Cottonwood chronicle. [volume] (Cottonwood, Idaho) 1917-current, 1919-01-10
Cynthia White
Pest
~@
BY VINCENT q. PERRY

Syndicate)
With a quick jerk Horace Sangster
| pulled his line from the water, and
then cried out with disgust. The fish
If there had been one, had got away
Three hours without catch-it was
enough to annoy q man with normal
nerves, and Horace was far from that
He drew in his line angrily and at
tempted to wind it up, but something
had gone wrong with his reel. That
was the last straw. He sat down on
rock and swore.
The sound of the word startled him.
He had not sworn for years. His
nerves were certainly making wreck
OF him. The solitude of the place was
aggravating him, too. They had told
him the simple camp life, with lots of
fishing, would make new man of him.
Such bosh Why, there was hardly a
thing about 1t that did not make him
feel worse.
This was the second day, and he
was going to make it his last. To be-
gin with, he had had trouble pitching
his tent. The storm in the night had
kept him up keeping out the rain. Ev-
cry crack of the bushes or sound of
the birds in the trees caused him to
start uneasily. 1t was nearly as nerve
racking as an afternoon session with
the fourth-year class. The thought
of the fourth-year girls irritated him
the more. They had been the cause
of his breakdown, he felt confident.
For months he had looked with dread
on the hour each afternoon that he
They were just silly, thoughtless girls,
and would not have been so hard to
put up with had it not been for their
ringleader, Cynthia White.
Without eXaggeration Cynthia was
the worst girl he had ever had under
his tuition. Her main object in life
seemed to be to torment the professor
of mathematics. Something always
turned up for her to argue about or
laugh over. There was always some
thing for her to ridicule, and she new
er missed an opportunity to make him
feel mean-perhaps because she was
so large and he was so small.
AS he sat there thinking it over, Hor-
ace made up his mind he had been
foolish. 1t would have been easy to
have arranged for her dismissal from
the college. Why hadn't he done it?
There was something he liked about
Cynthia, in spite of everything. The
spirit of fun behind those twinkling
black eyes of hers appealed to him,
and the warmth of her laugh made him
long for something something that
was not in his life.
Suddenly the laugh sounded close be-
side him. He nearly tOppled into the
water from the shock 1t gave him. He
turned quickly to confront Cynthia,
little way off, her eyes bullying over
with merriment. After rubbing his
eyes to make sure he was seeing
Alright Horace smiled forth greet
ing. Even the pest of his life was well
come in that solitude.
"Oh, Mr.. Sangster, you look so fun
ny there" she laughed. IF the girls
could only see you in your bare feet 7"
Heavens !" Horace tried to hide
his feet behind log. He had forgot
ten that he had taken off his shoes and
socks to wade a creek.
Don't be alarmed" she smiled en-
couragingly, Il am going to take off my
shoes, too. One can't fish we'll with
shoes on. How do you like my cos
tume?"
She was clad in khaki from head to
foot, and her hair was hanging in curls
over her shoulders. He had never re-
allied how beautiful she was before.
"Jove! You look peachy," he MUIR
INJURED, admiringly, not realizing that
he had used the word ''peachy'' for the
first time since he had got his degree.
That encouraged Cynthia to take
seat beside him. Not that she needed
encouragement, for she would have sat
there sooner or later. 1t did not take
Horace long to forget that he was a
college professor and she was a mere
student. Soon they were chatting
guyly.
Her home was near by and she had
spent every summer fishing in that
stream for years. She led him to a
place where he was "sure to catch
something, no matter how poor an an
gler he was" When his luck remain
ed poor and he still made vain attempts
to land trout, Cynthia did not fail to
laugh at him and assure him that he
was as funny as he could be.
Somehow it did not bother him to
be laughed at out there. The air SEEM
ed to have got into his blood and given
him sense of humor that responded !
to her witty ridicule. He was not long |
In catching onto the right way to draw
in the line, and before the afternoon
was over he was catching as many
trout as Cynthia. When they parted
he had gained her promise to search
him out the next day.
Camping agreed with him after that.
Fishing was the most wonderful sport
In the world when one had a compan-
ion like Cynthia, he decided after two
weeks of glorious days. Nerves? Why,
he had forgotten he had such things
They would boua CtilI I