Fort Worth weekly gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1888-12-21

! suggestion OF the settlement, with all
traces of human contiguity were left far
| behind. It was therefore with strange
and nervous sense of being softly hailed
| by some woodland spirit that he seemed
to hear his own name family waited
upon the air. He turned quickly; it was
Cressy, painting behind him. Even
then, in her white, closely gathered
skirts, her barred head and graceful arch
ing neck bent forward, her flying braids
! freed from the straw hat which she had
swung from her arm so as not to impede
her flight, there was SO much of the fol-
lowing Maenid about her that he was for
an instant startled
| throwing her arms around his neck with
light laugh, let herself hang for mo-
ment breathless on his breast. Then re-
covering her speech she said slowly:
SO started on an Injin trot after you,
just as you turned off the trail, but you d
got so far ahead while I was shaking my
self clear of Uncle Ben that l had to jist
lope the whole way through the woods to
catch up. She stopped and looking
up into his troubled face caught his
cheeks between her hands, and bringing
his knit brows down to the level of her
humid blue eyes said, "You haven t
kissed me yet. What s the matter?''
"Doesn It it strike you that might ask
that question considering that it's three
days since we seen you, and that you
left me in rather awkward position to
explain matters to your mother? he
said coldly. He had formulated the sem
tence in his mind some moments before,
but now that it was uttered, it appeared
slngularly weak aud impotent.
FThat's so, - she said with frank
laugh, burying her face in his waistcoat
"You see, dandy boy''-his pet name
81 reckoned for that reason we'd better
lie low for day or two. Well, - she con-
tinued, unty!ng his cravat and relying it
again, ''how did you crawl out of it? -
"Do you mean to say your mother did
not tell you?'' he asked Indignantly.
"Why should she?' returned Cressy,
lazily. fShe never talks to me of these
things, honey
And you knew nothing about it?''
Cressy shook her head, and then wind
ing one of her loug braids around the
young man s neck, offered the end of
it to his mouth, and on his sternly declin-
ing it, took it in her own
Yet even her ignorance of what had
really happened did not account to the
master for the Indifference of her long
silence, and albeit conscious of some in
efficiency in his present unheroic atti-
tude, he continued sarcastically:
MAY l ask what you imagined would
happen when you left me?''
"Well, - said Cressy confidently, az
reckOned, chile, you could lie as well as
the next man, and that being gifted
you Id sling Nav something new and
purity. Why, L amt got no fancy,
but L fixed up something against
paws questioning me. 1 made that con-
ceited Masters promise to swear that he
was in the barn with me. Then l calcu-
late to tell paw that you came meander-
ing along just before NAV popped in,
and that | skedaddled to join Masters.
OF course, - she added quickly, tighten
her hold of the master as he made a sud
den attempt at withdrawal, ~ didn t
let on to Masters why L wanted him to
promise, or that you were there.
"Cressy, - said Ford, irritated beyond
measure, ''are you mad, or do you think
l am?''
The girl $ face changed. She cast
half-frightened, half-questiOning glance
ut his eyes and then around the darken-
ing aisle. eff we're going to quarrel,
Jack, - she said hurriedly, "don t let's
do it before folks,''
Gin the name of Heayen,'' he said,
following her eyes Indignantly, "what
do. you mean?'
CT mean she said, with a slight
shiver of resignation and scorn, ''if you
oh dear! if it's all going to be like
them, let s keep it to ourselves. -
He gazed at her in hopeless bewilder-
cho she
more frightened at the possible revelation
of their disagreement than of their init
macy?
''Come, - she continued tenderly, still
CHANGING however uneasily around her,
"come Wen be more comfortable in
the hollow. It's only a STEP Still
holding him by her braid she half led,
half dragged him away. To the right
was one of those sudden depressIons
in the ground caused by the
subsistence of the earth from
hidden springs and the uprooting of one
or two Of the larger trees. When she
had forced him down this declivity be
low the level of the needle-strewn forest
floor, she seated him upon messy root,
and shaking out her skirts in a half child
like, half coquettish way, comfortably
seated herself in his lap, with her arm
supplementing the clinging braid around
his neck.
"Now bark to me, and don t holler so
loud - she said, turning his face to her
questioning eyes. "What's gone of you,
anyway, niger boy?' 1t should be
promised that Cressy's terms of endear-
ment were mainly negro dialectical,
"reminiscences of her brief babyhood, her
slave nurse, and the only playmates she
had ever known.
Still implacable, the master coldly re-
peated the counts of his indictment
against the girls strange Indifference
and still stranger entanglements, wind
ing up by setting forth the whole story of |
his interview with her mother, his en-
forced defense of the barn. Seth IS out
spoken accusation, and their silent and |
furious struggle in the loft But if |
he had expected that this daughter !
of south western fighter would |
betray any enthusiasm over her lovers |
participation in one of their characteristic
he looked for any fond praise |
for his own proves, he was bitterly mis- !
taken. She loosened her arm from his |
neck of her own accord, unwound the |
braid, and. putting her two little hands |
clasped between her knees, crossed her
small feet before her, and, albeit still in
his lap, looked the picture Of languid de-
lection.
"Maw ought to have more sense, and
you ought to have lit out through the
window after me, she said with lazy