Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1908-01-16
CHAPTER ".

IL I sun. Across the road, now an
~ kle deep in June dust, was this
wreck of the Peters place-bacl:
broken roof crumbling chimneys, shut
tiers hanging down like broken wings.
the old house had the pathetic appeal
of shipwrecked gentility. A house
without people in it. even when it is
in repair, is as forlorn as q dog who
has lost his master.
Up the road were more houses of the
nondescript village pattern. made mel
Their for comfort nor looks. God
knows why they built such houses.
Perhaps it was in accordance with the
old Puritan idea that any kind of
physical perfection is blasphemy. Some
Of these We're kept in paint and win
dow glass. but there were enough poor
relations to spoil the effect
Down the road between the arches OF
the weeping willows came first the
brook, with the stone bridge-tniS
broken as to coping and threadbare
in general-then on the hither side of
the way some three or four neigh
bors' houses aud opposite the black
smiths shop and postotfice, the latter
of course in q store, where yoU could
buy anything from stale groceries to
shingles.
In short, Fairfield was an eastern
village whose cause had departed,
community drained of the male prin-
ciple, leaving only y few queer men,
the blacksmith and some halfling boys
to give tone to the background of doZ-
ems of old maids.
An unsympathetic stranger would
have felt that nothing was left to the
Fairfieldians but memory, and the
sooner they lost that the better.
Take a wineglassful of raspberry
vinegar, two tablespoonfuls of sugar,
half a cup each of boneset and rhu-
bard, good full cup of the milk of
human kindness, dilute in n gallon of
water and you have the flavor Of
Fairfield. There was just enough Of
each ingredient to spoil the taste of
all the rest.
Miss Matte rested her elbow on the
railing, her chin in her hand, and
gazed thoughtfully about her. AS a
matter of fact, she was the most in
spring thing in view. At a distance
of fifty yards she was still tall, slen-
der girl. Her body retained the habit
as well as the lines of youth, tricE
of gliding into unexpected, pleasing at
titudes, which would have been awk-
ward but for the suppleness of liml
to which they testified and the uncon,
seriousness and ease of their irregular
ity.
Her face was a child's face in the
ennObling sense of the word. The rec
ord OF the years written upon it seem
ed a masQuerade-the face of n clear
eyed girl of fourteen made up to rep
resent her own aunt at fancy dress
party; a face drawn a trifie fine, a lit.
tie ascetic, but balanced by the hui
NOR of the large, shapely mouth, and
really beautiful in bone and contour
the beauty of mignonette and doves
and gentle things.
You could see that she was thirty-five
in the blatant candor of noon, but now
blushed with the pink of the setting
sun, she was still in the days of the
fairy prince.
Miss Mattie's reverie idled over the
year upon year of respectable stupidity
that represented life in Fairfield, while
her eyes and soul were in the boiling
gold Of the sky glory. She sighed.
A panorama of life minced before
Miss Mattie's mind about as vivid an(
full Of red corpuscles as Greel
frieze. Her affectionate nature was
starved. They visited each other, tn,
ladies of Fairfield these women wht
had rolled on the floor together a!
babies-in their best black or green o.
whatever it might be, and gloves
this though the summer sun might b,
hammering down with all his might
And then they sat in closed room
and talked in a reserved fashion which
was entirely the property Of the call
OF course one could have q moment
real talk by chance meeting, and Their
were the natural griefs of life to breal
the corsets of this etiquette. although
in general the griefs seemed to b.
long drawn out and conventional af
fairs, as IL nature herself at last yield
ed to the system, conquered by tn
invincible conventionality and stub
bornness of the ladies of Fairfield. /
was the unspoken but firm belief o
each of these women that a persol
of their circle who had no more ide
of responsibility than to drop dead o.
the public road would never go t
heaven.
Poor Miss Matte! Small wonde
she dropped her hands, sat back an,
wondered. with another sigh, if it wer
for this she was born. She did no
rebel-there was no violence in her
but she regretted exceedingly. In spit
of her slenderness it was a wild
mother lap in which her hands rested
an obvious cradle for little children
And instinctively 1t would come to 70,
as you looked at her that there coul
be no more comfortable place for
tired man to come home to than
household presided over by this sloy
moving, gentle woman.
There was nothing old maidish abou
Miss Matte but the tale of her year.
She had had offers, such as Fairfiel
and vicinity cOuld bOaSt and decline