Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1914-05-21

As he pushed back his chair he smote
his hands together and laughed aloud.
Back to the soil!" he said John
Valiant, farmerl The miracle of it is
that it sounds good to me. I want to
raise my own grub and till my own
soil. want to be my own man! And
I'm beginning to see my way. Crops
viii have to wait for another season,
but there's water and pasture for cat
tie now. There's timber-lots of it
on that hillside, too. must look into
that"
He filed his pipe and climbed the
staircase to the upper floor. There
were many bedrooms with great four
posted, canopied beds and old-fash-
toned carved furniture of mahogany
and curly-maple, and in one he found
a great cedar-lined chest filed with
bed-linen and napery. In these rooms
were more evidences of decay. The
bedroom he mentally chose for his
own was the plainest Of all, and was
above the library, fronting the vaga-
bond garden. 1t had a great black
desk with many glass-knobbed draw
ers and book-rack.
He fingered longest in a room
whose door was painted The Hilarium.
1t had evidently been a nursery and
schoolroom. Here on the walls we're
many shelves wound over with net
works Of cobwebs, and piled with the
oldest assemblage Of toys. There
were school-books, too, thumbed and
dog-eared, from First Reader to
Caesars Gallo Wars, with names of
small Valiants scrawled on their fly
leaves. He carefully relocked the door
Of this room; he wanted to dust those
toys and books with his own hands.
In the upper hall again he leaned
from the window, shifting the far
flung scent of orchards and peach
blown fence-rows. The soft whirring
sound Of a birds wing went past, al
most brushing his startled face, and
the old oaks seemed to stretch their
bent limbs with a faithful brute-like
yaWn Of pleasure. In the room below
he could hear the vigorous sound of
Aunt Daphne's hard-driven broom and
the sound flooded the echoing space
with a comfortable commotion.
He went to his trunk and fished out
soft shirt on which he knotted
loose tie, exchanged his Panama for
a SLOUGH hat, and whistling the bar
carole from Tales of Hoffman,, went
gaily out. Il feel tremendously alive
today" he confided to the dog, as he
tramped through the lush grass. IF
you see me ladle the muck out of
that fountain with my own fair hands,
don't have fit. I'm liable to do any
thing"
His eye swept up and down the
slope. There probably isn't a finer
site for house in the whole South"
he told himself THE living-rooms
front south and west. Well get
scrumptious sunsets from that back
porch. And on the other side there's
the view clear to the Blue Ridge"
He skirted the lake. Only to grub
out some of the lilies-there's too
many of them-and straighten the
rim-and weed the pebble margin to
give those green locks a show. I'll
build little wharf below them to dive
from, and-yes, I'll stock it with
spotted trout"
He was but a few hundred yards
from the house, yet the silence was so
deep that there might have been no
habitation within fifty miles All at
Cnce he stopped short; there was a
sudden movement in the thicket be-
yond-the sound of light fast footballs,
as of some one running away
He made a lunge for the dog, but
with a growl Chum tore himself from
the restraining grasp and dashed into
the bushes. "A child, no doubt" he
thought as he plunged in pursuit, land
that lubberly brute will scare it half
to DEATH"
He pulled up with an exclamation.
In a narrow wood-path little way
from him, partly hidden by a wind
fall. stood a girl, her skirt transfi~ed
with a wickedly jagged sapling. He
saw instantly how. it had happened;
the windfall had blocked the way, and
she had sprung clear over it, not
noting the screened spear, which now
held her IS effectually as any railroad
spike.
In another moment Valiant had
reached her and met her face, flushed,
half defiant, her eyes a blue CLEAN of
smoldering anger as she desperately,
almost savagely, thrust wild tendrils
OF fame-colored hair beneath the
broad curved brim of her straw hat
At her feet lay great armful of cape
jessamines.
A little thrill, light and warm and
joyous, ran through him. Until that
bo bo1