Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1904-05-16

cept your part of it. You shouldn't have
done it. This evening was not arranged
in honor of visiting ladies' But you
mustn't think me comedian. Truly, I
didn't plan it. My friend from Six
Crossroads must be given the credit of
deyising the scene. though you OWNED
it,
at was a little too picturesque, 1
think. l know about Six Crossroads.
Please tell me what you mean to do"
Nothing. What should Il"
"YOu mean that you will keep on let
ting them shoot at you until they-until
YOU She struck the bench angriiy
with her hand.
'There's no summer theater in Six
Crossroads. There's not even a church.
Why SHOULDN'T they?" he asked grave
". During the long and tedious even
ings it cheers the poor Crossroader's
soul to drop over here and take shot
at me. 1t whites away dull care for
him, and he has the additional exercise
of running all the way home"
"Ahv' she cried Indignantly. "They
told me you always answered like this"
"Well, you see, the Crossroads efforts
have proved so thoroughly hygienic for
me. AS a patriot have sometimes felt
extreme modification that such bad
craftsmanship should exist in the coun-
ty, but l console myself with the
thought that their best shots are, I'M
happily, in the penitentiary."
"There are many left. Can't you I'M
derstand that they will organize again
and come in body, as they did before
you broke them up? And then, if they
come on a night when they know you
are wandering out of town.
You have not had the advantage of
an intimate study of the most exclusive
people of the Crossroads. Miss Sher-
wood. There are about thirty gentle
men who remain in that neighbOrhOOd
while their relatives sojourn under dis
cipline. If you had the entree over
there, you would understand that these
thirty could not gather themselves into
a company and march the seven miles
without physical debate in the ranks
They are not precisely amiable people,
even among themselves. They would
quarrel and shoot one another to pieces
long before they got here"
But they worked in a company
once"
Never for seven miles Four miles
was their radius. Five would see them
all dead
She struck the bench again. "Oh. you
laugh at me! You make joke of your
own life and death and laugh at every
thing. Have five years of Plattville
taught you to do that?'
Il laugh only at taking the poor
Crossroaders too seriously. don't laugh
at your running into fire to help a fell
low mortal"
Il knew there wasn't any risk. l
knew he had to stop to load before he
shot again.
HE did shoot again. If had known
you before tonight, r His tone
changed. and he spoke gravely. Il am
at your feet in worship of your divine
philanthropy. It's so much finer to risk
your life for a stranger than for
friend"
THAT is a mans point of view, isn't
it,"
you risked yours for man you had
never seen before"
"Oh, no. l saw you at the lecture.
heard YOU introduce the Hon. Mr.. Hal
loway."
..Then l don't understand your wish
| ing to save me-"
She smiled unwillingly and turned her
| gray eyes upon him with troubled sun
niness, and under the sweetness of her
| regard he set a watch upon his lips,
| though he knew it would not avail him
| long. He had driveled along respect
| ably so far, he thought, but he had the
sentimental Iongings of years, starved
| Of expression, eliminating in his heart.
| She continued to look at him wistfully,
searchingiy, gently. Then her eyes trav-
eled over his big frame, from bis
shoes "a patch of moonlight fell on
them; they were dusty; he drew them
under the bench with a shudder) to his
/ 1,ro-, 4 cLo,,J5ore Tho cbOol- tha ct0aO ont