Putnam patriot., 1913-09-19

invited him in to rest. and she v,.
 siped readily about her circumsta,ssa and was loud in complaint of her a.s band. He had acquired a good Ss-,
 of money, she told my friend. and s-s squandered it all in speculation years before he had been on the vss~- of bankruptcy. and though things bss
 brightened he was still in the sane Y
 sition. She wished that they co.,s sell out and move into a city-bB, :. was hard to ind purchasers for uas.1 orchard land in that section of tsa state.
 How much do you want to ssn for? he inquired
 The woman hesitated. Fonr tbr,. sand, she said at last
 He had twice that sum. With ,h. farm he could live among the men ories that had controlled his life. ba wanted nothing bstter. I will buy i. at that figure. he answered. All fb,. time he had not found the heart to ask about the woman's daughter. but nov she voluntarily spoke to her.
 There's one trouble I've got she grumbled, and that's Bessie. She da elares she won't go to a city. sha hates city life and says if l go shes going to hire out somewhere
 Hire out?' stamaered the yisiso,
 Yes, grumbled the woman. sba a.n't bad girl, but somehow she nev. CT quite saw her duty toward her f.. ther and me after Jim refused to giva her an education. She wanted to go to high school, and Jim hadn't tba money
 At that moment the farmer stamn. ed into the room casting a suspicious look at the visitor. The woman in. trodueed him. This gentleman talks of buying the farm she announced
 The farmers yisage cleared May. be you'd like to come and talk it over outside, he said, and my friend fol. lowed him. He followed him down in the peach trees and then he turned about and put his hand on his shoul. der. A wild. uncomfortable rage was seething in his heart This man had defrauded two lives, his daughters and his own. He had squandered the money with which the man had hoped to redeem this young life from ie. norance and servitude; ten years of work had gone for nothing flung away in foolish speculation or extray. agance, of which even his wife yas ignorant
 The habits of ten years fell away from him, and the old devil came back. Fe would murder him as sure ly as he himself must die for it.
 "The farmer, looking into his face. and seeing the wild passion there. and being a coward, like every thief trem bled- He looked right. and left for some escape, and the strangers clutch was like steel upon his shoulders.
 And then, coming through the trees, my friend saw the peach h-blos som girl. and his hand fell from the mans shoulder and the old sense of peace came back to him. Except for certain maturity Of face and figure she was the same as when she was sixteen. and the same serene inno- cence looked out of her eyes, and she wore her tattered dress as a queen might wear her robes. And in her arms she carried branches of peach blossomy boughs.'
 We'll said the psychologist. q can guess the rest They were married ard settled down on the farm and spent life of idyllic happiness
 That's obvious answered the evan gelist- But now that you have the story, you must endure the moral. Suppose that the money had reached her-would it have benefited either of them so much as that which actually occurred? He had come back. an ig- norant man. not daring to ask what he had so long dreamed, and he found an ignorant country girl of his own station in life in place of a fine, vain lady. And the years of toll and dis cipline had not gone for nothing. So you see. conversion is matter of the soul, and whatever results it brings about, one may be sure that it can have only good to follow it" He hes itated moment. If ever you gentle men are passing down my way" he said, you must come and visit my peach orchard
 fcopyri~bt lo's. by W G. Chapman) rr,ssnorr nnc s rsNAYfTC