Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Benton County, Or.) 1900-1909, 1900-11-20
THE NIGHTINGALE.


@ HE suburban road was gay with
the plumes of Towering lilac and
q the bright promise of laburnum.
The red buds on the May bushes had
not yet uncurled. The water cart had
just gone by, leaving pleasant scent of
wet earth.
She was leaning her arms ON the gate
and looking away from him.
80 it's no use?' he said-he also was
leaning ON the gate. The road was very
quiet except for passing tradesmen,
whose carts now and then flashed along
It's silence. He had called to bring her
a book, and she had walked with him to
the gate. He had not meant to speak
them-had indeed rehearsed many a
time declaration to be made in very
different surroundings-but she looked
so dear in her blue morning gown, the
breeze of spring played so charmingly
with that hair of hers that quite sud
denly he had spoken, and she had said
mo"
Its no use?' he repeated, for she
still kept silence, and her eyes were far
away.
mo, it's no use,'' she said. 81 couldn't
marry anyone unless 1 was so fond of
him that couldn't bear my life with
out him. That's the only excuse for
marriage"
..Then I'm not to come here any more
Il suppose 2"
sttOh, dear she said, drawing herseye1
brGws together with a worried frown,
why did you go and spoil it all? 1t was
all so pleasant! Can't you be really sens
ible? Let us go on just as we were, and
pretend that nothing has happened"
NO" he said, Il shall go away.
When one lives in lodgings they may
as well be in Putney or Kew--as here y
She thought how dull tennis and
dance and picnic would be without him,
and said stitfiy, Just as you please, of
course"
Then her face lighted up as the rattle
of hoop and hoopstick and little patter-
ing feet drew her eyes to the other side
of the road, where little girl in scar
let frock came quickly along the as
phalt, her brown hair flying behind her.
Here's Vynie-"
friend for he was friend to all chill
dren, and struck the hoop so that it
bounded on the curb and flew into the
middle of the road. The little scarlet
figure followed it. Then, in a flash, a
butchers cart from side road, a c,at-
ter, a scream, a curse, and the butcher
was refining in his horse thirty yards
ha nd LOOKING
his blue shoulder at heap of scarlet
and brown that now had crimson mixed
with it, and over which a girl in blue
gown and man in a gray suit were
bending.
Her leg is broken. They have set it.
1t will be months before she can walk.
But they say she will be all right again
then"
The two were standing at the gate
again, but now there was no fresh rose
in her face, and in his eyes no light of
passion.
"My poor dear" he said-and she did
not resent the words-"let me do any
thing can. Forget all that folly of
ILLS HUI duu ISL Liz hClp uIy pUOE
little Vynie."
Il will-you shall,'' she said, looking
at him through swollen eyelids red
with weeping; "but there is nothing
any one can do. 1t is horrible! When
[ told her she would have to lie still for
a time she tried to smile, and then she
said, Don't cry, Sissy. will be as good
as gold;' and then she said she should
sleep all day, and lie awake at night to
hear the nightingale. She has never
heard it YETI
He remembered how he had listened
to the nightingale in the copse behind
her house on many summer night
when he had walked lonely in the fields
to see her light in the window and her
shadow on the blind, and he sighed, and
said:
1.-The nightingales are singing bravely
in the wood beyond the station. I'm glad
she has thought of something that
pleases her, poor darling.
Vynie, lying still and rigid in her
splints, with wide-open eyes, watched
the day die. Then the lamp was lighted,
and presently in its turn gave place to
the yellow glow of the night light, and
the great shadows it cast.
Are you asleep, Sissy, my own ?"
said the little voice.
mo, my darling" Rose bent over the
bed. "Does it want anything. Will it
have some milk-nice fizzy milk?"
"No-yes; but I want to hear the
nightingale, Sissy. Why doesn't he be
gin? isn't it late enough?"