The Huttig news., 1910-04-30
Forward to the pigsty,.

fOrWard 10 the p1sSty.
 We said very little for the remaind. CT of that walk had almost reached the limit of endurance; with every step the broken ends of the bone grated together. We found the farm house without difficulty. and I remem- Der wondering if I could hold out to the end of the old stone walk that led between hedges to the door.
 Allah be praised, 1 said with all the voice I could muster. Behold the coffee potl" And then I put down the cup and folded up like a jack-knife on the porch floor.
 When I came around something hot was trickling down my neck, and a despairing voice was saying, "Oh, l don't seem to be able to pour it into your mouth Please open your eyes"
 But I don't want it in my eyes, replied dreamily. "I haven't any idea what came over me. It was the shoes, l think; the left one is a red-hot tor ture" I was sitting by that time and looking across into her face.
 Never before or since have l faint. ed, but l would do it ioyfully, dozen times a day. if I could waken again to the blissful touch of soft fingers on my face. the hot ecstasy of coffee spilled by those fingers down my neck There was thrill in every tone of her voice that morning. Before long my loyalty to Mcknight would step between me and the girl he loved life would develop new complexities. In these early hours after the wreck. full of pain as they were, there was nothing of the suspicion and distrust that came later. Shorn of our gauds and baubles, we were primitive man and woman, together; our world for the hour was the deserted farmhouse, the slope of wheatfield that led to the road the woodland lot, the pasture
 We breakfasted together across the homely table. Our eheerfulness. at first sheer reaction became less forced as we ate great slices of bread from the granny oven back of the house, and drank hot fluid that smclled like coffee and tasted like nothing that I have ever swallowed We found cream in stone jars. sunk deep in the chill water of the springhouse. And there were eggs. great yellow brown ones a basket of them.
 So. like two children awakened from a nightmare, we chatted over our food; we hunted mutual friends. we laughed together at my feeble witticisms but we put the horror behind us resolute- y. After all. 1t was the hat with .;AL he strangeness of the situation.
 All along I had had the impression hat Alison West was deliberately put ing out of her mind something that ,btruded now and then. It brought gith it a return of the puzzled express
 ion that I had surprised early in the
 ay, before the wreck. l caught it
 nee, when. breakfast over. she was
 ghtening tke sling that held the
 roken arm. had prolonged the morning meal as much as I could, but when the wooden clock with the pink roses on the dial pointed to half after ten. and the mother with the duplicate youngsters had not come back, Miss West made the move had dreaded. ''If we are to get into Baltimore at all we must start" she said, rising. You ought to see doctor as soon as possible
 "Hush,7 l said warningly. Don't mention the arm. please; it is asleep now. You may rouse it.
 If I only had a hat" she reflected. Tt wouldn't need to be much of one, but She gave a little cry and darted to the corner. Look. she said triumphantly. "the very thing. With the green streamers tied up in bow, like this-do you suppose the child would mind? l can put $5 or SO here-that would buy a dozen of them
 It was queer affair of straw. that hat. with round crown. and rim that Topped dismally With single movement she had turned it up at one side and fitted it to her head. Gro tesque by itself. when she wore it it was a thing of joy
 Evidently the lack of head covering had troubled her, for she was elated at her find. She left me. scrawling a note of thanks and pinning it with bill to the table-cloth, and ran up stairs to the mirror and the promised soap and water.
 1 did not see her when she came down. l had discovered bench with a tin basin outside the kitchen door,