Twice-a-week plain dealer. (Cresco, Howard County, Iowa) 1895-1913, 1910-02-04

meet strawberry pie once week,
and 1t vexed Miss Allegretto.
Miss Allegretto is properly proud of
her strawberry pies, and she likes
praise, and the best praise is the eat
ing them, but when Seattle James be-
gan coming every Tuesday, and also
began sending another pieloving no.
DO for each other day of the week,
Miss Allegretto began feeling that she
was becoming mere refractory, and
that it was interfering with her duties
as one of our leading social lights.
No lady can turn out a continuous
stream of large, circular strawberry
pies day after day, and week after
week. and still do her duty by the
Betzville Sewing society. And yet
Miss Allegretto had not the heart to
turn poor pie-hungry hobo from her
door with cruel words.
For several weeks she brooded
mournfully over the situation, and
she was losing flesh rapidly when a
complete solution of the matter came
to her at meeting of the Betzville
Sewing society. Uncle Ashdod Clute
himself said the solution was one of
those strokes of genius that come to
a person once in lifetime like flash
of lightning out of clear sky.
Miss Allegretto was sewing away
and brooding, and didn't know what
in the world to do, when she noticed
that her needle was little dull, and
she reached into her sewing bag and
pulled out her emery bag to sharpen
her needle little Her emery bag,
like every other emery bag in Betz-
vile, was shaped like, and looked like,
a ripe red strawberry, and the mo-
ment she saw it, the solution came in
to her mind. Without a moments
hesitation she gathered up all the
emery strawberries in the Sewing So
ciety and then excused herself and
went home and made a strawberry
pie out of them. When the pie was
completed it was one of the best look
ing strawberry pies BetzNlle had ever
seen turned out by Miss Allegretto
G. Spads, and without word she set
it on the kitchen window sill to cool.
Half an hour later Seattle James
wandered up with his sweet smile. and
when he saw the pie resting peaceful
ly on the window sill he grinned joy
fully and reached for it. He opened
his mouth and took bite. Miss AL.
legretto says nothing can describe the
struggle that followed but the meet
ing of an irresistible force and an i'm.
movable obstruction. At the first bite
Seattle James looked panied and sur
prised, but he was game and bit again.
Then a glare of anger came ir.o his
eyes, and, wrapping his arms around
the pie, he lay down and Rugged it
while he chewed at it angrily. He
seemed to feel that his whole future
strawberry pie life depended on his
eating this one, and he meant to eat
it or die in the struggle. Sometimes
he held 1t down with one foot while
he chewed at it, and sometimes he
crushed it up against the side of the
house while he bit at it snappishly,
and once in awhile he would stagger
off few feet and lie on his back and
pant for few minutes while he gath
cred new strength for the attack.
Miss Allegretto said she watched
and waited with bated breath, for she
felt that her whole future career
hung in the Balance. If Seattle James
held out she was condemned to ever
lasting pie making, but if the pie held
out she would be free IT locked as