The Winslow mail., 1900-01-11
Daunt's Wooing
HUPID is little creature and can
I hide in a small place-he has even |


been known to secrete himself in a
strawberry box. And that is the story.
Sanderson, of Verbena, had 20 acres
out in berries, which was bad sense on
his part, considering that small fruits
bring next to no profit in these days.
But Sanderson liked strawberries and
appeared to be willing to raise them
for the delectation of the rest of man
kind, even though he was not enriched
by the labor. So when the June sun
turned the fruit juicy and the perfume
of the berries hung heavy upon the
sweltering air, the field was thronged
with pickers, who rode out from the
village on great hay racks and back
again at night, singing and laughing
and scandalizing the neighbors.
Among the noisy pickers there was
one fellow who kept to himself and who
neither whistled nor sang nor called
out to the others. This was Daunt
Jewlson, of the Becker road. He
walked two miles from the north every
morning to meet the hay ricks at the
village and no one knew much about
him except that he had small farm
laid out in sweet potatoes and peanuts.
In a country where every one grew
fruit almost exclusively, and where
peaches were king, it seemed amusing
for a man to raise sweet potatoes and
peanuts, and Daunt was usually ac-
costed in the morning with:
"Well, how's the peanut crop?" OR:
"The great American luxury gettin'
on all right, Daunt?"
Daunt was brief but not taciturn in
his responses. He was not a particular
ly fast picker, and he seemed to dream a
good deal. He set the whole company
in a roar of laughter one night as he
and they stood about the packing sheds
looking at the crates of luscious fruit
as it was being prepared for ship
ment.
Il wonder where all them berries are
going?" said he, pensively. He looked
so absurd with his watery blue eyes
and his large ears and mouth that ev-
erybody roared.
Want to go along, Daunt?" cried
they. Daunt nodded.
"You bet I'd like to go along" he
murmured, wistfully. And that even
ing he did not ride home on the rick
with the rest, but walked along The
lake shore three miles to town and two
miles beyond TO the lonely house among
the potatoes and the peanuts. Then he
milked his cow and drank milk for sup
per, sitting out where he could watch
the red sunset.
1t was the next day that an idea came
to him-one of the first of his life. He
took his pencil and wrote on the inside
of strawberry box: II am Daunt
Jewlson, of the Becker road, near South
Fork. l would like to court up with
whoever gifts these here berries" Then
he piled in the fruit, and the box went
away with the rest, none whiting,
though Daunt had been in terror lest
some accident should occur which
would reveal his secret to his jeering
friends.
Now, little Lena Nielsen, who had been
used all her life TO wide, melancholy
fields, to a somber ford, to distant
hemlocks, and to a house where logs
burned on the hearth, was homesick
past words where she worked in the
fat on North Erie street. Thirty-two
families were crowded together in the
big apartment building, and the maids
at night ran down to the big telephone
room TO gossip together. Moreover.
they said many things which it offended
Lena to hear. So she staid alone in
the hot kitchen and puzzled over the
English in the newspapers or read her
Bible in her own beloved tongue.
The day had been peculiarly trying
The bread had not risen well. The
fruit she had selected at the store was
overripe, and her mistress had not been
well pleased. The ringing of the bells
seemed incessant, and the kitchen was
horribly hot. Lena shut her eyes once
or twice to enable herself to imagine
that she was little girl again back
with her mother, walking the quiet
fields where the thousand flowers grew
that was what they used to say o1
the field, that it was the place of 9
thousand flowers. For generations that
had been said of it.
Lena had just set the table fol
luncheon and made moan over the
raised biscuits which were not raised
enough, and poured the berries out o.
the bcx, when she came upon Daunt'.
message. She was obliged TO read i
over three times before she got tht
full meaning OF 1t. and first she smile,
little contemptuously, and then tn