Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1902-07-17
WHEN DALTON
WENT EAST
By JAMES ALLISON
, Copyright. 1901, by A. S. Richardson
=. = ~. ~. ~. ~. ~. ~. ~. -. -. ~. -. ~. -. X, =

~ ~ ~ ~ ~. ~ - ~. - ~. - ~. - - -. ~ -. ~
Dalton entered Mrs. Murray's pur-
chases in the daybook and then went
| back to his desk and the letter.
He drew it from the pigeonhole of
| Imitation walnut and turned it slowly
from side to side as if he were trying
Ito match the pale gray tint from his
Scant ribbon stock. He looked curious
ly at the deeper gray sealing wax. He
was always very careful not to break
the seal when he opened her letters.
He liked to study the stately "H''
which hid what she said to him from
the bustling, impertinent world.
Not that he had received many such
and he knew them by heart. He read
this last one slowly and for the third
time:
Frank Dalton, Esq, President School
Board District No. IL:
Sahuache County, Colo.
Dear Sir-Replying to your favor of the
23d, stating that your board had acted ia
vorably on my application for the Twig-
gins school and would allow the salary
which / asked permit me to say that I
feel that owe you many apologies. The
most urgent reason for my desiring to Sc
cure a position this summer in Colorado
was an incipient throat trouble which has
annoyed me for the past year. Recently,
however, 1t has yielded to treatment, and
with 1t has gone this motive for making
the western trip. In addition have been
offered a class in elocution at the Mount
Clement summer school, an opportunity
which l feel that I should not miss.
Knowing full well that there are scores of
worthy applicants for such an opening as
your boar. offers I am availing myself
of a woman's privilege and changing my
mind. In other words, l withdraw my
application for the Twiggins school. Par
don my thus going into details. but you
have been SO courteous, I may almost say
SO cordial, in your correspondence over the
matter, that 1 feel a full explanation is
due you. Again expressing my apprecia-
tion of your kindness, I remain, yours
faithfully, ELIZABETH HARDIN.
Dalton folded the letter, laid it re-
gretfully on the desk and sat with his
hands plunged deep in his pockets.
There were no customers in the store
to interrupt his meditations. Even the
straight, uncompromising Main street
beyond the door was STEPPED in the
calm of the sweet spring day. Ranch
men were home plowing, and no wag-
ons rolled in noisily from mesa and riv-
er land. But Dalton was not worrying
about the lack of trade. He was think
ing of the girl who had written that
letter.
Elizabeth Hardin! She had been rec
commended to the board by an eastern
teachers agency. and Frank had been
instructed to conduct the correspond
ence From the very first letter he had
been interested in her personally, and
when the salary she named was be-
yond the appropriation made by the
board for Twiggins school be had
calmly announced that the district was
growing and needed better teachers,
and if the board wouldn't pay Miss
would make up the difference. The
children of Twiggins Corners must be
given modern educational advantag ges.
And the remainder of the board, real
izing that the male voters of Twiggins
Corners were an uncertain element in
county elections, finally acquiesced,
and Miss Hardin was called" Dal-
ton, nervously lingering the bit of gray
stationery. felt that fate had been cru
ell in thus requiting his temerity in CO.
ercing the members of school district
No. H.
He walked out the side door and
mounted the steep stairs leading to the
second floor. Lately Dalton had been
figuring with Tompkins, the carpenter,
on building inside stairs, but somehow
this afternoon he did not care where
they ran. He entered the carpetless
hall and threw open the door to his
front room." overlooking the street,
and stared silently at it's familiar Grim
son, with just dash of olive green.
The woodwork was painted dark green.
and the carpet was red. Dalton had Sc
lected this much and shiny oak organ
before his sister Mary had come out
from Massachusetts to keep house for
him. But Mary had turned homesick
before the year rolled round and had
left Dalton to care for as best he might
the four rooms he had furnished so
proudly.
He looked at them now, wondering
vaguely what was wrong. A comfort
able Morris chair stood in one corner,
but the moths had eaten great holes in
its cushions. He could write his name
in the dust on the center table, with its
old rose plush album. Flyspecks
adorned the photographs he had
tackled on the wall. A sudden feeling
of desolation swept over the man.
What did it matter that he held public
Office that he was always referred to
in the Sahuache Eagle as "our success
full young merchant" or that at the
last fair of Union church he had been
voted the most popular bachelor in La
drone? What mattered anything so
long as Elizabeth Hardin had declined
to teach Twiggins Corners school?
The very next morning he said to
his head clerk:
Herman, do you reckon you could
handle this store if l went back east
hext month? / haven't seen the old
folks for five years."
And Herman reckoned that he could
The summer school at Mount Glenn
ent was in full sway when Dalton ar
rived. He took room at the leading
hotel and then quietly started out on
his quest. At the first newsstand he
picked up a copy of the Mount Glenn
ent Educator, devoted to the interests
of the summer school. The frontispiece
was the picture of tall, willowy girl.
dressed in sweeping evening gown.
Under the picture were the lines, Miss
Elizabeth Hardin. the accomplished
young elocutionist, who is delighting
Mount Clement audiences this sum-
mer."
Dalton walked back to his room like
one in dream. And this glorious crea-
ture was Elizabeth Hardin, whom he
had pictured as gentle, clinging erea-
ture in need of protection against a
cold and unfeeling world the sort of