The gazette-times. [volume] (Heppner, Or.) 1912-1925, 1915-05-06
BY HARRIET CRocKER LIE ROY.

'"J 'Oh6 ~ iCul-bnduOWb QulNtISu anu
danced upon the white walls and roof of
the T~ent-Lady's home and all day and
night the sweet, spicy odors of the euca-
lyptus trees found their healthful way
into the little dwelling. At night the
moon shone Whitley through the long
branches of the sheltering trees or soft
darkness EMBODIED 1t protectingly.
The Tent-Lady had a little cough-just
a little troublesome cough Of which she
tried to take no notice. Not even a box of
cough drops or the smallest, mildest bottle
of cough medicine could have been found
inside the Tent-Lady's home, for she did
not believe very much In medicine. She
had laughingly protested, but at last con-
scented, when anxious friends in the East
backed by the family doctor, had bundled
her of to California.
Fortunately she had come in time. The
little cough still hung on but was slowly
disappearing. The Tent-Lady's voice,
when she called out cheerily to the pass
ing school children, was getting stronger
and clearer and one day they even heard
her singing to herself in a wonderfully
sweet little voice the gay, catchy chorus
of some popular song.
So the school children loitered along
to school, scuffling their feet along the
sidewalk and looking back over their
shoulders at the Tent-Lady who stood in
the tent door polishing a tumbler with a
snowy towel and smiling at them.
The girls said TO one another that she
was lawfully dear" and the boys, after
the manner of boys, didn't say anything
but jostled and punched one another
rudely off the sidewalk and looked over
their shoulders with nop-committal ewes.
The Tent-Lady had been a school teach
er back in Ohio although the boys would
never have SUSPECTED her Of 1t. and she
did not tell them. For boys, it is well
known are perfectly sure that school
teachers. as a rule. are the meanest
hatefulest. dried M old maids in the
whole world, Although they know better
and often have a sneakjng regard for one
of the despised class II seems TO be the
fashion among bows TO make believe they
think so whether they do or not.
Gradually-slowly bnt surely. the Tent
LADY won the heart of every single boy
and girl who passed her white tent be-
meath the tail eucalyptus trees on their
wav IN school. Little by little. inst by
the magic OF her smile and her happy
wards al greeting she made for herself a
following.
But one Saturday morning she clinched
matters and settled the business for all
time. Surely the Tent-Lady understood to
the Anger tins and toe nails that oft in
comnrehensible creature-a boy. And
girls. too. for that matter, but perhaps
not quite so well.
On this eventfnl Saturday morning she
had called ont a bright greeting to Petey
smith. who was struggling homeward with
q nonnd ~ bntter and a parcel of sausage
for breakfast.
"Just one minute, please called the
Tent-Lady. running toward him in her big
bingham a~ll-oyer apron. II wonder II you
can tell me of any place not far away
where I'd be allowed to make a fire and
cook nv dinner. I'm Just wild to go ont
camping today, but I don't know where to
70. want to fry bacon on the end of a
willow switch over the fire and roast po-
tatoes in the ashes and make coffee in a
lard nail and cook onions in a frying pan
and spread a newspaper on the ground
and ali the good things on the newspaper
and-eat!"
petev smith stared at her. He squeezed