The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1902-08-21

! She saw his confusion, OWNED the
first cause of it and smiled. Then
he met her gaze fairly and became
sane again when he made sure that
she did not recognize him-became
sane, and snatched off his cap and
dragged the trunk into the state
room; after which he went to his
place with great thankfulness
throbbing in his heart and an in
choate resolve shaping itself in his
brain.
Late that night, when the Belle
Julie was well on her way to the
northward, he flung himself down
upon the freight on the engine-room
guard to snatch little rest between
landings, and the resolve became
sufficiently cosmic to formulate itself
in words.
It'll call it an oracle,'he said.
"One place is as good as another, so
it be small enough; and I am sure
have never heard of Wahaska."
Now Griswold the proletary was,
before all things else, Griswold the
imaginative craftsman; and no soon
er was the question of his destina-
ton settled than he began to pre-
figure the place and it's probable
lacks and havings. This process
brought him by easy gradations to
pleasant idealizings of Miss Farm
ham, who was, thus far, the only
thing tangible connected with the
destination dream. Whereupon her
personality laid hold upon him and
the idealizings became purely lit
erary.
by Jove! but she is a magnificent
ly strong type" he unused, lying fiat
on his back and staring absently at
the Aittering shadows among the
deck beams overhead. "Her face is
as readable as only the face of
woman instinctively good and pure
in heart can be. Any man who can
put her between the covers of
book may put anything else he
pleases in it and snap his fingers at
the world. If I am going to live
in the same town with her I ought
to jot her down in words before I
lose the keen edge of the first i'm
preston"
He considered it for a moment,
and then got up and went in quest of
a pencil and scrap Of paper. The
doing night clerk gave him both,
with sleepy malediction thrown in;
and he went back to his engine-room
and scrubbed his word-picture by
the light of the swinging lantern,
thus:
"Character-study: Young woman
of the type observation-disclosures the
daughter of aliens, but born in the
West of parents who have migrated
from one of the older States. I'll
hazard that much as a guess) De-
tails: Titan blonde, with hair like
spun bronze; the complexion that
neither freckles nor tans; cool, gray
eyes with an under-depth in them
that no man but her lover may ever
quite fathom; a figure which would
be statuesque if it were not alto
gether human and womanly; fea-
lures cast in the Puritan mold, with
the lines OF character we'll empha-
| o1LCu, ups CIldG "Ou1u DC passionate
but for-no, lips that will be pas
sionate when the hour and the man
arrive. A soul strong in the strength
of purity. which would send her to
the stake for a principle, or to the
Isle of Lepers with her lover. A
typical heroine for story in which
the hero is man who might need to
borrow conscience"
He read it over thoughtfully when
it was finished, changing word here
and phrase there with crafts
mans fidelity to the exactnesses.
Then he shook his head regretfully
and tore the scrap of paper into tiny
squares, scattering them upon the
brown flood surging past the engine
room gangway.
1T won't do" he confessed, reluc-
family, as one who sacrifices good
literary material to an overweening
sense of the fitness of things. "It's
nothing less than cold-blooded sac
rilege. can't make copy out of her
if I write no more while the world
stands