The daily Alaskan., 1911-07-31

waiting for Ansel Peever
 Wait until come back from Call fornio dearest" Ansel had whispered aThen l will have such a home and such acres of greenhouses that ! will not be ashamed Co ask you Go give up your splendid home on the hill'
 Of course Lucy's heart prompted her to tell him to remain with her What cared she for Che promised wealth or tbe golden west when the solid reality of Ansers thrifty little flower business was readv and waiting for tbem hoibt But Anse looked so downhcortrd and disappointed at hef answer that Lucy avaiIed herself Of the feminine privi Iege and changed her mind
 "You'd better go. AuseI, she urged him. or will wait for you 1T you should be gone hundred years she added recblessly.
 So it was arranged as Ansers pride prompted him. and Lucy stayed iu her faNlers comfortable home on Che hiii- top and watched the black smoke from AnseTs train dissolve iu the May sun shine even as her hopes and happiness dissolved In 1 burst of grief
 A hundred days went by, and Anscls letters were full of homesickncss and enthusiasm. X hundred weeks passed, and the letters contained less hope. fulness and the same strain of longing for home. Lucy wrote and urged him to come home. Let the old fortune ro." she wrote hastily. "There is plenty to do In Little River, and Ste pheu Tutuc wilt be glad to sell the greenhouses back Co you.
 But Auscl was obstinate as well as proud. and be did not come home In answer to Lucy's appeal A hundred months went by-eight long years and four months.-and Lucy's Aunt Rebec- ca Prentice repeated the words she had dlnncd into her niece's pretty eorss
 He's never coming back again, Lucy. You might as well have mar ried Leonard Deane or the minister and had fnmily growing up around you instead oE wasting your life walt Ing for a man who has forgotten you '
 'I don't believe Ausel has forgotten me. Aunt Rebecca," Lucy said patient Iy. oIt has taken longer for him to make fortune than he expected that's oll
 One April morning Lucy MelIen found herself quite alone in the world. Her parents had died shortly after An sel went away and now Aunt Rebec- ca had succumbed to pneumonia, and the big empty house on the hin seem. ed bigger and empuer than ever, At the end of a year Lucy had managed to almost bergar herself by several foolish investments, and there came a day when the rcd dag swung Co the breeze above the Mellen place.
 "Wbut are you going To do now, Lucy McllenY demanded her next door neighbor, Mrs Hall Here you've got an your furniture croted up as if you was going away, and you aln't said a word to nobody"
 "Tm going to California" said Lucy calmly, though her pale cheeks flushed. "Ansel has sent for me to come out there and be married You see, he's so busy he can't get away just now
 Well, of all things" cried Mrs. Hail excitedly. You don't mean that you, a single woman, are going away out there an alone to get marrledG'
 I'm thirty-dve, said Lucy obsti- uately, and Anseys folks are out there, you know"
 Mrs. Hau said no more, but twisted the shawl tighter around her thin face and fairly flew down the street to be the first one to transmit the startling news to Little River
 Lucy's friends were 0t the station Go bid her Coodby when she started on her long journey. Her household goods had gone on week before, and when the last moment came there were many tears and good wishes and lots of rice and old shoes flying after her Lucy looked strangely pale and silent for a bride to be. but she had been that way for so many years now that her friends quite forgot what merry, light hearted girl she had been when Ansel first wooed ber
 Then tbe train thundered away to- ward New York, and Lucy leaned her pale face against the window and closed her frightened eyes. She had never taken such a long journey. and she was quite unused to travelling. but that was not the worst of it. She had told a number of downright les Ansel Peever had not sent for her; he did not know she was coming out there, and sho had not heard from him for two months
 It was this knowledge that made Eucy Melen So miserable as her train flew westward. Every mile that brought her nearer to Ansel also made her heart beat faster until at last when she reached San Francisco and changed cars for the little town in Santa Barbara county she was almost sick with re1oorse and shame at her own daring.
 At last it was time for her to get of. She saw her trunks dumped on the station platform at Redclid. and
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