Spirit of the age. [volume] (Woodstock, Vt.) 1845-1913, 1910-01-22

CT anu loohcu out tue Willow, Il nc
/ calendar on the wall kept crying &c
her: "Sprlngtime is here, Sarah
| springtime is here, tell you! Looh
/ nt me, Sarah! My figures show 1t
! You've got a neat figure yourself
| Sarah-a nice sprlngtime figure. Why
! do you look out the window so sadlyY
Sarah's room was at the back of the
house. Looking out the window she
could see the windowless rear brick
wall OF the box factory on the neXt
street. But the wall was clearest crys
tai, and Sarah was looking down q
grassy lane shaded with cherry trees
and elms and bordered with raspberry
bushes and Cherokee roses
Springs real harbingers are too sub,
tie for the eye and ear. Some must
have the Towering crocus, the wood
starring dogwood, the voice of blue.
bird even so gross reminder as the
farewell handshake of the retiring
buckwheat and oyster, before they can
welcome the lady In green to their dull
bosoms. But to old earths choicest
kin there come straight, sweet mes,
sages from his newest BRIDE telling
them they shall be no stepchildren UNI
less they choose to be.
On the previous summer Sarah had
gone into the country and loved a
farmer.
On writing your story never bark
back thus. 1t is bad art and cripples
interest. Let it march, march,
Sarah stayed two weeks at Sunny.
brook farm. There she learned to love
old Farmer Franklin's son Walter.
Farmers have been loved and welded
and turned out to grass in less time.
But young Walter Franklin was a
modern agriculturist. lie had a tele.
phone in his COW house, and he could
figure up exactly what effect next
years Canada wheat crop would have
on potatoes planted in the dark of the
moon
1t was in this shaded and raspber
ried lane that Walter had wooed and
won her. And together they had sat
and woven a crown of dandelions for
her hair. He had immoderately prais
ed the effect of the yellow blossoms
against her brown tresses, and she had
left the chaplet there and walked back
to the house swinging her straw sailor
in her hand.
They were to marry in the spring
at the very first sign of spring, Walter
said And Sarah came back to the
city to pound her typewriter.
A knock at the door dispelled Sarah's
visions of that happy day. A waiter
had brought the rough pencil draft OF
the home restaurants next day fare
In old Schulenberg's angular hand.
Sarah sat down to her typewriter
and slipped card between the rollers.
She was a nimble worker. Generally
in an hour and a half the twenty-one
menu cards were written and ready.
Today there were more changes on
the bill of fare than usual The soups
were lighter. Pork was eliminated from
the entrees, figuring only with Rus
sian turnips among the roasts. The
gracious spirit Of spring pervaded the
entire menu. Lamb that lately ca
pered Oh the greening hillsides was
becomingly exploited with the sauce
that commemorated its gambols The
song of the oyster, though not silenced,
was dlminuendo con amore. The fry.
ing pan seemed to be held inactive be-
hind the benefcent bars of the broiler.
The pie list swelled; the richer pud.
dings had vanished; the sausage, with
his drapery wrapped about him, bare
ly fingered in a pleasant thanatopsis
with the buckwheats and the sweet
but doomed maple. i
Sarah's fingers danced like midgets
above summer stream. Down
the courses she worked, Civ
ing each item its position according to
its length with an accurate eye.
Just above the desserts came the
list of egetables-carrots and peas,
asparagus on toast, the perennial to-
matoes and corn and succotash, lima
beans, cabbage-and then
Sarah was crying over her bill of
fare. Tears from the depths of some |
divine despair rose i'll her heart and |
gathered to her eyes. Down went her |
head on the little typewriter stand,
and the keyboard ratified a dry accom-.
paniment to her moist sobs.
For.she had received no letter from
Walter in two weeks. and the next
item on the bill of fare was dandelions
-dandelions with some kind of egg.
But bother the egg! Dandelions with
whose golden blooms Walter had
crowned her his queen of love and flu
.ure bride; dandelions, the harbingers
If spring, her sorrows crown of sor-
'ow, reminder of her happiest days!
Madam, I dare you to smile until
you suffer this test; Let the Marechal
Mel roses that Percy brought you on
he night you gave him your heart be
erved as a salad with French dressing
before your eyes at a Schulenberg
able d'hote. Had Juliet so seen her
owe tokens dishonored the sooner
would she have sought the lethean
lerbs Of the good apothecary.
But what a witch is spring! Into
he great cold city of stone and iron
message had to. be sent. There was
zone to convey 1t but the little hardy
ourier of the fields with his rough
'reen coat and modest air. lie is a
rue soldier of fortune, this dent de-lion
this lions tooth, as the French chefs
all him. Powered he will assist at
ovemaking wfeathed In my lndy's nut
rown hair; young and callow and un-
lossomed, he goes into the boiling pot
nd delivers the word of his sovereign
distress.
By and by Sarah forced bnc11 her |