Republican news item. [volume] (Laport, Pa.) 1896-19??, 1899-11-30
CUPID
I'm A
CYCLONE.

VVVVVVVVVVVVVV
Vlasta looked wistfully out of her
small-paned window, deep-set in the
heavy sod wall, and sighed.
The piles of unwashed dinner dishes
over which she was at work hardly ac-
counted for that sigh and the view
without was pleasant, rather than
otherwise.
1t was Sunday afternoon in the
late June, hot and unusually still for
that windy country, but the rolling
stretches of prairie grass and the
green fields OF young wheat and corn
still held the freshness of early
spring.
But the cloud ''no larger than a
mans hand, "is always present in some
form or other.
One was at that moment rising
lazily on the western horizon, over
the low, green hills, just faint sum
mer cloud, unseen by the girl, whose
eyes were fixed on nearer and, to
her, much more attractive object.
This, as is apt to be the case when
maidens sigh, was young man, who,
fence, some little distance away, was
busily engaged in washing his buggy,
which was rolled in front of his own
little sod house.
He was OF middle size, dark haired
and featured, like herself, and clad in
the careless costume of overal!s and
jacket of blue denim, and dingy from
exposure to sun and weather, and the
battered sombrero of light felt, which
were usual in his everyday occupation
of farming.
AS any one familiar with that part
of the country could tell at a glance,
they were young Bohemians, members
of that great army of hardy settlers
who have made homes for themselves
in the previously untitled west.
But hearts will be hearts in every
place and Juliet may pine for her
Romeo in ancient castle no more than
in humble sod house, as did this CON-
monplace little heroine, with her plain
but kindly face.
Now, by custom immemorial Sunday
is the rural holiday everywhere and it
is especially SO among our foreign
born citizens, who on that day sally
forth, clad in their best, ready for
visiting and merry making and seeing
no incongruity between church and
mass in the morning and dance in
the afternoon and evening.
So, considering this, it seemed that
the young settler, Albrecht Hollub,
should be on pleasure bent, and the
signs indicated to that so he was, or
soon should be. Herein lay the sting
which changed for her the sunshine
of that glorious June day to gloom.
For Albrecht was "going riding" in
his new buggy-going without her,
and, no doubt, with some other girl -
when it really was her place on that
seat beside him.
And had she not proudly occupied
it until that unlucky night not yet two
weeks ago, but seeming half a lifetime.
as girls short lifetime goes?
Such little thing, too, as is gener-
ally the case, to have caused all this
trouble. She was not sure how
Albrecht felt. Perhaps he was glad
to get rid of her-here two great tears
dropped into the dish pan at the
thought. Just a dance at a young
friends wedding-it being their GUS
tom for bridal party to go to a justice
or country judge to have the cere nony
performed, and then to return to the
brides home for grand ce 'ebration,
which usually lasted all night. Then
foolish quarrel, when Albrecht,
heated up by excitement and beer,
had insisted that she danced too often
with the brides elder brother. She
had refused to listen to him, of course,
with the result that he had walked out
into the darkness and had never seen
her since.
Perhaps she had sought covertly,
and, no doubt, awkwardly, to find an
opportunity of making amends, but
he had ignored or avoided her, though
they lived on adjacent claims; hence,
for her, at least. bitter days and
nights. She felt vaguely, in her sim
Pile fashion, the hardness of the
woman's code which bids her "wait
and weep" in silence. rule that has
broken many besides country hearts