Lincoln County leader. [volume] (Toledo, Lincoln County, Or.) 1893-1987, 1905-04-21
W|CKLYS WOODS
By II. w. TAYLOR

and esteem. The espionage Of the vii
lage and the country is, after all, no mere
vulgar and despicaDle curiosity"
What else can it be, Mr.. Mason?
What else but the evidence of a total
lack of good breeding? The rudeness
OF an ignorant and uncu...vated peopleY
she asked, her upper lip curling in scorn
at the very contemplation. For in
stance, the gauntlet of bold and unblush-
ing starings through which even you,
man as you are, did not come unwound-
ed, just now"
They had gone beyond the utmost limit
OF the struggling village of Sandtown,
and had even begun series of gentle as
cents by which the road, no longer a rail
walled lane led gradually over gentle
knobs to the sharp wooded ridges of the
river bluffs.
AS LizZy concluded her invective she
turned and glanced back toward the vii
lage. AT that distance figures of people
in little groups on the street or at doors
and windows could be seen fixed and mo-
tionless, with faces toward the two stroll
ers. Mr.. Mason turned also, and both
being struck by something ludicrous in
the situation, laughed very heartily.
Il confess that laugh is a great
handicapping of philosophical PROPOSE
tion. Nevertheless, l must say that so
far nobody has read the riddle of the
Sphinx Alright. The progressive world
sets itself about the instantaneous re
forming, developing and lifting of the
lower stratum of society up to the higher
level of each epoch In very fact, Miss
Wickly, such proceeding is as unphilo-
sophical and materially impossible as
that those apple trees should bear their
fruit before the flowers and leaves, and
even the twigs."
He paused again and looked at her
scrutinizingly, and a little apprehensve-
ly, but with the apprehensive element
slipping out rapidly.
II think | catch your meaning-totally
new and strange as it is to me. Would
you, for instance, have me give up my
effort to instruct and enlighten the very
ignorant children of the still more ignor-
ant people of Sandtown? Or, more COM
prehensvely, would you have all effort at
| instruction and advancement of the lower
classes the poor and uneducated, stopped
for once and all?"
Now, indeed, the element of apprehen-
siveness had disappeared entirely from
the look which Mr.. Will Mason cast upon
his fair and serious, but skeptical ques
toner. In its place was half-suppress-
ed eager, delighted anticipation, which
she saw there so distinctly, so unmis-
takably, that she could not restrain the
involuntary smile of instant recognition.
Mr.. Mason flushed a little, and his
smile had something of embarrassment
in it. Were his unuttered thoughts to be
seen at a single glance of this girl of
nineteen years? you can hardly have
an idea, Miss Lizzy," he said, apologet-
! ically and looking away while he made
| broadsword cuts at the very Vulnerable
heads of the jimson weeds with his hick-
ory walking stick, "how hungry | get for
the companionship of educated and re-
fined people. Or, rather, isn't it for
sort of intellectual combat that we pine.
in a solitude of observations on the price
of wheat, the next election, and what
your friend Redden's last acquisition in
Alderney cows cost him? If l hadn't
discovered you and your father and moth
er here in this secluded spot to which
have been condemned by fortune,
should have been tempted to try conclu-
sions with fate by resigning my position
and fleeing back to the city"
Not in the face of such lovely scene
as this, Mr.. Mason, surely"