Phillipsburg herald. [volume] (Phillipsburg, Kan.) 1882-1905, 1892-10-06
CHAPTER L

Never had there been September
like that in all the autumns Of judith
Crest's life. The last day she went
out to a little knoll edged by sycamore
trees, only to gaze about the farm for
the sheer Joy of possession Yet she
was not used to love the farm; born a
timid and gregarious soul, she was OPP
pressed by solitude. For twenty-five
years that long hedge of poplars had
looked to her as she fancied a prison
stockade might look to a convict. Her
eyes Wearied of the billOwy levels,
tossing like an ocean ABOUT the trim
four-roomed house and huge, implanted
barns; they wearied of the dusty cur
rant bushes and the unfruitful orchard.
Most Of all they wearied Of the one
everlasting, relentless face of nature.
Therefore she spent hours daily nurs
ing a pitiful little show Of flowers such
as had grown in the moist seashore gar
dens Of her youth, and wilted under
the fierce Iowa summers. Indoors,
she cut out pictures from the Illus
trated journals that at rare intervals
came into her hands, and pasted them
on her upholstered walls. She learned
to make paper flowers. She hankered
after the dazzling but unattainab1e love-
illness Of wax flowers in oval glass cases.
She subscribed to a weekly household
magazine named the Homestead, read
ing, in her hunger for cOmpanionship,
the correspondence column" wherein
subscribers exchanged impartially their
domestic trials, their spiritual, wrest-
hngs, the puzzles of rural etiquette, and
the best fashions of washing blankets or
raising a sponge"
Occasionally, in that oft-studied col
umn, would appear a paragraph like
this: Il would like to ask the sister
from Mari if she makes her chocolate
frosting with the whites of eggs or boils
it, and please send a receipt for pre-
venting rabbits gnawing the rosebushes.
~LUCETTA.
Or: L dearly love to get the Home
stead. I enjoy all the sisters say. Err
mimic writes most beautifully Please
write again, Erminie. and let US know
how to bear our crosses in the right
spirit. I would be obliged, also, for a
remedy how to prevent hair falling out.
~LUCETTA.
When she read these Mrs. Crest would
blush with pleasure and feel the intoxi-
eating delights of fame, for she was
Lucetta.
But for most of the time there was
only work to break the loneliness. To
be sure, there was plenty of work and
had been all through the twenty-five
years. Joshua, her husband, was good
farmer, but for long while ~unmerciful
disaster followed fast and followed
faster;" once. he had been swept clean
of all save hope by eye one; once, he
had escaped only by hairsbreadth los
ing his farm through the fraud of a
friend.
twenty-five years ago he had said:
''Never mind, Judy, just let me make a
few thousand dollars and you shan't
have to work on the farm. I'll sell out
and buy store in town and be post
master
All his life Joshua had Gravel the Ieis-
urely honOrs of office He, too, was
social; he liked to talk, and he had
gift for telling stories. How many
times in the years those two simple
creatures had stocked that store I will
night. They bought q book on book
keeping and an arithmetic, and it was
(but principle would not allow anything
so like game on Sunday an exciting
diversion to practice making change
with the numbered counters of paste
board left by a tramping farm hand.
They did not dream that the dingy red
and blue and white disks were no less
than wicked poker chips. Judith hacked
them into the proper sizes and num-
bered them neatly, so that they repre-
sequence, Mrs. Crest's extraordinary
swiftness and accuracy in changing a
dollar for, say, three dozen eggs at ia
cents a dozen, or three pounds Of butter
at % cents a pound, were the marvel OF
the Delmar shopkeepers. From coin to
bank notes the transition is easy-in
theory; a scarcity of notes made it less
easy in practice, but by dint of years
study the pair came to know the look
nd faa1 Of honIr nra nall nrnIrrrh
enable Joshua to detect a very poor
counterfeit 50 bill at a county fair
From that day dated a reputation fol
shrewdness that he no more deserved
than he did the gallows.
But the years slowly had dragged
hope and dreams away together. The
little children came; they died, one
after another, and the desolate mothe
felt, deep down in her heart, that doc
tor near enough to come daily nigh
have saved them. Then, when tn
keeness of their grief was blunted anC
they went for comfort to their oil
fancies, time and again their saving
had been wrenched from them. TIL
man would have given up the fight il
despair, but the woman chung to he
shadowy hopes the more tenaciously
Finally, their patience and industr
conquered. The great crop of 1891 ha
amount necessary to pay of the last in
stallment Of the mortgage; they woul
actually have some hundreds in money
Six thousand dollars and over stood
Joshua Crest's credit at the bank.
only" said Judith to MyrOn Dwigh
4 cayn't help telling kinder scary ii
the Sd of October is past and gone.
Myron was considered the elevere'
young man in Delmar or in the count.
He had been to Iowa City to the un
Eersity; he went every year to Ch
eago to buy his goods, which added
his knowledge of the world and improve
his toilets; he was talked about for Il
Legislature. He was to be Joshua
partner Myron was almost like sc
to Judith She had loved him, pett'
him. prayed for MIN, and no one exec
his mother knew so well what things
liked best 10 eat. Myron's mother w
Judith's best friend-why should nal
a secret Of it?-she WAS the admir-
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