Republican news item. [volume] (Laport, Pa.) 1896-19??, 1899-02-09
THE MAKESHIFT OF JONAS KEMP.
BY Annie Hamilton Donnell.

room the barred shelves and the un-
wonted inflow of sunshine across them
appealed dumbly to him, and Jonas
answered as dumbly. His scanned
old face turned doggedly away from
the windows, and the pain on it was
only visible to the faint, sweet face
of Alwilda looking out of the daguer-
reotype on the wall. Clarissa's keen
eyes did not see it.
Twenty years divided Jonas and
Clarissa Kemp, and Clarissa was not
young. She had tailored aud stitched
away all her young years in her small
village shop before she came. 1t had
been aseven days wonder to Clarissa's $
friends and twice thrice that to
Clarissa herself, that she had locked
her shop door and gone to the minis
ter's with Jonas Kemp.
After supper that night Jonas did
his chores and took down his pipe.
Clarissa permitted no smoking in
doors-pipes were even worse than
mess O. littering plants. You could
abide the smell of flowers, but tobacco
-faughl So Jonas had his evening
smoke under the stars, or, rainy
nights, sitting on the saw-horse in
the woodshed. Alwilda had 'liked"
the smell of his pipe. Heaven forgive
the gentle little prevarication!
When Jonas went IN again at early
bedtime the heap of pots and bruised
plants was cleared neatly away, and
Jonas had the rug, we'll shaken, under
his arm. He spread it with precise
painstaking in exactly its place on the
sitting room floor.
Il found it out by the back door,
Clarissy," " he said gently.
"Um-m-m," mumbled Clarissa, lit
1tle taken aback. And that was all
that was ever said about the plants.
After that, if Clarissa had not been
occupied continually with keeping the
house ''unlittered" and most spotless-
ly prlm, she would have taken notice
that Jonas stayed a good deal-some-
where-out-of-doors. He spent rare
minutes only in his old place beside
the sitting room window. And pass
ers-by-if there had been any passers-
by--on the grassy cross road that ran
past the old, unpainted Kemp barn
would have looked curiously at the
big barn windows. There were two
of them, and both were a-bloom with
red geraniums and gay with purple
and crimson fuchsias. Rough deal
shelves stretched behind the cob
webbed panes, and every one was
brightly tenanted.
But passers-by were few, and Clarissa
never passed by. Her way, when she
went abroad, was by the wider main
road that ran uphill and down again
to town. Clarissa never went to the
barn. Jonas Kemp and the cows, the
great barn cat and Dennis were the
only ones that saw the red geraniums
blooming bravely in the barn win
dows-unless, who can tell?-unless
Alwilda saw them.
Another thing Clarissa might have
noticed was how long the old pipe lay
untouched on the kitchen mantei.
Jonas went out to his evening smoke
night after without it! If it
had been his way to say things he
might have said that when ones plants
have been destroyed ruthlessly one
must replace them somehow even if
one must buy them with the tobacco
one misses filling the old pipe with.
And that would have explained the
times of late that Jonas had driven
alone to the little city down the river
and come back, past Clarissa's win
dow and Clarissas curious eyes, with
queer, humpy load Sin behind"
'Humph Now wonder what
Jonas s got all tucked up in behind"
Clarissa would muse, eyeing suspicious
]y the humps. 'Tisn't grain an
tisn't critters-liye ones anyway. And
he couldn't We got 'em if they were
alive, not without my knowing where
the money had gone to-
But Clarissa had not put her Gu
rious thoughts into questions, and the
times of being curicas and the knobby,
covered leads Gin behind" Jonas had
gone by together. She was very busy
all the late summer and early fall sew
ing rags for her gay new carpet that
was to transfgure the dull little cor
ner parlor where nobody went and
nobody wanted to go.
One afternoon, as she sewed, she
heard Jonas plodding feet tap slowly
up the walk and Jonas heavy breath
keeping time to the taps. What in
land OF goodness was Jonas coming in
that time O. day for? 1t was SO un-
usual that Clarissa let the strip Of red
and yellow rags slide out of her lap
and curl like brilliant serpent at her
feet. Jonas ''came i'm so seldom.
lately, except to his meals. She hard
ly saw his unsmiling old face from
morning to night, for she had formed
the habit of setting his dinner out on
the meal chest in the porch and let