimes ter things [ see
the gardener throwing away-slips and
cuttings and roots that ne thins out!
Perfectly lovely things!
why don't you ask him for them?"
"Ask him?" and Rhetta caught her
breath at the very idea Of dong so