Heppner gazette. [volume] (Heppner, Morrow County, Or.) 1892-1912, 1909-10-28

were not always kind to you, wer
they? | shouldn't wonder II they bea
you sometimes! But you will never b,
! beaten any more. You shall ave
nice little pony, and cart, and flow
ers, and pretty clothes, and everythins
that little girls like | don't know
what they are, but whatever they are
you shall have them. SO don't cry any
more! What pretty name Pepeeta
Isl 1t sounds like music when l say
the world myself. It's a regular jaw
breaker-Doctor Paracelsus Aescula =
piusl What do you think OF that, Pc
peeta! But then YOU reed not call me
by the whole OF / You can just call
me Doctor, for short. Now, look at me
just once, and give me 4 pretty smile.
Let me see those big black eyes! No?
You don't want to- Well, that's all
right. | won't bother you. But l want
you to know that l love YOU, and that
you are never going to have any more
trouble as long as you live"
These We're the kindest words the
child had ever had spoken to her, or at
least the kindest she could remember,
They fell on her ears like music and
awakened gratitude and love in her
heart. She ceased to sigh, and before
the ride to town was endeH had be-
gun to feel a vague sense of happi-
ness
The next .ew years We're full Of
strange adventures for these singular
companions, The quack had discov-
cred certain clues to the past history
of the child whom he had thus adopt
ed and was firmly persuaded that she
belonged to Il noble family. He had
made all his plans TO take her to Spain
and establish her identity in the hope
of securing a great reward. But just
as he was about to execute this
scheme. he was seized by a disease
which Frustrated him for many
months. and threw him into nervous
condition in which he cor tracted the
habit of stammering. On his recovery
from his long sickness he found him
self stripped of everything he had 4c-
Cumulated; but his shrewdness and in
domitable will remained, and he soon
began to rebuild his shattered fortune.
During all these ups and wns Pc
peeta was his inseparable and devoted
companion. The admiration which her
childish beauty excited in his heart
had deepened into affection and finally
into love When she reached the age
of 16 or II. years he proposed to her
the idea of marriage. She knew moth
ing of her own heart, and little about
hut hal hna,, til /
implicit obedience to h; will She con-
sented and the ceremony was perform
ed by a Justice of the Peace in the
city of Cincinnati, year or so before
their appearance in tie Quaker village.
An experience so abnormal would have
perverted, if not destroyed her nature
had it not contained th1 germs Of
beauty and virtue implanted at her
birth. They were still dormant, but
not dead they only awaited the sun
and rain of love to quicken them INTO
life.
The quack had coarsened with the
passing years, but Pepeeta, withdraw
ing into the sanctuary of her soul, liv-
ing life of vagnue dreams and half
conscious aspirations after something,
she know not what, had grown even
more gentle and submissive. AS she
did not yet comprehend life, she did
not protest against it's injustice or it's
The vulgar people among
whom she lived, the vulgar scenes she
saw, passed across the mirror Of her
soul without leaving permanent i'm
preston. She performed the coarse
duties Of her life in perfunctory |
manner. 1t was her body and not her
soul, her will and not her heart which |
were concerned with them. What that |
soul and that heart really were. re-
mained to be seen.
(To be continued