The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 18??-1935, 1898-02-18
NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS.


for it. But no woman had anything to do
with the reotory. The Rev. Mr. Smiles
only servant was a doddering old man.
The rector prepared his own meals, except
when he was invited to tea by some old
lady who pitied his lonely, indigestion
breeding existence.
Not that the Rev. Wetherby Smiles was
a woman hater, but MI Smiles was very
high church indeed. Unfortunately ST.
James and the parish and the people were
very poor The good people liked the Rev.
Mr.. Smiles and tried to follow his sug-
gestions upon high church usages But
there are people, you know, whom you
couldn't make high church with jack
screw The communicates of st. James
were mostly farmers and small tradesmen.
The rector felt that the clergy, to be
| able to give their whole time and thought
to their work, should live lives of celibacy.
lie had felt at times strong drawing to-.
ward some ecclesiastical order in which
such vows would be necessary Then he
could wear some outward sign of his vows,
and the young women Of his parish would
not fall in love with him. The rector was
young and good looking. He had been in
his present pastorate six months, and he
had already had an experience.
The young rector lived with his books,
occasionally taking little recreation in
the garden. The roses disappeared, the
leaves fell and left the clinging vines bare,
and the snow covered the prim little beds
In the rectory garden Thus year of his
pastorate closed and the spring drew near.
The Rev. Wetherby Smiles from his
study window could look across his garden
| plot and see the brown earth warming in
the spring sunshine and the trees and
bushes slowly bursting into leaf. Nature
is always most attractive in the spring,
and nature in a thousand ways, with bud
and leaf and warming earth and white
tlecked sky and sweet air, wooed him
from his books.
He looked across his garden, say And
across the garden beyond the low hedge
was another garden, which in summer
was full of color He had noticed the bril-
liant hued beds the year before, but now
the only bit of color was pale blue morn.
ing robe that fitted about the Enclosure
To tell the truth, the rector had seldom
noticed that morning gown or the little
woman inside 1t before But it pleased
his fancy now to look across the hedge and
watch his neighbor He recalled that his
old major domo had told him the cottage
next the parsonage was occupied by a
widowed lady--a lonely creature who had
taken up her abode there but shortly be-
fore the Rev. Mr.. Smiles was settled over
St James. He remembered the little fig
ure in black in one of the side pews, point
cd out to him by the clerk as "Mrs. Scor-
ritch, and probably had not given her a
Thought or glance afterward.
However, he saw so much of the pale
blue gown that first warm week in spring
that he looked for the little widow in her
pew the next Sabbath She had laid aside
her weeds and was dressed in some soft,
clinging, fawn colored material, that made
her look like very demure little moth.
And she had the sweetest face in the world
at least the sweetest face in the Rev.
Wetherby Smiles world.
On Monday morning the clerical black
! appeared in the rectory garden almost as
soon as the pretty morning robe appeared
over the hedge The demure little face
dimpled and smiled Under it's garden hat
ut the rector's approach, and the widow
nodded brightly.
"You are early at your gardening this
spring, Mrs. Scorritch, he said.
Eyes But 1t is so warm, - she replied
in defense. II am expecting my croouses
to appear any day now. /"
I'm afraid we shall see some frost yet,
Mrs Scorritch, said the rector.
NNou don,f 70 t,af xpary 7 bor,
cried the little woman, clasping her hands,
inclosed in long wristed and particularly
well fitting gauntlets. "Just suppose my
crocuses should come up and be frost Bit
ten! Oh, the thought is too awful"
81 sincerely hope you will not be disap.
pointed, but this climate is uncertain. -
After that the young rector often found
1t quite necessary for his health to work
in his garden while the blue gown fitting
like butterfly from rose tree to vine and
from vine to hedgerow was In evidence In
the neighboring yard. Really, after porting
over musty theological tones all winter,
man must get some freshness in his soul
and new blood in his heart
The gardening went on apace, and the
treacherous warm weather continued.
Many were the conferences held across the
hedge regarding the proper pruning of rose
trees, the planting of hardy seeds and the
preparation of the beds Of earth. The rec
tor had never suspected there was SO much
detail to the business of gardening.
One morning, just after warm night
rain, the Rev. Mr.. Smiles was called to
the hedge by little cry from his neighbor.
"They are comingl' she cried in de-
light. See, here is the dearest little blade
of green pushing up through the mold,
and there Is another-and another just
look at theml"
The rector found it necessary to leap the
hedge (he had been something of an athlete
at the university anu certainly this spring
weather was sending the blood coursing
through his veins quite like old times) and
look at th , orocus bed.
"They are such lovely Ones" she said
earnestly. ~ don't believe you noticed
them at all last spring. Che pronounced
maledctions upon himself for having been
so blind as to miss so much beauty the
previous season., "but they will be even
better this year-if we don't have that hor-
rid frost you have been prophesying.
She looked up at him roguishly, and it
suddenly crossed the young rector's mind
that several yellowish green points of GRO
GUS blade, breaking the damp soil, made
far prettier picture than the finest rose
bush in full bloom which he had ever seen.
1t was strange fact and one he had never
discovered before.