The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1902-06-19
| Where the Man
! with theHoeWon
BY EDWARD q. CLARK.

TT doesn't often happen, and no one
save a favored few knew why it
happened this time. There is little
sunburn in this story, but no varnish,
and let those who like a lecquered
tale turn the page. She was bud
last winter and this winter she was
married. Most of the buds stay on
the stem little longer than that,
but considering how many there
we're who wanted her, the quick
plucking and bearing away is not to
be wondered at in anything save in
the personality of the flower lover
who did the picking,
Frances Marvin's father had no
money, but he held place in So
ciety by force of intellect and family.
There are not as many of those
eases as there used to be. The girl
was beauty. If novel writer were
telling about her he would say she
was regal. James Parker, stock
broker, was not a novel writer, but
be thought Frances was regal, never
theless. He had a thought of this
kind from the moment he saw her.
Parker followed Miss Marvin's move
ments as closely as he did the tape
IN the stock ticker. He was a men,
Der of every club in sight, and he
drove and rode, and did all the other
things that man of wealth in So
ciety does when he knows how.
James Parker was catch. Every
body said SO, and the fact was pretty
strongly impressed upon the Marvin
family, bar Marvin pere, who didn't
care whether Parker was a catch or
not, for Frances was to be allowed
70 make her own choice. Parker be-
came the girls shadow. He paid
court, however, unobtrusively and
with perfect tact. Frances was fat
Tered bit by the attentions of this
man, for whom all the other girls
mad made cast, to use piscatorial
klmile, and had failed to get strike.
Now. there was as well as James
farker one John Meadowcroft.
Meadowcroft had a big truck farm
out beyond Bowmanville. Curious
thing, but Meadowcroft worked his
'arm himself. He was big fellow,
something more than a trife awk-
ward, but with a fine head and a
good face. He had an education and
no capital except that which was
represented by some acres of onion,
carrot and potato beds and some
hundreds of square feet of glass, un-
uer which the roses and carnations
reached perfection when the winter
oiasts howl and the optimistic snow
ountlng whistles in the fields. John
Meadowcroft was garduate of the
amherst agricultural college. just
Wnat had turned him to farming peo-
PIE did not generally understand. A
good guess would have made it that
Meaaowcroft loved the country bet
.er than the town and took to gar
uening so that he could live at all
'imes where he could smell the soil
anu see some clouds besides those of
smoke go drifting by.
one summer day a number of
young people drove out beyond Bow
manyllle to see the massed color and
Deauty OF great field of flowers,
.nicn the newspapers had made pic
lures OF and written about. 1t was
the thing" to go out to that spot of
.oseiiness during that month of bios
sons. 1t was there that Frances
"arvln first saw John Meadowcroft,
.almer. He had pretty place for
1one. 1t was naturally pretty, and
,onn Meadowcroft knew how to en-
nance its attractiveness. James
srker was there that day, and be-
s a man of acumen and worldly
wisdom he saw that Meadowcroft,
Me farmer, thought that Frances
AVN was more to be admired than
s aower OF his field; love them all
.uough he did, from the tiniest bios
'om TO the big Haunting peony.
Aeaoowcroft had friends in the
s,.y They were of some of the good
S'o New England stock, who in their
salaer days had known his father
sao mother. Neadowcroft had q way