The star. (Reynoldsville, Pa.) 1892-1946, 1899-01-25
THE MAKESHIFT OF JONAS KEMP.
BY Annie Hamilton Donnell.
wwrw1yf U u Tr y ~ NJ ~ " EB

room the barred shelves aud the un.
wonted Inflow of sunshine across them
appealed dumbly to him, aud Jonas
answered as dumbly. His scanned
old face turned doggodly away from
the windows, and the pain on it was
only yisible to the faint, sweet face
of Alwilda looking ont of the daguer-
reotype ON the wall. Carissa's keen
eyes did not see it,
Twenty years divided Jonas and
Clarissa Kemp, and Clarissa was not
| young. She had tailored and stitched
away all her young years in her small
village shop before she came. lt had
been IL seven days wonder to Clarissa's
| friends aud twice thrice that to
| Clarissa herself, that abe had locked
her shop door aud gone TO the minis
| to IS with Jonas Kemp.
Aitor 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, bat tobacco
--faughl SO Jonas had his evening
smoke under the stars, o., rainy
/ nights, sitting on the saw-horse in
the woodshed. Alwilda had "iked"
the smell of his pipe. Heaven forgive
the gentle little prevarication!
When Jonas went in again at early
bedtime the heap of pots aud bruised
plants was cleared neatly away. aud
Jonas had the rug, we'll shake under
his arm. He spread il with precise
painstaliing in exactly it's place on the
sitting room floor.
81 found it out by the back door,
Clarissy," he said gently.
"Um-m-m," mumbled Clarissa. a lit
tie taken aback. And that was all
that was ever said about the plants.
After that, ii Clarissa had not boon
occupied continually with keeping the
house ''unlittered" aud most spotless-
! ly prim, she would have taken notice
that Jonas stayed good deal-some-
where re-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
aud crimson fuchsias. Rough deal
shelves stretched behind the cob
webbed paues, 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
Alwilda saw them.
Another thing Clarissa might have
noticed was how long the old pine lay
untouched on the kitchen mantel.
Jonas went out to his evening smoke
night after night-without It'll II it
had been his way to say things he
might have said that when ones plants
have been destroyed ruthessly one
must replace them somehow even if
one must buy them with the tobacco
one misses filing 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 Clarissa's curious eyes, with
a queer, humpy load ''in behind"
"Humph! Now 1 wonder what
Jonas IS got all tucked up in behind, "
Clarissa would muse, cycling suspicious
ly the humps. 'Tisn't grain an
tisn't critters-live ones anyway. And
he couldn't We got 'em il 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 curious aud the knobby,
covered leads ''in 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 transtigure 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
ana yellow rags slide out of her Ian
and curl like brilliant serpent at her
feet. Jonas ''came in" SO seldom.
lately, except to his meals. She hard.
ly saw his unsmilng old face from
morning to night, for she had formed
the habit OF setting his dinner out on
the meal chest in the porch aud let.
, ting him eat italone. Her own Dime,