Lincoln County leader. [volume] (Toledo, Lincoln County, Or.) 1893-1987, 1905-05-12


young Hoosier, exhibiting all the hos
pitable instincts of all the hospitable
Dikeses, as far back as anybody can re-
member as your pap much worse,
Lizzy?"
All Hoosierdom has a fashion-despis
ed Of the polished East as it is-of call
ing everybody by his or her christened
name! A fashion that it is to be hoped
will not be planed away in the polishing
processes of westward advancing civiliza-
ton.
I'm afraid he's very much worse in.
deed" Lizzy said, taking the offered
chair, and feeling that even this rude
sympathy lightened the burden of her
great grief. She had dreaded TO reveal it
to the world. But she found that the
world of Sandtown knew it already, and
took active and partisan interest in do
ing what it could to help her.
II h-yurn um say at this h-yur feller,
Mason is jist about the whole cause Nv
yur pap's uh-uh-sickness? 2" "the young
Doc" said, as he put on his hat and lin
gered little.
Il don't know. l can't think so. l
don't know what Mr.. Mason has really
done in all this terrible business. VIII
you please hurry, Mr.. Dikes? l left
mother alone with him. And I'm uneasy,
50 uneasy"
She sat down again as the young Doc
srrang out of the open office door and
ran down theNstreet throwing up little
arcs of dry, sandy loan after each broad,
scraping shoe-sole until he disappeared
in the crowds that still closer and closer
drew to each other and grew and blocked
up all the thoroughfares of Sandtown till
not even n re-enfOrcing team from the
very uttermost end of the Overcoat road
dared attempt passage, but stopped and
hitched farther and farther out.
She sat and listened to the low buzz
Of voices in the streets and in the court
house. and heard here and there louder
tones, and occasionally a wild yell and
then a shout of laughter that indicated
some ludicrous accident to somebody by
somebody else.
Then all at once there was a complete
diminuendo as if all the voices had sud-
denly and steadily slipped away to the
westward, and out of hearing. And then
she saw a two-horse wagon drive away
from her fathers door, with a number
of people in it. She had not seen the
wagon drive up. She had not been look
ing that way. But there was something
ominous in the driving away of that par
ticular wagon, that was now far out OIL
the Overcoat road toward the little rail,
road station. She watched it with parted
lips and widening eyes until it had hid.
den itself in the clouds of drifting, light
sandy loan that perpetually rose up and
settled down upon the grayed surface OF
all the jimson leaves and the oak and
the maple and walnut foliage, that bore
their burdens of earth in patient assur-
ance of the rain that must come and
wash them clean and bright again.
And then out of the hush the finished
diminuendo of this general assembly of
the makers of public opinion for this sec
tion of the Wabash country, there drove
a strange and unknown two-horse car
riage, with a driver, whose figure COM
ing within the field of her distracted and
unfxed vision instantly caught and con-
, centrated her gaze. Beyond q doubt il
was Mr. Mason, this time in broad day
light, driving toward her through the
crowd, and going eastward as to the rail
way station. He would stop when he
should see her! And there were Others
in the carriage-one fine, dignified look
ing gentleman. Was he Mr.. Huntley?
She stood in the door and even stepped
down into the sand outside in order to
make sure that Mr.. Mason would see
her. He had doubtless repented of his
determination to keep Prof Huntley
away from her; and now he would make
all necessary and possible amends for all
his ungraciousness.
If so she could very, very freely, nay
even joyously forgive him. And that
much the more readily because of the
fact that since so many people, in fact
practically the whole community, had
joined as with one voice in denouncing
and threatening Mr.. Mason, she had turn
ed about and engaged, passively at first
and then actively, in his defense
What had he done to any and all of
the people of Sandtown that was half
so unfair, unjust and cruel as what he
had done to herr Compared with her
wrongs, theirs were matter of nothing
If she could afford to become his COM
panion, could anybody in all Redden
township afford to say aught against
him?
As they drove rapidly nearer, she was
conscious of something altered about his
look, she could not tell precisely what
But it~was something that gave him a
totally different air, some way, Before
he had been thoughtful, respectful, al.
most subservient in all his actions in her
presence. -e~-
Always watchful, respectful, and con-
siderate, at all events, with a manifest
anxiety to please her. An anxiety SO
manifest that perhaps it had tended to
prevent her from being pleased with him
at all. Now he had something Of the
cold, hard, naughty look of the man who
Ia directing a great many men who are
under" him in every sense of the word
She saw this so plainly in that brief
time In which the powerful horses were
walking through the heavy-pulling dry
sand of the Overcoat road, that she com.
~