The Colfax chronicle., 1900-06-23
OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES
5 The Yellow Tomatoes S
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adopted country he hdu tir iShSieJ "
sitting opposite little girl with freck-
les aud blue eyes. Her name was Ber-
tha Henderson, which was difficult
name for Dominicus to remember.
But it was not at all hard for him to
remember the dear little girl with
freckles. She wore tiny black tassels
at the top of her shoes, and white
aprons. ruffied and tied upon the shoul-
ders with large, airy-looking bows, and
the ends of her smooth braids were
tied with ribbons now the color of the
violet and now the color of the rose.
Dominicus said to himself that in
Amsterdam he had never known any
little girl so freckied and so dear.
II wish she would look at me"
thought little Dominicus Van Brunt.
But he thought it in Dutch, although
when he spoke aloud he managed to
make himself understood in English.
II must be confessed that little Amer
lean children are too egotistical to be
polite. Thinking as they do that they
are nodded on the right pattern, they
are inclined to regard all children diff
fering from them as curiosities. They
considered the round faced Dutch boy,
with his shy ways and deferential man
ner to the teacher, a strange little fish
indeed. And no one in all the school
was more amused than the dainty
Bertha, who looked at him covertly out
of her gray-blue eyes. However, she
did not laugh at him. So Dominicus.
who did not know that she was amused,
and who perceived only her aspect of
gravity, thought her kinder than the
rest and was grateful. If only she
would have spoken to him, or looked
at him as if she were his friend, he
would have had nothing more to ask
he could even have been patient with
that terrible English language which
everyone around him was jabbering.
He determined to do something to
call the attention of his freckled
hearts-own to himself, and one day he
hurried into the schoolroom the first
minute the doors were opened and laid
three pear-shaped yellow tomatoes on
her desk. The scholars came, saw the
pretty vegetables and had little trouble
in deciding from what source the trib-
ute came. For who else in a fashion
able suburb would have yellow to-
matoes, except the son of the Dutch
gardener? The school indulged in un-
restrained giggling, but Bertha, in
stead of participating, shot defiance
from her gray-blue eyes, and, turning
with an adorable smile toward Domin-
icus, carefully fitted one of the yellow
tomatoes into her red mouth, and de-
voured it in the Same spirit in which a
loyal subject drinks to his king. 1t
was evident that Dominicus had been
right. Bertha was different from the
others. His happiness stained the
boys amiable face scarlet, and while
the other boys jeered at him number
of them felt distinct pang of jealousy.
They were quite alive to the extraor-
dinary favor which had been shown
him.
From that day on Bertha, the daugh-
ter of a prosperous lawyer and little
maid distinctly conscious of her social
opportunities, and Dominicus, the son
of the man who raised garden truck,
were friends. There came day when
Bertha, having reached the proud age
of ten, gave birthday party on her
fathers lawn, and insisted on having
Dominicus among her guests-a fa-
nous day for Dominicus, in which he
saw his princess in all the glory of her
best white frock, with her hair crimped
down her back, and had the rapture
of eating cream tarts in her company.
But there was yet prouder day in
which Dominicus was permitted to re-
turn this social attention, and was al
lowed to invite Bertha and three other
friends TO the snowy kitchen of his
home back of the garden, where the
mother of Dominicus sang beautiful
songs to them in language they could
not understand, and fed them with
crnllers and grape juice. Bertha
thought she had never seen any room
SO charming as this kitchen. with its
racks of blue plates, its shining pans.
and its illuminated notices upon the
wall.
Bertha was not more than 12 when
she was sent to private school, and
as the years went by she saw people
of quite different sort from Domin-
icus and his father and mother. and
ought, probably, to have forgotten all
about them. But it is an undeniable
fact-though it may have shown some
evidences of vulgarity in her nature
that all the years that she was occu-
pied with other matters, such as
boarding school and summer resorts,
and coming out" and the gayeties of
winter in the city. she remembered
that curious kitchen, and the people
who lived in it, and wondered where
they had gone. For it happened that
one autumn, after returning from the
seashore, Bertha had discovered that
the house back of the garden was
empty. 1t had been sad moment for
her. She had felt the tears come to