Hopkinsville Kentuckian. [volume] (Hopkinsville, Ky.) 1889-1918, 1913-08-16
THE "EARTHWORM"
Writer Found His Ideal IN Girl
Whom He Had Set Out
to Study.
BY JEAN DOUGLAS.


Mrs. Jared Thomas stood at her
living-room window looking out into
the garden, where her daughter Mar
jory was busily engaged digging
about the roots of the young hello
trope plants, searching for the cut
worms.
"Marjory for goodness sake put
on a hat. Your face is the color OF
the flaming poppies."
Gail right, mother; but would you
mind getting it for me2 My hands
are so black / wouldn't dare come
to your spotless house."
Mrs. Thomas sighed deeply as she
departed to search for the hat. Any
thing of Marjory's had to be searched
for and was always found in tho
most unexpected places, and in this
instance the garden hat was discov-
cred grazing the head of the marble
Dante In the library.
Mrs. Thomas carried the unlovely,
shapeless bit of straw to its owner,
who clapped it on her head with an
awkward motion of her right arm.
'"Thanks, mumsey, you're jewel.
Isn't it a crying shame the mischief
these imps Of the garden have done
to this bed? I'm out after them
with a vengeance worthy of nj
hilist."
Marjory Thomas was of unusual
proportions, and had she lived in an
Gent Greece Phidias might have
used her as a model for bis statue of
Athene. Her large, well-shaped
head was crowned with heavy coils
of chestnut-brown hair, and her
eyes of deep blue smiled from a face
glowing with the health of milk
maid. She was clad in a frock of
blue dimity, almost entirely covered
with an apron of brown denim, and
as Mrs. Thomas surveyed her criti-
cally from head to toe she sighed
again. She never could understand
why Marjory had not inherited more
of her characteristics. She was a
petite woman, of Dresden china dain-
tiness, who loathed the contact of
anything which savored of earth.
Her tiny white hands had never
been truly soiled in all her life, and
she wondered at Marjory's apparent
enjoyment.
When she could no longer stand
seeing her daughter breaking the
clods of earth with her ungloved
fingers she returned to the house.
In the house next door dwelt Mrs.
James Norton, and she was gazing
down from her library window at
Marjory.
'What an earthworm Mariory
Thomas is. Positively, 1 never saw
anyone who loved so much to come
in direct contact with the soil" She
was Immediately joined by her
brother, David Hoyt, young novel
list from Boston.
"What have we dwelling amidst
us? Did you ever see such a vigor-
GUS looking mortal before? What
anemic specimens we are compared
with such an example! Is she in
teresting?"
81 do not know whether you
would find her so. You who have
always Rugged your books and the
pen. She belongs to the great out
doors and | doubt very much if she
knows the difference between Corot
and Michelangelo. However, l
want you to meet her. She is COM
ing tomorrow night for dinner and
is to be your companion. Who
knows? She may inspire a new type
of heroine"
The morning after the dinner par
ty David Hoyt was up several hours
earlier than usual, for Mariory
Thomas had in the course of her
conversation the night before re-
marked that she always clipped the
roses while the dew glistened in their
petals; therefore he made a resolu-
ton to assist in the operation. He
had discovered in her a totally new
species.
A girl who wore clothes of Grecian
simplicity and was so absolutely
unique that she never INDUCED in