The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1891-03-20
A RASPBERRY ROMANCE.

wicker baskets, with green ZEAL covering
each.
He bought basket As he waited for
the vender to make change, the rich, deli
cate aroma of the fruit carried him back 10
barefooted boyhood, back TO the old
''rookery," beyond the burnt land"
where he and Kitty had scratched their
arms and torn their clothes, while they
had gathered their tin pals full of the rich
fruit, tumbling sometimes off fallen trees
into the brambles and broken underwood,
splitting berries and patiently filing up
again, walking hand in hand over the long
stretches of pasture on their way home,
with stained, Sunburned faces, untroubled,
SO that they had each other for company.
The recollection came fresh and sweet
into his world-weary spirit, so absorbing
his thought that he took his change,
walked to the door of his lodging house
with the basket in his hand, let himself
in, and was lighting the gas in his room in
a mechanical way before he realized that
he was the sober, rather cynical man of
the world, and that the raspberry rOOkerv
experience was more than thirty years be-
hind him.
i've g0t the start of Mrs. Buxton, but
she'll have them on the table tomorrow,
he thought when he spread his pocket
handkerchief upon his knee and
placed the little basket upon it, picnic
fashion. As he ate the berries, the sweet
memory of those careless days and Kitty,
was little saddened by contrast. Then,
all things were possible; now possibilities
had shrunken, and, worse still, distrust
and wOrldiiuess had gathered about his
heart.
Under the last layer of berries he found
scrap Of folded paper, red stained
with juice. He unfolded it with some
curiosity.
1t was a note in neat school girl hand;
"We-mOther and want a nice
boarder this summer, and am going to
advertise in a new way. We have a nice
large chamber, over a lovely garden, and
berries and cream and vegetables, and a
river and grove. Anyone who gets this
can come to Mrs. Horner's, P, n. J.
SUSIE"
Basil sat smiling over the peculiar
method of advertising. "A schoolgirls
freak" he thought Il wonder what
she's like? Wonder if the nice chamber
and cream and the rest aren't myths, and
the river muddy little brooke"
He dried the stained little missive and
put it in his pocKetbook. He closed his
eyes and filed in that outline of summer
sweetness and beauty, then awoke from
his dream to find it was midnight.
''Pshawl How gullible | am he
thought III 60 to bed and forget it."
But he didn't forget. In his wanderings
through shadowy Astral land he came upon
4 lfsrhf f,,l ~ l,1F
hidden in trees, crowning fair green up
land, 9 broad, meandeTins river, and a
gay flower garden. In connection with il
he caught glimpse of the old 'rookery"
for a moment, then that was blotted out,
and he was in dim shadowy room with a
picture of George Washington over the
mantel-piece showing strangely distinct.
while girl, with a ia'e like Kitty's, fitted
across his vision tania 'zingly. Then out
of spaces of rich purp. dimness he heard
a voice, clear and distiL-,. as in actual life,
singing:
'Cusha- Cusha. Cusha, calling,
For the dew will soon be falling,
Leave your meadow grasses, mellow, mellow,
mellow,
Come up whitefoot, come up Lightfoot,
Jetty to the milking she'd
And with those clear, strong notes, SO
unlike the much tortured "Mikado" airs
sounding in his ears, from the borderland,
he awoke.
The words haunted him. "Cusha, Cusha
Cusha, calling, was still in his ears when
a week later he got of at the p station,
and inquired the way to Mrs Horner's
The widow Horner's? Yes. Nearly a
mile up the road, through the woods.
White house on a hill"
The station master watched the stranger
out of sight. Looks like he might be
bosrder, he commented inwardly. Won
der if the widows been advertiser, she
never said nothin' about it."
Meanwhile, Basil had reached the house.
and had been admitted by mild-face
little woman Of middle age, who proved
TO be the widow Horner She was both
surprised and pleased, when she learned
that he wished 10 secure board for a few
weeks. She conducted him to a pleasant
square chamber. A great elm threw
grateful shadow over one window, while,
sure enough the other commanded view
of garden.
Il did want TO let the room" she ad-
mitted contidentially, when he had eX-
pressed himself well pleased and had given
her the advance money for month. Il
was thinking of advertising, but kept put
ting it off
Susie did that for you" thought Basil
with the question, Where is Susie?" on
tho end of his tongue
Mrs. EOTner seemed about TO make some
comment when he gave her his name, but
checked herself, and hoping that she would
be able TO suit him in everything, went
down stairs
Everything clean as a whistle a mat
treSs instead Of feathers. and George Wash
layton over the mantel- piece, by thunder,
just as | saw him in my dream, was
BaSiIs running comment
With much curiosity TO see Susie. he
went down TO dinner. Mrs. Horner sat at
the head of the table. As he took the seat
she indicated. a tall, slim young woman,
the talleSt and slimmeSt he had ever seen,
walked in and took her seat at the foot of
the table. She wore glasses, also a corn
colored Mother Hubbard, barred and cross
barred with black, and Basil, who had a
fund Of dry humor in him, got the impress
sion of a Gagged Grain peering at him
through the bars Of its prison.
He felt a sensation of relief when the
widow said. Ny niece. Mrs. Buxton" 1t
was not Susie then. He felt he could
scarcely have borne the disappointment.
No Susie at the supper table: no refer
erence made 70 her; yet he had strange
faith in the presence and sweet-Singing
voice of his dream; ne, the skeptic and
cynic.
He rose early the next morning, and
looking down upon the garden, he saw
young girl in pink cambria, with basket
on her arm, cutting flowers with pair of
scissors
''Susiei By Jove" he said to himself, as
he proceeded TO bestow extraordinary
pains upon his toilet. wondering as he
scanned his face in the mirror. if he would