The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1890-11-26

49, 49, " HAS'
The racing pell-mcll overhead might
have sounded like colts let loose but for
girlish shouts and laughter.
"Goodness, what noisc!" Olive said,
as Lolly handed her the box of summer
savory. Dan will be torn to pieces
unless he turns upon them"
'sHe said the letter I brought him
was from his best girl and they're tryin'
to get it away from him." explained
Lolly.
Olive was preparing her stufing with
keen housewifely instinct as to relative
quantities of seasons" required. The
creature to be stuffed stood on all fours
on table. Not commonplace turkey
but pink-nosed little pig was to grace
the occasion of her nephew Dams unex-
pected return home after Sailing the seas
over" seven wears without word to his
relatives.
"Won't piggy roast lovely brown"
Lolly said, as she watched the stufing
disappear.
YES, Dan will have Thanksgiving
lSslSU lulS SCCl, aSSShhSo NAA'S'
The racket overhead increased. "If
they could always keep heart-whole, Z"
Olive thought with little sigh. "But
We get our growth through suffering, 1
suppose"
A concealed regret, which had fashion
OF working to the surface on festive
occasions, was uppermost just now. But
she was blithe, CHEEKY little woman
with a talent for battling off dull
thoughts, and so she laughed and said
lightly: "Those girls make me think I
am young again, Lolly."
As she spoke her eye wandered across
the brown meadow to the Elcnwood
homestead and then beyond it to the
white house on the hill among the
larches, where Squire Ashton lived whom
her friends wondered she did not marry.
What was she waiting for? She was
thirty-six now, fair and comely in COM
parison with some of the faded married
women around her who had been
her schooimates, but it would not always
be SO fine to live alone on the old home
stead as she had done since her fathers
death. Offers of marriage would not
come to her door always. Her own view
of the matter had begun to coincide with
that of her friends. Squire Ashton was
widower of fifty, of kindly, noble
nature, whom she liked cordially. He
had wooed her two years, until now she
was losing patience with her own in
decision. Why was she hesitating? To
be sure his presence never quickened her
even pulses, but why should she expect
the tumultuous expression of an earlier
love2
She had been on the border of saying
"yes' to his pleading at the very mo-
ment Dams vigorous summons with the
old-fashioned knocker on the front door
had brought her out from the parlor in
hurry, to be caught in the arms of her
rowing nephew in regular sailor "hug."
"Wait until Thanksgiving" she had
said to Squire Ashton, removing her de-
cision a week ahead.
Meantime, the six girls were chasing
Dan round under the brown cobweb-
hung rafters, he holding the letters
aloft.
Catch him! Head him off there''
they shouted.
Presently Dan, big, brown and full of
true sailor jollity, changed from de-
fensive to aggressive tactics. He set
Bess on top of the spider-legged bureau
- in bed of Dust, tied Clara by the waist
to tall, four-posted bedstead with his
handkerchief ard seized pair of old
quilting frames to defend himself against
Sue and Kate. His free motions with
the "belaying pins" brought Il swinging
shelf of books to the floor, and ''Robin-
son Crusoe," "Gulliver's Travels, VI
"Paradlsc Lost" and other classics
sprawlcd amid heap of dog-eared
schoolbooks in the dust.
II see letter slipping out from Robin
son Crusoc!" Bcss cried from her perch.
Sue picked it up and turned it over.
"Why, it's addressed to Miss Olive
Blossom and it's never been opened !" she
exclaimed. "It looks awful old and yel-
low"
Dan examined it, then compared the
handwriting with that on his own let
ter.
"Thc same, or I'm a landlubber," he
1nuttercd.
"Likcly it's an old love letter." Clara
suggested from her bedpost.
''And she never go! it, just as happens
in story books" !" added Kate. LET us
put it under her dinner plate"
"No! nonf was Sues veto. "Give it
to me. have an idea. Quick. Shes
coming up"
ooh, it was the bookcase. thought
some one was hurt said Olive, entering
as Sue dashed out past her. "Poor
father! how he used to pore over these
books. she continued as she stopped to
pick them up. "Hc had Paradise Lost
and Robinson Crusoe' by heart, I be-
iieve."
"Did he ever use them for letter
boxes!n Bess called from the top of the
bureau. .... ...... ......--..--
"HHsh!s said Kate warningly,
bat do you mean 9, asked 0liyes