Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1916-03-01
SYNOPSIS

CHAPTER 1lI-Judge Healey buys
a picture for AliX Lansing. The judge
defends Alan in his business with his
employers.
CHAPTER Iv-Alan and Alix meet
at sea, homeward bound. and start
Irritation. which becomes serious.
CHAPTER V-At home. Nance Ster-
ling asks Alan to go away from Alix.
Alix is taken to task by Gerry, her
husband. for her conduct with Alan
and defies him.
CHAPTER VI-Gerry, as he thinks,
sees Alix and Alan eloping, drops
ev"~vthing, and goes to Pernambuco.
CHAPTER nl--AHA caves Alan on
the train and goes home to find that Ger
~ has disappeared.
CHAPTER vIII-Gerry leaves Pernam-
buco and goes to Piranhas. On canoe
trip he meets a native girl.
CHAPTER IX-The Judge fails to trace
Gerry baby Is born to Alix.
CHAPTER x-The native girl takes
Gerry to her home and shows him the
ruined plantation she is mistress of. Ger
ry marries her.
CHAPTER xI-At Maple house Col
nngeford tells how he met Alan-"Ten
Per. Cent Wayne'-buildins a bridge In
Africa
CHAPTER xII-Collngeford meets AK
and her baby and he gives her encour-
agement about Gerry.
CHAPTER XIII-Alan comes back to
town but does not so home, He makes
several calls in the city.
CHAPTER XIV-Gerry begins to i'm.
prove Margarita's plantation and builds
an irrigating ditch.
He climbed point Of rock and
gazed around him. Far down to the
left cleaned the old plantation house
In the midst of its waste lands. His
eye followed the long depression and
he began to understand many things.
The ruin was young ruin like him
self. In itself it contained the seeds
of rejuvenescence 1t had been robbed
Of its talisman and it's talisman was
water. Tons of water flowed past it
and left 1t thirsting for drops Irriga-
tion is coeval with the birth of civillza-
don. 1t had been here in this depres-
sion, lived, and passed away before he
and the girl were born. He tried to
explain to her what once had been, but
she shrugged her shoulders She was
not interested; she did not understand.
Together they walked back to the
house. Gerry was silent and thought
full. He saw vision of what Fazenda
Flores had once been, what work could
make 1t again.
The following day he rooted out two
rusty spades from the debris in the old
mill, fitted new handles to them and
took the old darky, Bonifacio by name,
off with him to the depression. They
began the long task of digging out the
silt of years. Day after day, week
after week. they chung to the mono
tonous work. The darky worked like
an automaton. Work in itself to him
was nothing beyond the path to food
and rest at night. Labor made no de-
mands on cOurage-it had no end no
goal. But Gerry's labor was dignified
by conscious effort. His eyes were not
in the ditch but OH the vision he had
seen of what FaZenda Flores might
be. He had fixed his errant soul on n
goal. The essence of slavery is older
than any bonds wrought by man. The
white man and the black in the ditch
were its parable. The dignity and the
shame of labor were side by side, para.
doxically yoked to the same task.
Margarita and her aunt looked on
and smiled and Joy began to settle on
the girl. During Gerry's first restless
week she had steeled herself each
night to the thought that she would
wake to find him gone. But now he
was taking root. 1t amused him to
dig. Well, let him dig. There was no
end to digging.
Gerry occasionally varied the work
of digging with making some knick-
knack for the house. The twisted
limbs of trees became benches to sup
plant the rickety chairs, clumsily
patched and totally inadequate to his
weight. In the same way he made the
massive frame of bed and Bonifacio
remembered an art and filed in the
frame with plated thongs. Work in
spires emulation. The women got out
their store of cloth. They made clothes
for Gerry and fitted out the new bed.
Pillows and mattress were stuffed with
dry bur-marigolds that family scented
the whole room. With each achieve
ment the somber house seemed to take
step toward gayety. Ruin and dilap-
idation put forth green shoots. The
gayety was reflected in the household.
They were united In achievement.
Quiet smiles were their reward to
each other and sometimes a burst of
wonder as when Gerry found some old
bottles and with the aid OF a bit of
string cut them into serviceable mugs.
Margarita was happy. Her cup was
full. All the dreams of her glrlhood
were fulfilled in Gerry. A silent and
strange lover, but man-such a man
as she had dreamed of but never seen.
To herself she sang the old songs he
should have sung to her and then
laughed as he nodded mild approval.
One evening he sat on a bench on
the veranda, fitting a handle into a
dipper made of cocoanut-shell Mar
gar1ta sat on the steps at his feet.
She leaned back further and further
until she sank against his knees. He
stopped over her. She threw up her
arms around his neck locked her
hands and drew him down. lie kissed