The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1908-10-13
Fresh Air
Funds.
Copyrighted. 1908. by Associated Z
Literary Press. 3
BY Lulu JohnEon.

shine down upon the narrow street and
hung lazily upon the line of the west
ern sky as though reluctant to leave a
battlefield where he had been mighty
victor. The pavements and even the
buildings gave out their scorching heat
like a bake oven from which the fires
have been newly drawn.
Here and there some one watered the
street with hose or turned the stream
upon the tiny grass plots in front of
the houses, but the heat quickly dried
up the food, and the humidity served
only to add to the general discomfort.
1t was long street of old fashioned
high stoop houses, once the home of
fashion. Latterly society had been
driven out by the resistless march of
the city's progress, and the district
was given over to the boarding house
mistresses until such time as the needs
Of the growing city should require the
space for factories.
Still retaining somewhat Of its old
fashioned dignity, the street was be
coming shabby genteel. Here and
there a brownstone front had been re
placed by brick tenement masquerad
ing as fiathouse, and here and there
the sQualor Of the poor became appar-
emit Already the street marked the ex-
IRENE edge of the Residential district"
as the boarding house mistress loved
to term 1t, and its chief recommends
ton was the fact that the boarders
could reach their places of employment
by walking and so save the tedious
cars and the go cents car fare that rep
resented an important item In their
weekly expenditure.
The boarders thronged the high
stoops, gasping in the hot air, not dar-
ing to seek their rooms until the heat
should abate little. At Mrs. Marcy's
Dudley Thearle shared the top step
with Maude Ryerson. Ever since he
had come to Marcy's, two weeks be-
fore, he had sought place beside
Maude until the other boarders had
come to regard the top step as the
joint property of the two.
Presently they would make jests on
the oddly assorted pair and Thearle's
love affair would share, with the
weakness of the coffee and the
strength of the butter, the humorous
attention of the other boarders. The
coffee was not weak and the butter
rather better than the average, but
tradition is mighty and has decreed
that these jokes shall endure while
boarding houses exist. Generally, too,
there is some mismated pair, lost in
their own happiness, to offer a third
butt Of ridicule.
And surely never was there such
an oddly assorted pair. Thearle still
wore the sunburn and ruddy coloring
which proclaimed him product of
field and farm. The fortnight which
had passed since he had taken posi-
ton offered him by one Of last sum-
mer's boarders at the farm had not
faded the flush Of health, nor had the
city's burdens bent the strong shout
ders.
Miss Ryerson was a commercial
her youth and beauty and gave naught
in return save the pittance which per
mitted a mere existence with none of
the pleasures that are the heritage of
youth. She was only twenty-one, but
she looked thirty, for since her six
teenth birthday she had been working.
Part of that time she had been the
support Of younger sister, and the
story Of privations endured for her
sisters sake was written large on
the colorless skin and in the weary
eyes and bent carriage.
Yet to Thearle she seemed beauti-
full, for she represented knowledge
knowledge Of ways and manners that
were strange and new to him-and he
worshiped dumbly If not from afar.
Her greatest charm he found in the
fact that she did not laugh at his
blunders, as the others did. She seem
ed to him some Lady Gracious, a wo-
man vastly different from all others, a
woman most greatly to be desired.
AS they sat there In silence, unwill-
ing to make even the exertion that
conversation demanded, there came
the shouts of children, the complaining
grind Of heavy motor cars, and pres
emily there rolled past a line of deliv-
cry trucks loaded with children as
cargo
TITS the city fresh air fund.-" ex-
planned the girl In answer to Thearle's
inquiring glance 1.-THE real fund sends
the children to the country. This is an
idea of the Evening Spark. The parks
are too far for the little feet to walk.
and car fare is not for the children Of
the tenements. The merchants lend
their trucks in the evenings, and the
children are taken out to the park to
run on the grass and get breath of
fresh air 1t is a wonderful charity"
II wish some one would start fresh
air fund for people like me-" unused
Thearle. 81 don't mean just that sort,
Of course, but l sit here on the steps
because there seems to be nothing else
to do"
"You could go to the park" suggest
ed the girl THAT car on the corner
goes straight out past the park into
the country It's a lovely ride, but 1t
costs another nickel once you are past
rne park"
"But what good Is that to me?" de-
manded Thearle. II don't know my
way around yet Why can't an accom-
modating guide come and get usY
"You are supposed to be able to make
acquaintances and arrange picnics, y
reminded the girl. "You have the neo-
ule at the store and at your boarding
house."
"Will you comeT demanded Thearle,
reused to interest. Il didn't suppose
that you'd care"
"Gladly," was the smiling response,
while the tired eyes lighted with pleas
ure. .I'll go for my hat"
In ten minutes they were speeding
toward the suburbs, exchanging the
narrow, i'll smelling streets for the
broader avenues, past the park, with
its soft green's, into the open country,
with now and then a suburban tract
that In time would be absorbed into
the city proper.
And so they came at last to the real
fields, free from the advertising boards
Of real estate firms and patent medi-
cines. Cornstalks cut the velvet dusk
with faint green swords of light, and
the smell of clover and buckwheat and
the fragrant odor of apples fell CRATE
fully upon nostrils long assailed by
musty city streets.
The tense rigidity of the girls pose
relaxed. She settled back more com
fortably against the seat She no long
er fought with the breeze in its strug
giles to destroy the prim severity OF
her hair, which now began to curl In
loving tendrils about her low white
brow.
ITS like a little visit TO heaven,
she breathed softly. 1T is perfect out
here"