Connecticut western news., 1910-04-07
The BrokenLe
 By M. QUAD Copyright, 1910, by Associated Lit
 erary Press.

lived Joe Tillman, a bashful man.
 One evening he found her sister there. It was an evening in summer, and he had it all planned out to ask the widow how her tomatoes were coming along-if the potato bugs had appeared in the garden, if the summer squashes had begun to get necks on them, and various other things-and then all of sudden he would ask her to marry him. It must be sudden or not at all
 The bashful Joe had been planning this plan for a week, but it was all upset by finding the sister there. Such was his embarrassment that he asked Mrs. Spicer to lend him hive of bees instead of a hammer, and he had hard ly got into the house when he wanted to get out again. After he had taken his departure the elder widow said to the younger:
 Sarah, how long has this thing been going on?"
 What thing?" she replied, with a guilty blush.
 '"This nonsense and waste of time. That fellow is in love with you, and a dog with one eye could see it."
 If he is he hasn't said so."
 ''Then it's your fault. You are as red as paint, and you needn't deny that you think a lot of him. Don't try to deceive q woman who has had three husbands. What I want to know is why you haven't married him?'
 Because Pm not going to marry again"
 ''Hoot-toot! Don't talk foolishness."
 "Well, then, Joe is 0 bashful man and hasn't asked me-"
 That's better. There are some men born that way. shall make it my business to cure this old bach"
 Martha, if you interfere"-
 "I shall stay right here until he pops the question. No widow under forty has any business to be a widow over a year If wasn't fifty-two I'd be mar. ried within six months.'
 You'd rope in d man the same as calf, I suppose?" asked Mrs. Spice1 sarcastically. "But I forbid you to meddle with my affairs. I like Joe Tillman, but even if he was to ask me to marry him I don't think I'd do it. that is, can't say that would"
 "Oh, well, we'll see about it." said the elder sister, and there the conver- sation dropped.
 In making his visits to the widow Joe did not come by the highway run ming past both houses. Instead of that he cut across lots and approached her house from the rear. He had two fences to climb, and he always sat on the last fence for a time to get his courage up. Sister Martha, without pretending to see anything, noted this thing and planned accordingly. She planned for a jar. She was very practical woman. and one day when her sister had gone to the store she hunted up a handsaw, and, removing the top rail, she sawed it almost in two and replaced it. It was just at the spot where Joe climbed over. It might work, and it might not She would take her chances on that.
 That evening, as the sun went down and the gloaming came on and the birds twittered their last notes and the skeeters began roaming for prey Joe Tillman might have been observed making a sneak across the fields. He hadn't visited the widow for three nights, being in terror of her sister He had stood it as long as he could and was now coming to borrow heI barn or smokehouse or front fence. The two widows Sat on the veranda and waited. One waited to see if Joe would come, and the other waited for the jar that had been planned for.
 Joe and the jar arrived together. If his heart hadn't been beating so tu- multuously as he laid hands on that top rail he would have noticed some thing wrong, but as it was he climbed up and took his seat and had scarcely begun his hitching around when there was a crash and he went backward head over heels.
 A crash was heard on the veranda, and both widows uttered eXclamations and rose up. Both reasoned it out that IL WdS Joe 1IlIudu. DUH Ilh LOI bhS fence. Yes, it was Joe. He lay in a heap on the far side of the fence, leg doubled under him, and the wo- men had to take down q lot of the rails to get over and at him. At the first groan he gave they knew his leg was broken. At the second they ran for a mattress and carried him into the house. The hired man was hunted up in the barnyard and dis patched for doctor, and long enough before midnight the broken limb had been set and the patient was doing well. Indeed, he was doing so well that the Widow Spicer came out of the spare bedroom with blushing cheeks and said to her sister:
 Martha, what do you think has happeneq?'
 Hasn't broken the other leg foun- dering around, has be?"
 "Joe has asked me to marry him"
 "Hoot! But 1 had given him two Ivanl-c r., pool-a mn his mind in "