The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1902-07-13
..Junp... the iii is saving in French.

! jump. Jean; jump highI''
1 Yes, that was very long ago, in the
( days when women lightly braved what
/ the strongest men would shrink from
now
] Alice ROussillon was tall, 1.-the,
/ strongly knit, with an almost perfect
/ figure, judging by what the master
I sculptOrs carved for the form of Venus,
/ and her face was comely and winning,
I if not absolutely beautiful; but the time
and the place were vigorously indicated
by her dress, which was of coarse stuff
and simply designed. Plainly she was
a child of the American wilderness, a
daughter Of old Nincennes on the Wa
bash in the time that tried mems souls.
Jump, Jeani" she cried, her face
/ laughing with a show of cheek dimples.
an arching of finely sketched brows and
the twinkling Of large blue-gray eyes.
Jump high and get them!'
When she waved her sun Drowned
hand holding the cherries alOft, the
breeze blowing fresh from the south
west tossed her hair so that some
loose strands shone like rimpled flames.
The sturdy little hunchb back did leap
with surprising activity; but the
treacherous brown hand went higher.
so high that the cOnrpined altitude of
his jump and the reach of his unnat-
urally long arms was overcome. Again
and again ne sprang vainly into the air
eomically. like long-legged, squat
bodied frog.
And you brag of your agility and
strength, Jean,'' she laughingly re
marked; but you can't take cherries
when they are offered to you. What a
clumsy bungler you are"
II can climb and get some, he said
with a hideously happy grin, and i'm
mediately embraced the bole of the
tree up which he began scram bling
almost as fast as a squirrel.
When he had mounted high enough
to be extending a hand for a hold on a
crotch, Alice grasped his leg near the
foot and pulled him down, despite his
clinging and struggling. until his hands
clawed in the soft earth at the trees
root, while she held his captive leg al
most vertically erect.
1t was a show of great strength: but
Alice looked quite unconscious of ii,
laughing merrily, the dimples deepen
ing in her plump cheeks, her forearm,
now barred to the elbow, cleaning white
and shapely while its muscles rippled
on account of the jerking and kicking
of Jean.
All the time she was holding the cher |
ries high in her other hand. shaking
them by the twig to which their slender
stems attached them, and saying in a
sweetly tantaliZing tone:
What makes you climb downward
after cherries, Jean? What a foolish
fellow you are. indeed. trying TO grab
BILE cherries out of the ground. as you
do potatoes! I'm sure didn't sup
pose that you knew so little as that"
Her French was coIloquial but quite
good, showing here and there what we
often notice in the speech of those who
have been educated in isolated places
far from that babel of polite energies
,T, -
that may be described as a bookish
cast appearing oddly in the midst of
phrasing distinctly rustic and local-a
popularity not easy to transfer from
one language to another.
Jean the hunchback was a muscular !
little deformity and a wonder of good |
- ture. His head looked sunnaturalIy |
large. nesting grotesquely between TIE !
points Of his lifted and distorted shopl- |
ders, like shaggy black animal in the |
fork of A broken tree He was bellicose
just when to acknowledge defeat. How !
long he might have kept up the hope |
less struggle with the girls invincibIe |
grip would be hard to guess. His re |
lease was caused by the approach of a /
third person, who wore the robe of a |
Catholic priest and the countenance of |
a man who had lived and suffered a /
and endurance.
This was Pere Beret, grizzly, short, |
his face deeply lined, his |
mouth decidedly aslant on account of 1
some lost teeth. and his eyes set deep /
under gray, shaggy brows. Looking |
al him when his features were in repose /
a first impression might not have been |
favorable: but seeing him smile or
hearing him speak changed everything |
His voice was sweetness itself and his /
smile won you on the instant. Some |
thing like a pervading sorrow always /
seemed to be close behind his eyes and /
under his speech; yet he was a genial, |
almost jolly, man. very
prone to join in the lighter amusements /
of his people.
Children. children, my children" he 1
called out as he approached along a |
little pathway leading up from the di-
rection of the church, what are you
doing now? Bah there, Alice, will you
pull Jeans leg orr"
At first they did not hear him, they
we're so nearly deafened by their own
vocal discords.
Why are you standing on your head
With your feet so high in air, Jean?" he
added. Its not a polite attitude in the
presence of a young lady. Are you a
pig. that you poke your nose in the
iirt?''
Alice now turned her bright head and
gave Pere Beret a look of frank well
,ome, which, at the same time, shot a