The Kalispell bee. [volume] (Kalispell, Mont.) 1900-192?, 1902-01-15

ened with a sharp snap. A moment be-
fore Zenas had felt bent as we'll as
short; a moment after the wound to his
pride had Strengthened him until, as he
strobe across the fence, he felt as tall
as Goliath of Gath. He FASTENED to the
house to tell his wife, but he checked
himself; he adored that wife of his; he
always was encompassing her with his
love that she might be shielded from
the sings and darts of an unapprecia-
tive world; she shouldnot know that any,
one had alluded to her and her nestlings
as a gang"
Yet his own heart grew sore as it was
chafed by the word which could not be
forgotten. The expression and the tone
in which it was uttered came to him I'M
hidden in his dreams and reused him
from needed rest-came to him as he
read the morning paper while dashing
by rail to the city-came to him as he
added columns of figures at his desk,
and caused him to make some terrible
blunders. Gang" Although he was
a mild-mannered man, and member of
the church besides, he came to regard
his neXt-door neighbor, woman and
handsome though she was. with deadly
hatred. So intense did his dislike be-
come that he sat in the window one
sultry moonlight night and gleefully
beheld stray COW enter the Maytham
garden and do more damage than any
florist could undo at that season.
Gang" indeed.
In fact it was more with Joy than sor-
row that one day Zenas learned from a
chance acquaintance on the train, that
there were special reasons why Mr.. May
than would be away from home for
some time, for the man was a defaulter
and fleeing from justice. The Bortleys
agreed that it was providential that the
families had not become acquainted, for
although Zenas, like good man, tried
to pity sinners while he hated sin, he
told his wife that mere entry clerk
with a family dependent upon him
could not afford to be known as an &C
quaintance of that defaulters family.
Everybody seemed down on" the
Maythams; people said it was only be-
cause the house was in the wife's name
that Mrs. Maytham had a roof over her
head--that the couple had not lived
there long, and never had become ac-
quainted in the village anyway.
Though he still was full of bitterness,
Zenas began to be interested anew in
his handsome ~neighbor, for he never
before had seen the wife of a criminal
one of Mrs. Maythams class. Crimes
had been committed at Grasshopper
Falls, and wives of thieves and rowdies
were too numerous, as occasional sub
scriptions for their relief showed, but
they were a shabby, forlorn, character
less set, just like their husbands, while
here, in the very next house to Zenas
was a criminals wife who was hand
some, self-contained, proud, apparently
rich and even scornful of the honest
gang"
Zenas thought of Mrs. Maytham until
he became almost fascinated by her.
His eye sought her each day as he left
home and returned. Finally, when he
got his customary summer vacation of
fortnight, he spent hours of each day
in hammock under the trees, looking
slyly for Mrs. Maytham and following
her with his eyes whenever she saun-
tered through her finely-kept grounds.
He was sorry for her; he could under
stand why she did not care to make new
acquaintances; he could not see any
thing in her face that indicated COM
plicity in her husbands crime; he so
pitied her in her loneliness and prob
able gloom that he prayed earnestly for
her-but do what he would, he could
not forget the tone in which she had
called his adorable family gang"