The Appeal. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. ;) 1889-19??, 1899-01-28

leek in patches of green; a house with
long, low rooms, furniture that shone
with beeswax and elbow-grease, and
beds whose coarse homespun linen sheets
,smelled of lavender. H. y Pr
There were, indeed, two lavender-bushes
IN tho garden, as we'll as roses and
stocks sweet clover-pmks and ''old
man." The farm was stocked with in
teresting live creatures-cows, pigs,
chickens, turkeys and pigeons; there
!. We're sheep dotting the downs behind the
~ house and from the front winduWss,
across the orchard, where the apples were
beginning to grow hard and round you
could see the long, shining, blue line OF
the sea.
Mabel Roscommon liked that sea-line.
and she liked the garden, the orchard,
and the rest of it-all but the turkeys.
She was little afraid of these, because
she was by profession highschool teach
er. and had been taught how to manage
children but not how to manage turkeys
An art by the way, much simpler. Now
she had come to the farm for her sum-
mer holidays. To be alone was new to
her, for she was one of a large family;
and to be for whole weeks in this coun-
try was new to her too, for she had
never before oren near the sea for more
than a week at a time. The down.
country was to her a revelation.
She had a big srttingroom r to herself,
and shared the simple meals of the
farmer and his wife. The laborers and
the maids ate at the lower end OF the
long table. Mabel thought it was SUCH
a nice plant reminded her somehow
of the feudal system. The digniaed SIM
phc:y of farm life appealed to her. Grad
ually passion of love awoke in her for
the little ordinary useful everyday
things-the needful work repeated at the
appropriate hour, the changing magic OF
morn and noon and evening, the restful
distances Of down and sea, the intimate
fairgrounds of hedge and orchard. At
first she read a good deal, but graually
more and more time was spent with Mrs.
Fry. Mabel followed her in and out to
the dairy to the kitchen, to feed the
pigs. to collect the eggs. And the eyes
of the faded, mddle-aged woman grew.
tender, though her words were always
the explanatory commonplace or the
mournful biographical.
But one day-it was the day when Miss
Roscommon first churned the butter-Mrs.
Fry sighed, and said:
my little Alice would ha' been about
your age if she'd lived I own I should
ha' dearly liked to ha' taught her to;
churn.''
1t was that night that Mabel kissed Mrs.
Fry when she said good night" and all
most wished, as she crept between the
cold, lavendered sheets that she had been
born a farmers daughter. She had dis.
covered her vocation. It was not teach!
ing. as she had steadfastly believed. norI
literature, as she had secretly dreamed; ;;
her true vocation was the pastoral life,
not to forget the great life of the world,
the hurry and hustle, the cleverness and
bravery, the wise and the great; not to
forget them-to honor them from afar,
hut to take no further part in the strife
and struggle of strenuous life; to watch
it from the safe haven Of the little life,
the quiet, ordered, placid life Of the farm.
This was her vocation-her fate was high
school teaching.
When Robert Fry came nome-the only
son of his mother. the farmers wife
Mabel shared in the hustle Of glad prep
aration that heralded his coming. Tie
YVES in business in London, but he was
coming home for his holiday, his l-other
said.
'But he hates the business she Went
en-. HE got a scholarship to go to Ok
ford, for he's very clever, my dear; but
1t was not enough to keep him there, and
1t was the year we did so badly with the
wheat. so father couldn't spare enough to
let him go; so then Bob gave In and he
said: All right, I'll go into business, for
I don't want to stay at farming So his
dIiS1S lOOh u111 lllO lIlS HleilIIiSS, NllcIc
he might be doing well; but wish he'd
never gone to school, I do, then he'd a.
been content to stay and help his father
about the old place that's belonged to the
Frys no one knows how long. You can
see their names in the churchyard."
1t was in the churchyarl, amid the
1noss-grown headstones, that Miss Ros-
common not only saw the names of many
dead ard gone Frys. but made the &C
quaintance' of the newcomer. He came
to her across the field that lay between
the house and the church. and she could
see his fair hair shining in the sun. He
was tall and handsome, she thought.
my mother sent me to tell you that
tea is ready. It's half an hour earlier
than usual. Yes, I've just come down. 1t
all seems very beautiful, after London,
doesn't it?''
Its so beautiful" said Mabel. "that
am beginning to wonder how I shall ever
be able to leave it,
He walked beside her for a while in
silence, then he said:
''You were at Girton, my mother tells
me. Don't you find this sort of thing
strange after the stirring intellectual life
there?" ~ ; ..,'
She laughed a little. -.E
uar'-she began. E.''t
81 feel so much all have missed" he
said. IF only my father had"not sown
wheat that year, ~...s-.
yes, she SAID, II know; 1t was very
hard"
She was interested in the boy, for
though he was of her own age. he seemed
to be infinitely young. His naive, blum
dering anxiety to let her see that he, too,
knew all about the intellectual life,' his
respect for her as a Girton girl, and
above all, a certain wistful sadness about
his blue eyes, stirred her half amused
. sympathy His presence seemed to prom
Use a new interest to life at the farm.
The promise was fulfilled. He attached
himself frankly to Miss Roscommon's
apron-strings-walkedw with her, drove her
in the market-cart, sat with her under
the gray apple-boughs, and talked with
out ceasing. He was we'll read was 40
quainted with modern well as classic
literature-he quoted almost necessarily.
When he was not quoting he talked of
authors, of editions, of style and of form:
How should she know that he had his
own dreams which he managed to dis
II guise under these quotations from the
dreams of others? Miss Roscommon
was the first educated woman he had
ever met, and he seemed agonizedly. anx-
ious to lose no chance of showing her
that he too had been educated that he
was not merely the foolish boy she might
have expected to find in the "son Of the
house" at a farm. At first this sensitive.
insistent egotism amused Miss ROscom-
mon, then it irritated her, and at the end
OF three days she was as near hating
Robert Fry as she had ever been to hat
ing any one-even the least-loved profess
sor at Cambridge Yet, after all, it was
not possible to Mabel quite to hate any
one nor was 1t possible that Robert Fry
should ever be by any one quite hated.
She had very manly vein Of tolerance
and he timid, appealing manner,
IN wa at loor nit