Manchester Democrat. [volume] (Manchester, Iowa) 1875-1930, 1901-10-23

pttdlity.
lily discipline. What air you dom
keepin everybody waitin? Put down
that baby. You're only gettin him
ready to cry when he sees you're ago
in. You, Rose, take that baby roun' to
the kitchen. Now, pick up that snack
basket and come along"
"She ought to be goin to her own
weddin, oughtn't she" said Ethan to
the sympathetic mother as he lifted his
bright faced, springing sweetheart into
the saddle. No horse blocks for them,
If you please.
II wouldn't be goin II it was my own.
I'd be stayin, and I'd have to lose all
this yere blessed ridin," said she. That
small saying was afterward remem-
bered and was quoted for many years
among the Todds as If 1t We're witt
cism, but now IT passed without more
notice than an irrelevant speech.
"Well, bless you, honey" said her
mother 90 she settled her skirts for her.
Surely it was not to be expected that
government should always prevail and
crossness be the rule of life.
Lucinda was not without a show Of
reason in reckoning this ride as pleas.
ure oyerbalancing the pomp and pride
Of matrimony. All day they ambled
on. with only woods and fields about
them, and were oftenest and longest In
tho depths of the sun threaded, fra-
grant forest twilight, everything but
the road beneath their feet untouched,
pristine, primal, as If man had never
been. All. who has such journeys
now1
Aunt Emmy was as softly accommo-
dating as poor Mrs. Todd herself could
have been and often covered mile after
mile, riding on ahead. without once
directing her tunnel Of sunbonnet be-
hind her. Lucinda's bonnet was gener-
ally hanging backward over her Shout
ders. Poor Lucinda's reputation for
beauty was sadly injured by her brown
skin-milky whitcness was of all things
most admired in hei world-but she
took the sweet with the bitter and alb
solved herself from the elaborate
swathings and bleachings which were
the community's tribute to aesthetic
interests.
"a little more or little less don't
matter when one dip more would have
sent me to the kitchen anyhow" she
declared when entreated to return
from the light of heaven into the
cavernous depths of the prevailing sun
bonnet. Even Ethan did not know she
was n beauty, but thought 1t was by
some special warping of perception
that she seemed SO to him.
1t was not only in the matter of COM
plcxion that Lucinda was out of Joint
with her lot in life. She had a touch of
Imagination; had vague desires to see
beyond her world. to try something be-
FOND, to have some chance at the I'M
known--desires which seemed all I'M
shared by any other being. She was
world away from unhappiness 1t was
only by some obscure movement of
soul that she was frightened when she
,aw the opportunities of the future
about to narrow down to the familiar
ot Of Ethan's wife. That was the root
If nll this e1travagant coquetry that
ooked SO naughty. She could not have
!old why. but she was frightened.
Certainly she did not much consider
Ethan. AS Mrs. Slmms complained,
she would not leave him any more than
she would take him; but, truly, with
the world as 1t is and bit of girl
with her life to shape with such load
Of biddings and forbiddings upon her,
who expects her to rise to fair dealing
with free and sovereign man? Ger.