St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1902-02-08

There's baby at the junction. :"
1t wears pink dress. 1t laughed at
me. It caught at the string and l let
it play with the ring And Nancy's
fingers strayed to the leather string
about her neck, on which the treasure
dangled. 1.-THE baby's nanny she
asked me to come in. She wears
shoes. She wears them every day..
Nancy's acquaintance with the wife
of the station-master grew. "She's
got box" Nancy told, another
evening, "a big, square black box
she keeps her fire in, an door she
opens an hole to cook things in.'
Pap laughed his big, silent laugh.
"Sho, Nanny" said he, ''ain't you
never seen a stove afore?"
Nancy's ignorance did not abash
her. "She's got everything mighty
red up an handy. Couldn't we uns
have shelf, too, pap, to set the dishes
along?"
Another day Nancy came home in
excitement. Granny, you make me
some o. your oak splint baskets she
began; 1.-THE harnsomest ones you
knows how-them little ones, granny,
an me and Hence an Grit We'll pick
the huckleberries. I'm a-goin' to sell
them on the train. Their war lady
to-day she saw my basket of berries
1 was takin' to baby an she asked
me fer tan then she gives this to
me-"
And Nancy handed her mother two
ten-cent pieces.
"An' the baby's nanny says she'll
get her man to let me take 'em on
the cyars, and tibet way I'm plum
sure to see the sun-haired lady"
On the next day Nancy had differ
ent tale. "Baby's nanny, Mis- Mark
ham, she's been tellin' me bout a
place at the junction, goin' on now,
where they'll larn you free. She says
the days won't seem nothin' like so
tejous if started in an went to larn-
in. 1 telled her I'd arsk pap"
Pap shifted his quid. '''Taint no
call agin your goin,' l can see. My
gran'pap he larned onct to read from
man crossin' the mountings goin'
to Kaintuck, what stopped off here
with fever. That's how come we
uns to have our book, the onliest
Bible on Lilly's mounting. don't sea
no call why Nanny shouldn't be a.
readin' in it same as gran'pap read to
we uns when 1 war little as Grit here
Thus encouraged, Nancy one day
shyly made her appearance at the dis
trict school, which was open for the
three months of summer. The young
teacher, a girl student from the coun-
ty college, eking out expenses by
teaching in the summer, looked at
the new pupil; looked, then looked
again at a glittering, golden bauble
that hung upon leather string
against the bosom of the faded little
dress.
| Forgetting her shyness, Nancy ex-
planned.
"And that's how I'm here" she
said, in conclusion, ''waitin' for the
summarized lady to come"
It was the last of August that Nam
CIV, speeding along by the open win
dows of an evening train. saw in the
last coach girlish, pink-fushed face
framed in glorious, FURNISHED, red
gold hair.
"And il it want to be the right
lady. she'd know as the luck-stone
wasn't hers."' Nancy had often ar
gued, rehearsing this very scene to
herself.
Realizing but two things, that the
summarized lady was on the train and
that the time was passing, she
dropped her baskets, grasped the
ring in her little brown hand, strip
ping the leather string over her head
as she ran, and with cry to the
porter-for all the trainmen now
knew her and her mission-she
bounded up the steps into the vesti-
bule and ran through the sleeping
car with it's wondering occupants, to
the summarized lady.
"Here!" said Nancy, and her smile
supplied those graces of speech and
department which education had
failed to give her.
L
pink to white, caught the ring from
the little brown hand and gasped and
laughed and cried. For it was her
engagement ring, and over its loss
that summer she had cried as many
tears as little Nancy had trudged
steps.
"You sensed it went in the creek, "
Al, :v.s f1,,
sence"
Then happened bewildering thing,
a thing unknown to Nancy, unless it
had come to her in baby days. A pair
of impulsive arms were about her
neck, the lips of the sun-haired girl
on her cheek. Then before the great
wave of emotion sweeping over Nancy
was gone the clutch of the colOred
porter was on her, and she was
dropped from the rear of the coach,
which in another moment was speed
ing round the curve.
"Well," quavered granny, when
Nancy's tale was told, IAN you air
sure it war her?'
Nancy hadn't doubt. She had
proof. "She took it," said Nancy, IAN
I-an' she kissed ME"
The great wave swept over her
again. ''She kissed me- reaffirmed
Nancy, nor doubted for one moment
she had been repaid.
But the sun-haired girl thought diff
ferently, so she wrote a letter to the
station master at the junction, and
the station master gave the letter to
his wife, who in turn gave it to the