The Elbert County tribune., 1919-03-21
CHAPTER vIi-continued.

s.
The windstorm the previous week
had made a sickening devastation of
her labors. The morning glories alone
we're scatheless. A pink oleander
dropped many broken branches from
which miracles of perfect flowers were
unfolding. The. prettiest blossom to
Hardin was the gardener herself. She
was vivid from eager toll. Hardin
ooked at her'approbatively. He liked
her khaki suit, simple as uniform,
with its flowing black tie and leather
BELT. She looked more like herself to-
day. She had bleached out, in Tucson
She had been letting herself get too
tanned, running around without hats.
Sunburn paled the value of those
splendid eyes of hers. He could always
tease her by lizening them to topazes.
His eyes ran over the pink and pur-
Pile lines of cord-trained vines which
made floral screens for her tent. Free
Vt the strings overhead, they rioted
over the ramada, the second roof, of
living boughs. He acknowledged their
beauty. They gave grace to bare ne
tessity; they denied the painting,
THIRSTY desert just DeyOnu.
He remembered his own ramada.
Gerty had hated 1t, had complained of
1t SO bitterly when she came home
from New York that he had had it
pulled down and replaced by V roof
Of pine boards, glaring and ugly. Gerty
was satisfied, for 1t was clean; she no
longer felt that she lived in squaw
house. Let the Indians have ramadas;
there was no earthly reason she should.
He had urged that the desert dwellers
had valuable hints to give them. But
what was remada to him, or anything
else? Hardin turned to leave.
She did not want him to go so soon.
She pointed out new vine to him.
She had brought 1t from Tucson;
"Kudzu," they called it; Japanese
vine. And there was another broken
rose, quite beyond the help of stripped
handkerchiefs and mesquit splints.
He followed her around the tent, her
prattie falling from his grim mood He
was not thinking of her flowers except
as mocking parallel. The desert
storm had made havoc of his garden
"a sorry botch of his life. He and
Gnnes had been trying to make gar
den out of desert; the desert had
fouted them. 1t was not his fault
Something had happened; something
quite beyond his power. Luck was
turning against him.
Innes. why, she was playing as with
toy. 1t was the natural instinct of
woman to make things pretty around
her. But he had sacrificed his youth,
his chances. His domestic life, too
be Seould never have carried a dainty
little woman like Gerty into the des-
ert. He had never reproached her for
leaving him, even last time when he
thought it was for good. The word
burned his wound. Whose good? His
Or Gerty's7 Somehow, though they
wrangled, he always knew it would
turn out all right; life would run
smoothly when they left the desert.
But things were getting worse; his
mouth puckered over some recollec-
hons. Yet he loved Gerty; he couldn't
picture life without her. He decided
that it was because there had never
been anyone else. Most fellows had
had sweethearts before they married
he had not, nor a mistress when she
left him, though God knows. it would
have been easy enough. His mouth
fell into sardonic lines. Those half
breed womenl No one, even when a
divorce had hung over him. Oh. he
knew what their friends made of each
Of Gerty's heightened flights he knew
But that had been spared him, that
vulgar grisly spectacle of modern life |
when two people who have been lovers
1rag the carcass of their love over the
IErimy floor of curious gaping court. |
IHe shuddered. Gerty loved him. Else, |
'vhy had she come back to him? Why
bad she not kept her threat when he
Refused to abandon his desert project |
IND turD his abilities into a more
JNroftable dedication? He could see
Ter face as she stared flushing up into |
. n that nipping cold day when he had |
q n into her on Broadway. He remem-
h|yped her coquetry when she suggest |
~ that there WIS plenty of room In |
NJ apartment His wife! She spoke |
4 yseeIng his pictures In the papers.
al had grown 20 be great manw
3hat piqys.nt meeting. the week fol-