The Kinsley graphic. [volume] (Kinsley, Kan.) 1890-1940, 1902-11-21


but slipped on round stone and
splashed the water, which was calm
and still just there. The thrasher went
into the thicket like fash and the girl
turned her head just as quickly.
George Schuyler saw a face under
the shadow of the huge country bon
net that was much more than pretty
and which had in it that which men
rightly call character. Geoge's fish
erman's cap was off in an instant.
Good mornings" are allowable in the
wilderness without the formality of
an introduction.
Il am just about to stop fishing
and go back to the lodge of my
friend, Mr.. Payson. Can you tell me
if there is a shorter path than the
stream itself?"
The girl nodded brightly. EYES,"
she said, '1you can take the trail
through the tamaracks. 1t begins
just here" Then the girl turned her
attention once more to the brown
thrasher, who gave symptoms of be-
ing willing to start his solo again.
Schuyler thanked the girl courte-
ously and after reeling in his line
started along the trail indicated.
When he reached his friend James
Payson's lodge the first thing he said
| was: "Jim, in the name of all that's
lovely who is your sunbonneted
neighbor with voice like bubbling
spring and eyes like those of the
girls in old Herrick's poems?','
Jim Payson laughed. you must
have run across old Cheney's daugh-
ter. He has four or five hundred
rocky acres with little house on
them. Mary is his only daughter and
he put her through Vassar and made
quite lady of her. She is beauty
and no mistake. Hit you first time,
eh, old man?'
Schuyler colored little and said:
swell, not exactly hit, Jim. must
not be hit, you know, but the girl is
attractive and no mistake"
That ewing Jim Payson asked his
guest if he wouldn't like to go over
and call on old Cheney. There was
no hesitancy in falling in with the
proposal. They found old Cheney on
the porch smoking his pipe. He was
a white-haired old fellow of the far
mer type, and while he admitted it
was hard wringing crops from the
stony Catskill slope, yet he said he
wouldn't give up his mountain side
with it's air and its scenery for the
best valley land ON the continent
Then George Schuyler met Mary
Cheney. James Payson did the intro
ducing. Schuyler found this noun
tain flower all that he had expected
from the glimpse that he had caught
of it's beauty in the morning. The
girl was refinement itself, and as
Schuyler looked at the old fellow sit
ting in the porch corner putting con-
tentedly at his corncob pipe he won
dered how this slip could have come
from such parent stem.
Well, it's bitter to make it short
George Schuyler stayedSa week and
then fingered for two more. He wrote
to New York that he was enjoying
the fishing. So he was for about an
kour every morning. One day he |
brought himself up with round |
turn. He thought of his duty to |
Helen GanZevoort. 4
He knew in his heart that he loved |
this girl of the mountain side who
had a voice like one of the veeries |
that sang every day at sunset.
That night he went to Mary Cheney |
and told her all. He knew somehow |
that the girl had grown to love him
as he had grown to love her. They
stood on the porch looking down
onto the far-off valley. 1t was twi
light and the veeries and the vesper |
sparrows were singing everywhere
He told her of his childhood en-
gagement to Helen Ganzevoort. So
Lave not seen her since she was II |
years DID," he said. "She cares moth
ing for me; she cannot. She doesn''
even know me. The whole thing was
o bit of parental foolishness, bu
there is the question of my duty.
shall leave for New York the day af
ter tomorrow. 1 will see Helen, ant
upon what she says and does depends
alt l may have done wrong, Mary |
in lingering here, but loved you, ant
let that fact plead for me-" He lief
her standing there just as the las
bird voices of the day were hushet
and the whippoorwill took up hi
Two days later George Schuyle
stood in Fifth avenue drawin. |
room waiting for the coming
Helen as he had last known her I&u, |
years before as a child. The eye,
seemed to look at him a bit reproach
fully. 4
There was light step behind him
He turned quickly. For a moment h.
felt frozen, then the blood wen
through him like torrent In from
of him in evening dress stood the CIR
whom but 4S hours before he had lief