The Washington times., 1919-03-28
CHAPTER w.
The TrOdden Way.


There came the indeterminate year
when Ruhannah finished school and
there was no money available t.
send her elsewhere for further en-.
belishment, no further horizon
than the sky over the Gayfeld hills,
no other perspective than the main
street of GayHeId with the Knitting
mill at the end Of it.
So into Gayfeld Mill the girl
walked, and found q place immedi-
Rteiy among the unskilled. And
her career. appeared to be predeter-
mined now, and her destiny a sim
pie one--tU. work, to share the toll
! and the gaitfes OF Gayheld with the
majority Of the other girls she
knew, to marry, ultimately, some
T. boy, some clerk In one OF the Gay
field stores. some farmer lad, per-
-haps, possibly a school teacher or
a local lawyer or physician, or pos
stbly the head of, some department
in the mill or maybe q minister
she was sufficiently well bred and
educated for any one Of these.
The winter OF her seventeenth
year found her still very much a
child at heart, physically backward,
a late adolescent, a little shy, in
cined to silences, romantic, sensi-
tive. to all. beauty and passionately
expressing hserRelf., only when
curled up by the stove with her
pencil and the red light Of the Goals
falling athwart the slim hand that
builded lit. 80 --.--
She went sometimes to village par
ties learned very easiIy,t to dance, had
no preferences among the youths
!, Of Gayheld, 'no-romances. For that
matter; while she was liked and
even furtively admired, her slight
shyness, reticence, and a vague, In.
dehnite something about her seem
ed to discourage familiar rustic gall
, iantrY: ALSO, she was as thin and
awkward as an oYergroWn- lad, not
thought to be pretty, known to be
poor. But for ali that more than
one young man was vaguely haunt
ed at Intervals by some memory OF
her gray eyes and the peculiar
sweetness Of her mouth, forgetting
for the moment several fFeckles on
the delicate bridge of her nose and
several more on her sUn-tannei
cheeks. .-s
She Goes To Dances.
She had an agreeable time that
winter, enchanted to learn dancing,
happy at showers and parties, at
sleigh rides and chicken suppers,"
and. the various species OF village
gaiety which ranged from moving
pictures every Thursday. and Satur-
day nights to church entertain
ments,- amateur theatrlcaIs at the
town hall, and lectures under the
auspices Of the aristocratic D. y.
F.-Daughters of the Old Frontier.
But she never saw any boy she
preferred to any other, never was
conscious OF being preferred, ex-
cepting once-and she was not quite
certain about that
1t was old Dick Neeland's son,
Jim-vaguely understood to have
been for several years in Paris
studying art-and who now turned
up in Gayfield during Christmas
week
Ruhannah remembered seeing
him on several occasions when she
was little child. He was usually
tramping across country with his
Neeland's Mills-an odd. picturesque
pair with their setter dogs and bur
nished guns. and old Dicks face as
red as a wTinkled winter apple, and
his hair snow white
There was six years difference
between their aEeu. Jim NeeIand's
and hers. and she had always con-
stdered him grown and formil-
able man in those days But that
winter, when somebody az the
movies pointed him but u her. sae
was surprised Co Cad him no Older
than TIE other youths she skated
With and danced with
Aftofuard. at noisy village
paftf she Haw him danrinH wtth
every rITl in tuau, and thU drup 80
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