People's voice. [volume] (Wellington, Sumner County, Kansas) 1890-1917, 1893-06-02

form outside. Above them a wooden
ledge or cornice, projecting several
inches, ran the whole length of the
building. II was on this that Miss Sally
had evidently found a foothold while
she was mailing up trellis work of laths
between it and the windows of the sec
ond floor. CORTLAND found the ladder,
mounted to the ledge, followed by the
young girl, who smilingly waved his
proffered hand to help herup, and the two
gravely set to work. But in the inter-
walls of hammering and tying up the
vines, Miss Sally's tongue was not idle.
Her talk was as fresh, as quaint, as
original as herself, and yet so practical
and to the purpose of Courtland's visit,
as to excuse his delight in it and her
own fascinating propinquity. Whether
she stopped to take nail from between
her pretty lips when she spoke to him
or whether holding on perilously with
one hand to the trellis while she ges-
ticulated with the hammer, pointing out
the divisions of the plantation from her
coign of vantage, she was as clear and
convincing to his intellect as she was
.distracting TO his senses.
She told him how the war had broken
up their old home in Pineville, sending
her father to serve in the confederate
councils of Richmond, leaving her aunt
and herself to manage the property
alone; how the estate had been devas-
tated, the house destroyed, and how
they had barely time to remove few
valuables; how although she had always
been opposed to secession, and the war,
she had not gone north, preferring to
stay with her people and take with them
the punishment Of the folly she had
foreseen. Now after the war and her
fathers death she and her aunt had de-
termined to reconstruct Themselves"
after their own fashion on this bit Of
property which had survived their for
tunes because it had always been con-
sidered valueless and improbable for
negro labor. How at first they had I'M
dergone serious difficulty through the
incompetence and ignorance of the
freed laborer and the equal apathy and
prejudice of their neighbors. How they
had gradually succeeded with the adop-
ton of new methods and ideas that she
herself had conceived, which she now
briefly and clearly stated. CORTLAND
listened with new, breathlcss and al
most superstitious interest; they were
his O1rn heOries-perfected and demon
strated
But you must have had capital for
this?"
All yes! that was where they were
fortunate. There were some French
cousins with whom she had once stayed
in Paris, who advanced enough to start
the estate There were some English
friends of her father's-old blockade
runners-who had taken shares, pro-
vided them with more capital and i'm
ported some skilled laborers and kind
of steward or agent to represent them
But they were getting on, and perhaps
it was better for their reputation with
their neighbors that they had not been
behO'den to the moth. Seeing a cloud
pass over Courtland's face, the young
lady added with an affected sigh and
the first touch of feminine coquetry
which had invaded their wholesome
camaraderie:
"Yo' ought to have found US out be-
fore, connie"
For an impulsive moment CORTLAND
felt like telling her then and there the
story of his romantic quest; but the re-
Election that they were standing on a
narrow ledge with no room for the emo
tons and that Miss Sally had just put a
nail in her mouth and start might be
dangerous, checked him. To this may
be added a new jealousy of her previous
experiences which he had not felt be-
fore. Nevertheless he managed to say
with some effusion:
''But | hope we are not too late nOv.
l think my principals are quite ready
and able to buy up any English or
French investor now or to come"
"Yo' might try yo' hand on that one"
said Miss Sally, pointing to young fell
low who had just emerged from the Of
fee and was crossing the courtyard.
Hes the English agent"
He was square shouldered and round
headed, fresh and clean looking in his
white fannels, but with an air of being
utterly distinct and alien to everything
around him and mentally and morally