The Press., 1909-08-04
.DIANTHE OF
 THE WOODS.
It Wasn't a Witch He Caught
 but His Ideal of a Girl.
Rv M. WOODRUFF NEWELL.

l By ms WOODnOFF NEWELL Copyright, 1909, by Associated Literary Press.l
 Andrew Salisbury was on his vaca- | tion when he met his fate. .-.
 A severe attack of typhoid had put him considerably on the bias, so that he welcomed q quiet recuperating old l farmhouse twenty miles from a lem 1 un'' as desired haven and went there for summers sojourn the 1st of July.
 The old couple with whom he board cd were one Lemuel Merriwether and his wife, and they worried constantly for fear he should have a relapse.
 ''Tm very apt to-" Andrew assured them often, 'being so weak, you know. The deIirium especially is likely to return"
 Being a lone young bachelor, he en- joyed their anxiety in his behalf and | thies.
 My heaVenv exclaimed Mrs. Merri- wether the morning that he told her that, throwing away raish that she was seeding and putting the seeds into the cake in her excitement.
 "Oh, it's very sad diseasew con- l tinued Andrew pensiyely, reaching for his fifth cooky.
 Then he took his camera and went out for mornings prowl through the woods. | The country was in its summer | glory, and just before he started back Il to the house he took the picture that started the trouble.
 He had been walking along by the river, and, struck by clump of birch trees that fringed q dim woodland 1 path, he trained his camera on it and sought the finder. He smiled happily as he saw the picture it made-the slim young trees with the long path winding up behind them.
 That's fine!" he told himself and. holding the camera steady, snapped it. He could scarcely wait to get home to develop it.
 Mrs. Merriwether saw him coming and exclaimed anxiously, Gracious me, boy, where's the fire?'
 "Got a prize package" he answered solemnly. .
 Mrs. Merriwether, honest soul. stared after him.
 "You don't suppose, now, the heats affected his head, do you?" she whis- pered to Lemuel as he came up from the barn little later.
 Hes been on the go all day in the hot sun, and after such a fever as he had he's liable to have spells of looney, you know he said so. I just asked him what he was hurrying so for, and he said he had prize pack age, and I declare to goodness I didn't see nothing but that old camerav'
 "Shoo, shoo, mother, the boys all right. It's probably just some of his funny business"
 If they had seen "the boy" at that precise moment they would probably have been more anxious than they were about him.
 He was looking at the developed film with startled eyes, His hands tween him and the small ruby lamp on the table.
 "By Georgey' he said and put it through the bath again. A second time he held it up and scru- tinized it in the dim red glow.
 ''By gum," he said, tits a witch or I'm going looney!'
 There was the path stretching out all luringly into the woods beyond. There were the birch trees, tall and slender and beautiful, and there, just beyond them, peering out between two mass i've oak tree trunks that bordered the path, was a girl or witch or a dry ad, with laughing lips, flying hair and an extraordinary eighteenth century gown.
 'How the dickens!' puzzled Andrew. Its something on the film. There couldn't have been a real girl there, alone Lord, there ain't one within twenty miles! She surely wouldn't walk that far, and there was no team in sight, and, anyway, what would a girl of Revolutionary days be doing here?''
 He washed the film carefully and put 1t through the hypo bath. Then he washed it again and, hanging it up to dry, went down to supper. There he talked at random, his mind being full of the mysterious picture. His remarks were so rambling that they confirmed every suspicion that Mother Merriwether had formed that | afternoon.
 He's offg' she whispered sharply to Lemuel outside the kitchen door. 'It's the heat He's way off. Just see how funny he talks If he ain't better in the morning we'll have Dr. Snow come over. We'll have to watch him with out his knowing 1t. We must be mighty careful not to excite him. Oh, goodness, ain't it awful, that poor boy! My. but typhoid's fearful disease" ]"
 Lemuel, vastly alarmed, was in- stantly Ion to his job" For watch dog he proved Al. Andrew had diffi- culty in shaking him off long enough to go to the dark room at bedtime.
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