Sullivan republican. [volume] (Laporte, Pa.) 1883-1896, 1890-11-21

III III IL PIE.
The racing pell-mell overhead might
have sounded like colts let loose but for
girish shouts and laughter.
Goodness, what noise!" Olive said,
as Lolly handed her the box of summer
savory. dan will be torn to pieces
unless he turns upon them"
.'Hc said the letter 1 brought him
was from his best girl and they're tryin'
to get it away from him." explained
Lolly.
Olive was preparing her stuffing with
keen housewifely instinct as to relative
quantities of seasons" required. The
creature to be stuffed stood on all fours
on "A table. Not commonplace turkey
but arpink-nosed little pig was to grace
the occasion of her nephew Dams unex-
pected return home after sailing the seas
over seven years without a word to his
relatives.
won't piggy roast lovely brown!"
Lolly said, as she watched the stuffing
disappear.
''Yes, Dan will have Thanksgiving
feast this year" assented Olive.
The racket overhead increased "If
they could always keep heart whole, "
Olive thought with little sigh ''But
we get our growth through suffering, /
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 talent for battling off dull
thoughts, and so she laughed and said
lightly: "Those girls make me think /
am young again, Lolly."
As she spoke her eye wandered across
the brown meadow to the Ellenwood
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 forg She was
thirty-six now, fair and comely in COM
parison with some Of the faded married
women around her who had been
her schoolmates, 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
II 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
love?
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 week ahead.
Meantime, the six girls were chasing
Dan round under the brown cobweb-
hung rafters, he holding the letters
aloft
.sCatch him. Head him off there!'
they shouted.
Presently Dan. plg. 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 a tall, posted bedstead with his
handkerchief and seized IA pair of old
quitting frames to defend himself against
Sue and Kate. His free motions with
the Delaying pins" brought swinging
shelf Of books to the floor, and ''Robin
sou Crusoe," "Gulliver's Travels,
Paradise Lost" and other classics
sprawled amid a heap Of dog-earet
schooibooks in the dust.