Belding banner. (Belding, Mich.) 1889-1918, 1899-11-16
"A Tnur Story
Nf a. u. 21uu

His suggestion seemed, / say, an i'm
possible dream to her that day, but the
next day they talked about il again,
and it was strangely less impossible
AT first we should take food, said
Denton. 1--WE could carry food for 10
or IL days. Ii was an age of compact,
artificial nourishment. and such pro-
vision had none of the unwieldy sug-
gestion it would have had in the nine
teenth century.
"But-until our house " she asked
''until it was ready. where should we
sleepY"
1T is summer.
'But-what do you meanf"
There was a time when there were
no houses in the world; when all man
kind slept always in the open air. -
"But for usl The emptinessl No
walls. no ceilingl"
Dear" he said, Sin London you
have many beautiful ceilings Artists
paint them and stud them with lights.
But l have seen ceiling more beauti-
full than any in London"
"But whereP''
ut is the ceiling under which we
two would be alone"-
"You mean
Dear" he said, cit is something
the world has forgotten. 1t is heaven
and all the host of stars. "
Each time they talked the thing
seemed more possible and more desir-
able to them. In week or 30 it was
quite possible. Another week. and il
was the inevitable thing they had to
do. A great enthusiasm for the country
seized hold of them and possessed them.
The sordid tumult of the town, they
said, overwhelmed them. They mar
veled that this simple way out of their
troubles had never come upon them be-
fore
One morning near midsummer day
there was new minor official upon the
flying stage, and Denton place was to
know him no more.
Our two young people had secretly
married and were going forth manfully
out of the city in which they and their
ancestors before them had lived all
their days. She wore a new dress of
white cut in an old fashioned pattern,
and he had bundle of provisions strap
ped athwart his back, and in his hand
he carried-rather shamefacedly, it is
true, and under his purple cloak-an
implement of archaic form, a cross
hilted thing of tempered steel.
Imagine that going forth In their
days the sprawling suburbs of Victorian
times, with their vile roads, petty
houses, foolish little gardens of shrub
and geranium, and all their futile pre-
tentious privacies, had disappeared.
The towering buildings of the new age,
the mechanical ways, the electric and
water mains all came to an end togeth-
er like a wall, like cliff near 400 feet
high, abrupt and sheer. All about the
city spread the carrot, swede and turnip
fields of the food company, vegetables
that were the basis of a thousand varied
foods, and weeds and hedge tangles had
been utterly extirpated. The incessant
expense of wedding that went on year
after year in the petty, wasteful and
barbaric farming of the ancient days,
the food company had economical for
ever by campaign of determination.
Here and there, however, neat rows
Of bramble standards and apple trees
with whitewashed stems intersected the
fields, and at places groups Of gigantic
teasles reared their favored spikes.
Here and there huge agricultural ma
chimes hunched under waterproof GOV
ers. The mingled waters of the Wey
and Mole and Wandle ran in rectangu-
lar channels, and wherever gentle
elevation of the ground permitted a
fountain of deodorized sewage distrib-
uted its benefits athwart the land and
made rainbow of the sunlight.
BY great archway in that enormous
city wall emerged the Eadhamite road
to Portsmouth, swarming in the morn
ing sunshine with an enormous traffic
bearing the blue clad servants of the
food company to their toil-a rushing
traffic, beside which they seemed two
scarce moving dots. Along the outer
tracks hummed and ratified the tardy
little old fashioned motors of such as
had duties within 30 miles or so of the
city. The inner ways were filled with
vaster Notwithstanding monocycles
bearing score of men, lank multicy-
Gle, quadricycles sagging with heavy
loads, empty gigantic produce carts
that would come back again filled be-
fore the sun was setting, all with throb-
bling engines and noiseless wheels and
perpetual wild melody of horns and
gongs.
Along the very verge of the outer
most way our young people went in ST.
lence. newly wed and oddly shy of one
another's company. Many were the
things shouted to them as they tramped
along, for in 2100 foot passenger on
an English road was almost as strange
sight as a motor car would have been
in 1900 But they went on with stead
fast eyes into the country, paying no
heed to such cries. Golfers Weekly.