The Worthington advance., 1901-01-25

violently further into the oven and
Mehitable said, with gentle depreca-
tion, that 1T had got so now you
couldn't even believe all you saw in
print"
To this the elder woman made reply
that newspapers was blameder fools
than folks was nowadays" Then
they rose from the stove and went to
their straw sewing.
Mother and daughter looked upon
their home as a very desirable place of
residence. There was no piazza or
porch, or even blinds. The little win
dows with their white curtains stared
unblinkingly through the long, hot
July days, and the cold, short days of
February. There was not much
passing" on the pike, but once it had
been the stage road from Boston to
Providence. There were other roads
now, besides the railway, and the pike
was so deserted that it had a sus-
picion of grass each side of the horse
track which ran along the center of it.
Mehitable and her mother would
have been surprised If anyone had
suspected they were lonesome.
"why," said the gfrl-her mother
always spoke Of her as my gar'-if
there amt nothin' else, there's always
crows a-Ayin' over the medder."
She might have added "there was
always novels" only she was shy of
speaking of her novel reading. Mrs.
Green, however, was proud of that
fact in her gals history. "M'hitable
was a great reader" she would say,
"a great reader; n I'd know where
she gifts it from. faint from me, for
the Farnsworths never read nothin';
n faint from her father, for cart
horses couldn't make him open a
book"
Mrs. Green always alluded to cart
horses in this way, as if, with the Or
dinary person, cart horses were great
incentives to reading.
It was on Saturday afternoons, be-
tween two and three o'clock, that
Mehitable left her home to walk the
mile that lay between that home and
the village where she got her novels.
It has struck two a half hour ago,
and there she is just leaving the back
door. She has on long circular,
which is made of an alpaca skirt, is
wadded with cotton batting and lined
with black cambria. Her very soul
had longed for farmers satin" for
the lining of that circular, but she
could not afford that luxury. Every
time she put on the cloak she shook
it out before her, looked at the lining
sadly, imagined what it might have
been, then, with sigh of resignation,
swung the garment over her thin,
work-bent shoulders. In the inmost
recesses of her consciousness Mehit-
able could not beat down the desire
for farmers satin for the lining. But,
after the very first, she never men
toned that desire, even when her
mother would say that the cambric
did better than she expected.
A long white cloud is twisted a
great many times over Mehitable's
head, leaving unprotected the fore.
head and portion of the sandy gray
hair. There is something heartbreak-
ingly pathetic in the expression across
the brows and on the eyelids, though
the gray eyes themselves look out
with courage that has a great deal
of patience in it,
On her hands she has red mittens
knit by herself. On her feet are con-
gress boots, and, except in dry sum-
mer weather, a large pair of "arctics'
-''artics," she calls them-and she is
entirely upset when they are, by any
chance, misplaced and she cannot find
them behind the woodbox, where they
usually stand. These articles have a
greatly magnifying effect, even on
small feet, but when Mehitable wears
them one might almost doubt if so
thin a woman could lift anything so
large. But she fops along with them,
kicking up her circular on her heels
as She goes.
She always carries her books in a
much-worn leather reticule, which
opens and shuts with a loud snap,
Frequently when there is a crowd at
the library the attendant will hear
that snap somewhere in the room and
will know that Miss Green has come
for volume of Ouida's. If she can.
not get Ouida, strangely enough, Miss
Green always asks for something OF
George Eliot's. She does not write
down the numbers of the books she
wants, for she has tried to do that
long ago, and became so utterly con-
fused by the intricacies of the cat.
alogue that she went home without
any books. She was so tremulous
with excitement that she did not wish
to address the librarian, but preferred
to walk back over the lonely pike with
an empty bag. A few tears of disap.
pointment and anxiety dropped over
her face as she trddged on. They had
no straw in the house that week to
sew, and she would have had more
time to read. It was not until she
had fed the hens and MIXED the COW
and was mixing sour milk biscuit fol
supper that she ventured to tell he1
mother that them catalogues was
too much for her." If she had known
before she asked for her card how ii
was the custom to write down mum.
bers and hand in the slip, she didn't
know as she should have asked fol
one, anyway.
Mrs. Green had been q Farnsworth,
and the Farnsworths, as she had as:
serted long ago, "wa'n't afraid OF
nothin'." The widow violently bade
her daughter 'jes' 60 n tell the won.
an that tended what book she wanted
n she'd get it, fast enough
With much trepidation, Mehitable