The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1912-08-01

uIs INST Night or FOrJune CneoSoyo
1ad been but yesterday; yet, here he
was, not desperately bat consciously
In love with her. The situation bore
against all precepts; 1t ripped up his
preconceived ideas Of romance as a
gale at sea shreds q canvas. He felt
bit paAicky. He had always planned
q courtship of year or SO, meetings,
separations, and remeetings, pleasur-
able expectations, little junkets to the
aters and country places; In brief, to
witness the rose grow and unfold.
Somewhere he had read or heard that
courtship was the plummet which
sounded the depths of compatibility.
He knew nothing of Fortune Ched-
soye, save that she was beautiful to
his eyes, and that she was as different
from the ordinary run of girls as yon-
der moon was from the stars. Here
his knowledge ended. But instinct
went on, appraising and delving and
winnowing, and instinct told him what
knowledge could not, that she was all
his heart desired.
When a man finally decides that he
is in love, his troubles begin, the
Imaginary ones. Is he worthy? Can
he always provide for her? Is 1t pos
sible for such marvellous creature
to love an Insignificant chap like him
self? And that worst of mental
poisons, is she in love with any one
else? What to do to win her? The
feats of Hercules, of Perseus, OF
Jason; what mad piece of heroism can
he lay his hand to that he may wake
the slumbering fires, and having
reused them, continue to feed them?
Manhood, meaning that decade be-
tween thirty and forty, looks upon
this phase, abashed. After all, it
wasn't 80 terrible; there were vaster
emotions, vaster achievements in life
to which in comparison love was as
a candle held to the sun.
Again she stopped, leaning over the
parapet and staring down at the wa
ter swirling past the stone embank-
ment. He did likewise, resting upon
his folded arms. Suddenly his tongue
became alive; and quietly, without
hesitancy or embarrassment, he began
to tell her of his school life, his life
at home. And the manner in which
he spoke of his mother warmed her;
and she was strangely and wonder
ihgly attracted.
"Of course, the mother meant the
best in the world when she gave me
Percival Algernon; and because she
meant the best, have rarely tried to
hide them. What was good enough for
her to give was good enough for me
to keep. It is simply that + have been
foolish about it, supersensitive. l
shorld~have laughed and accepted the
thing as joke: instead. made the
fatal move of trying to run away and
hide. But. taking the name in full
lightly, ut sounds as incongruous as
playing Traumerei on steam-piano."
He expected her to laugh, but her
heart was too full of the old ache.
This young man, kindly, gentle, intel
ilgent, If Shy, was a love-child. And
she? An offspring, the loneliest of
the lonely, the child that wasn't want
ed. Many time she had thoughkof
flinging all to the winds, of running
away and hiding where they never
should find her, of working with her
own hands for her bread and butter.
Little they'd have cared. But always
the rebel spirit died within her as she
stepped outside the villa gates. To
leave behind for unknown privations
certain assured comforts, things Of
which she was fond, things to which
she was used, she couldn't do it, she
just couldn't. Morally and physically
she was little coward
Let us go in" she said sharply.
Another moment, and she would have
been in tears.